Friday, chemo day so my partner brings me a hot water and toast to start my day while she goes to the gym to do aqua exercise. I spend my morning writing a rhyming ditty as a present for my [partner, prompted by an earlier conversation. It takes me all morning as writing rhyming stanzas is something I do not do vey well. However by the end of the morning I have printed it out and packaged it as a pillow present.

At lunchtime I take my second lot of chemo steroids and then set about organising the uber to get us to the hospital. I have packed my usual survival bag, book to read, power pack, journal, reading glasses and of course Kit Kats, most important of all my chemo travel wallet with all my chemo documents in. At two o’clock the Uber arrives and my partner and I pile in and go off to the hospital. On arrival I buy bottles of water and an all day breakfast sandwich before we go up to the waiting area outside the chemo suite. I eat my sandwich and at a quarter three I go for my pre-emptive piss and then try to nap as my partner gets going with her knitting. Three o’clock comes and goes, they are never on time and its not until about forty minutes later that I get called in.

I get into a booth and so the routine starts. All my vitals are checked and I am surprised how good they are, blood pressure 128/71, SATs 96% HR 114 ( a bit up). I get preloaded with my anti allergy meds and then sit for thirty minutes before the main infusion of Yew tree goo poison is started. It takes an hour to get the stuff into me so I sit and read Susie Dent’s Guilty by Definition, a quirky book about a team of lexicon experts working out a murder mystery. Its full of old and rare words so its quite fun to read.

The hour comes around quickly with the help of the book and a couple of Kit Kats. I am soon unplugged but there is a short delay while the nurse made me out a new blood form for the next session. So with my new blood form and the steroids for the next cycle tucked away I leave the chemo suite and head straight away to the loo. Feeling comfortable now I collect my partner and we make our way to the hotel opposite the hospital. There we pick up the Uber home.

Once home I change out of my chemo outfit. I am determined not to become a trainers and T shirt chemo rat. There seems to be a tendency to drop into this casual look and I do not like it. I understand why it happens because comfort and ease of access to arms is crucial and training gear fits the bill. I am determined to wear some of my good clothes just to get some use from them and to give myself a boosting reminder that I can still look reasonable even if I do not feel it.

Once I changed I cook egg noodles and a jam doughnut follow up before settling down to watching Brokenwood Mysteries. I flag quite quickly and so its not long before I’m taking my night drugs and heading for bed.

Saturday arrives and I feel groggy and so my partner brings me hot water and a couple of rounds of toast. I finally get up and get dressed and begin on tasks. My first was to be putting numbers on the newly arrived food recycling bucket, however when I went to the garage to get the sticky numbers for the job, I blew the extension light fuse when I tried to turn the light on, so I had to replace the starter on the light before I could continue my previous job. I spent time carefully sticking the numbers on the recycling bin. By the time I have finished my chores and cleared away its time to watch the midday football match, which was followed by a rugby match. By tea time I am feeling tired from the chemo again and so after eating I set about catching up with drafting the blog before resorting to more TV and finally working up to night meds and bed.