CYCLE 6 DAY 4

I stared at the ceiling for a long time this morning having got my phone and stab stick out of the fridge. I was not feeling good and I got a message from a person who I had met at chemo. She has just had an operation but found that it had not got all the cancer, so she faces more operations in January. She is very upbeat and positive and wishes everyone a happy Christmas. Compared to others my situation is much better and she is an inspiration to carry on. Yet I feel wiped out today and I am having trouble getting myself up to do the self stabbing bit. I’ve never got used to it, and I think I never really want to. There is something about not letting your body become institutionalised. Eventually I get up and bring the stab kit into the bedroom and get on with it. My mouth tastes strongly of iron and I am hungry.

I dress and go to the village cafe for breakfast realising that I am wearing the wrong clothes for the rain that is falling ever faster. Home and I tidy up and clear away the growing pile of cardboard. While I do this various wet people arrive to deliver more packages. I fill my drugs box for Christmas week and check that I have ordered my next 28 day injection.

I make a couple of calls and find that something I had been waiting for has arrived at a shop in town; I hesitate but get into the car and drive into town. It’s teeming and the roads are flooding around the village. I am in and out of town quickly, grabbing a hot chocolate and Panini while there. Home again and I wrap the final presents. Time to cook dinner, a curry that I hope will take the iron taste out of my mouth.

My evening is all television, as I drift in and out of attention and feel progressively more tired. I can feel the dark and tricky churning away inside me, which appears to be part of the poisoning process. This is a tricky time as I tend to slip into not caring for myself or anything else. It’s an effort to focus and to keep direction, but I think most of the stuff to do is practical stuff that can be managed. Keeping it simple seems to be the key at these times and remembering that it’s okay not to be okay sometimes, although the voice in my head says “under no circumstances buckle”. Time to sleep and hope tomorrow is better, there is a lot still to do.