Monday and I wake early as it is 28 day jab day. I am still taken aback by the last set of bloods and the hospital follow up but today its back to the routine stuff that is supposed to be keeping me alive. I get up and down my morning meds and then set off for the GP surgery. I am early and the nurse calls me early so that’s a win. I explain to her what is going on, not that she can do anything, and we get on with the jab. The bonus is that I get free B12 jab today as well. She notes that my GP has asked for bloods over the next week and a urine sample, I tell her that I am having urgent bloods tomorrow at the hospital and that the GP will have to get in line for taking blood from me. The nurse says that the GP can see my results if he goes on ICE so she will make a note in my notes for him to access tomorrows results. I thank her and leave for home. On the way I grab a paper, some cash and a bag of four jam doughnuts, I thought why not and did not get any answer to stop me.
Once home I do the crosswords and then buggered about killing time mostly. I tried to write a poem but could find nothing, all I ended up with was a number, 472. I guess if there is anything to come it will do in its own good time. So I drift thinking about what is to come over the next three days, and I suppose I strive for some sort of clarity in my own mind, but mostly about the questions I need answer to. My evening is filled with food and a film about Richard Burton and his mentor PH Burton, played superbly by Toby Jones, what an actor he is. I follow this up with a documentary about Sister Mary the nun who made an iconic (non pun intended) art series. A strange but unshakably religious woman of eighty who the Carmelites offered the opportunity to become hermit. She accepted with great joy and now lives in a caravan on the estate of the Carmelite nunnery. An Oxford English graduate who left with a first class degree she has an incisive intellect but cannot do people. I thought it was inspirational of the Carmelites to even consider providing the opportunity to be a hermit. Not a solution that many would have even considered a possibility. I go to bed with my night meds done and hope tomorrow goes well.
Tuesday and I wake up and do my vitals, all good there. Then I am up and downing my morning medications and some toast and marmalade. There is a bit of procrastination and then its Uber time. With in two minutes I have ride and my partner and I are off to the hospital to get my urgent bloods done. Its a silent ride as I focus on what’s to come. Of course the hospital is notoriously difficult to get dropped off at and always a means a walk through the length of the hospital complex. We arrive at the oncology building and get directions to the “Bloods room”. In my head I am expecting people in bat – gowns to be hanging from the ceiling but of course they are standing around nonchalantly chatting to each other. I take a ticket,C25 and my bloods form and take a seat. There is no wait at all as I am whisked in and asked if I have a preference for which arm I get drained from. I proffer my right arm as my left one is still bruised from the scan canula and Friday’s bloods at the GP. I am getting good at not wincing when the “slight scratch” moment comes. In a jiffy the collection tubes are full and I have my cotton wool fluffy cloud strapped to my arm . A quick visit to the toilet and my partner and I are heading for the hotel opposite the hospital as it is the easiest place to be picked up from. I order a Uber as a little group across the way at the rugby club commemorate remembrance day. We are soon on our way home with out chatty driver who discusses the pros a cons of modern phones and social media.
Once home my partner and I get in the car and go for lunch at a garden centre. I crave something different but end up with soup and a sandwich. Conversation is slow, I am preoccupied with tomorrow’s oncology review. I have strong feeling that nothing good is going to come out of it, the logic is in the arithmetic and although some of the arithmetic is on my side there is a lot of grey areas that it will be difficult to get the oncologist to clarify. I fear a clash. Of course todays bloods may crash through all that so I have to wait and see but in my head I am running scenarios and none of them have a happy ending. We return home, I fill the bird and squirrel feeders and then settle down to research fight and hotels to Stockholm as my son and his partner are to wed in March and to Handfast in August, an old Swedish tradition. My attendance so much depends on what happens with my health between now and then, so I will continue to research options and see what happens. I start to draft the blog and then start to think about what poem I want to take to the Poetry Stanza this weekend. It is a zoom meeting so I feel there is not too much hanging on this at the moment.
My evening is gentle food and medication and thoughts about what to wear for my oncology review. My clothes are my armour, I want something that reflects my taking it seriously and enforces being taken seriously. I am not a beaten down slob overcome by my condition but someone who rails against it and will not meekly be done to. There will be no decisions about me without me. A friend sent me a message that says the following:
I know there are rougher days than today or tomorrow to come, the worrying thing is how and when the rougher days will arrive. Tomorrow might give me a hint.
