CHEMO II DAY 197

Fight, end of year in sight, so fight harder.

Friday and its a slow wake up. In fact it takes two coffees to get me going. While I come round I check my messages, emails and cyber litter. I order my next batch of drugs and do a bit of life admin. By the time I swing my legs over the edge of the bed I am well organised. Breakfast is taken with my partner and then I set about checking the Shed to see if it has survived the work done on it at the week end. Some stuff had moved around but the most of all the back wall was damp. I set the heater going and then gathered up my tools and the newly delivered leak paint. For the next couple of hours I painted, patched and repainted all the possible leak points on the Shed as the heater inside dried the back wall. Eventually I am done and also out of leak paint so I put away the tools and clean up, leaving the heater to carry on drying the Shed out.

By now I am low on spoons and take a rest, which turns out to be a wrestle with one of my so called smart speakers. After buggering around with it and the associated App I admit defeat and unplug it. When I plug it back in after thirty seconds it works perfectly. Note to self, stop the clever stuff and just turn the bloody thing off and on again. I do my vitals while Alexa provides meditation music. My arithmetic is good. After a suitable moment of rest I am back around the table for a dish of soup with my partner. We talk about how it can be tricky to know when I am “available” and when I have gone “walk about in my head”. Laughingly my partner suggests I should have different coloured hats or different types of hat to let her know. This is a genius idea, or so I think. I go to my source of choice, dear old Amazon, and lo and behold, its possible to get personalise baseball caps. In a trice I order an “ I am in” and an “I am out”, baseball caps. I’m interested to see if this really works. I then get on with some clearing up. It is now pouring with rain as I brave the garden again to close the Shed up and turn the heater off. I’m rapidly becoming spoonless and retreat to the sofa to start the blog.

Suddenly I find I am already into the evening and I’ve caught up with the Vera Christmas special and anticipating a possible rugby match. There will be tea and then the world is my mollusc. Its Friday, the last Friday of of 2023. There is nothing special for the end of years for me now, every day is a gain and everyday is an opportunity to change something if I want to. The New Year as a starting point feels like magical thinking and as such unlikely to succeed.

Onion and my brain. Its all about layers