CYCLE 6 DAY 1

So today is the day I start cycle 6, the final cycle of my chemo. It starts well with a bit of a lay in and a lazy selection of what to wear to face the day. I am on a bit of a mission as I promised myself to get to the GP surgery early to make a date to get my B12 injections up to date as they ad lapsed. As B12 is quite important element in keeping platelet level up it seemed a wise thing to do given the anxiety over my platelet levels over the last couple of days. So I pop down to the local shop to get a paper and some cash before making my way to the surgery. I enter reception and the usual person on reception is obviously fielding a tricky call. Any telephone conversation from a GP surgery that contains the phrase “it must be in the next two hours” is not one to interrupts, however one of the other reception staff asked me what I wanted. I said I just wanted to make an appointment to get my B12 up-to-date as it had lapsed due to all the other stuff that was going on for me. She promptly consulted her computer and conformed my name and date of birth (I would dearly love to know if there is another Roland Woodward that was born on the 6^th of July in 1948. Any thoughts about parallel universes can be left at the door, I’ve not got time to argue with that nonsense.) She looks up from her computer and asks “Are you available now?” I am taken aback for a moment and say “Sure”. I take a seat and begin to get out my newspaper, but before I can my name is called.  I am whisked in and before I know it I am hearing the words “sharp scratch” and I am one armful of B12 up. Not only that I am clutching an appointment card for March for my next one. Now that’s efficient.

 So with an unexpected fluffy cloud on my right bicep I leave the surgery feeling like a bit of a winner. In celebration I head for the village cafe and have bacon and sausage baguette and coffee. This all consumed as I complete the crossword puzzles in the paper. I get home where my partner is working from home. I rescue the Christmas tree from outside and bring it in and set it in the cast iron Christmas tree stand that has been part of our Christmases for years. I had time to remove its netting and put water in the stand. It can stand for a few hours and return to its original shape before being decked.

 My partner and Leave early for the hospital due to the fact that we anticipate a long wait to get in to the car park, which has been our usual experience. We drive straight to the car park in record time and drive straight in. We are an hour early! We chat for a while and then go to the oncology building for a drink. While there I fulfilled my promise to buy raffle tickets if my platelet levels went up, which I told the nurse who promised me more platelets. All this is tragically superstitious but it felt somehow important to keep my word. I gave the nurse on poison reception my appointment card and we waited outside for a while.

 It was not long before I got called in and settled into a chair. No recliner for me this final time, I guess I am a rugged participant now, evidenced by the lack of wobbly veins and adequate blood flow. So I am soon hooked up to my black bag of poison and I settle into eating chocolate bars and drinking lucozade. My theory is that my body knows that to is having poison pumped into it and reacts with a certain degree of shock which lowers blood sugar so I try to load sugar into the system to counter act this. I think it works, and if it doesn’t it’s the only confectionary that I get in my current diet.

 I sit reading my kindle, while my partner does puzzles and falls into conversation with the man in the next chair and his daughter. Before long they know my history and that is my last session. “Am I going to ring the bell?”

 I ignore the question and let the conversation go on. That bell is a pain. I am not against some symbolic signal of achievement for those that want that but I am offended by the arguments about hope for others and the rainbow and the words that go with it. I know what’s happening to me and I know this is no end and to “survive “chemo is not for me significant. It’s not something I want to proclaim to the world and particularly the other people in the room who all are undergoing their own journey in their own way and doubtlessly wrestling how to make meaning out of their experience. A ritual bell is just that and trivialises the humanity of those that are cancerous. I did not ring the bell despite the man’s daughter asking for just a little ding.

 Next stop the gym with my new set of stab sticks stowed safely. We sit in the gym lounge and indulge in drinks and a mince pie waiting to see if my partner’s personal trainer is going to show up. Eventually my partner goes off to train and I delay a bit to finish my drink. I eventually get changed and get up onto the gym floor. No cross trainer so I climb onto a bike and swap my Fitbit onto my ankle from my wrist. A tip from my partners trainer as the fit bit does not pick up cycling on a static bike in the gym but it will pick it up if on the ankle. I was dubious but at the end of the hour I checked and found it had registered all the strides. I had attained my days 10, 000 steps and burnt another 551 calories.  A brief stretch out and then off for a shower. Feeling oddly refreshed I sit in the gym lounge and finish off my 750 mls of water in an attempt to get my 2 and a half litres of fluid down me to help move the poison through me. I am having a hot flush and need to sit tight for a while to cool off. My partner arrives and we wait a few minutes before heading off home.

 Beans on toast for me so that I can take my next dose of block steroids and then I am off to write the blog. I’ve not got the energy or inclination to get into the loft to get the Christmas tree decoration boxes down, that will have to wait till tomorrow. There are still some Christmas organising to do, but right now there is a bin to go out for tomorrow’s collection and sleep to be had.