Tuesday was a grim day. I did not sleep on Monday night due to how sore my 28 day injection was and how my body responded to it. Coupled with Fridays chemo session the two came together in a perfect storm. By the time I woke up on Tuesday morning I was knackered. I lay in bed until late when my partner bought me a hot water and toast before she went out to lunch with a friend. I spent my afternoon napping and trying to get myself organised but mostly eating. I realised I had not eaten much on Monday so I tried to eat regularly in short bursts during the afternoon. My go to foods at the moment are, toast (obviously), egg noodles and whatever I can find to stick in a roll, on this occasion sardine and tomato fish paste! I was in no way able to read or write so I think I watched the new series of Mock the Week on a streaming service and listened to the Silly History Boys podcast doing the Song of Roland, which I thought was apt, until my partner returned from her jaunt.
I slipped into the evening by watching the England women’s football team beat Ukraine 6-1 at the 5 o’clock kick off and then completed my serial eating with Nando’s Mac and |Cheese with a portion of pirri pirri chips. Not the best culinary delights but just the plain stodge I craved, followed with ice cream and mandarins. The saddest thing in all this is that it all tasted like flannels as the chemo robs me of my sense of taste for a few days. By the end of all this I figured I had made up any short fall in my calorie intake over the last couple of days. TV provided an episode of Silent Witness and two Brokenwood Mysteries before I pushed off to bed downing my night meds on the way. Before laying my head on my pillow I drank a couple of dissolvable paracetamol in the hope they would aid me to sleep. It had been one of those survival days when the chemo takes charge and dictates what is possible.
Wednesday morning and its 6:23am and I have slept through, the paracetamol worked! I feel like I have slept. Of course I allow myself a lay in just to make sure I am okay, but I do feel improved, not top notch but better. My partner brings me a hot water before she goes off to see her mother with her brother and I attend to my messages and emails, along with catching up with the news. I think about going to the pub for breakfast but soon find I am not ready for that, so I make a bacon sandwich and take my meds before catching up with drafting the blog. While busily tapping away my new business cards arrive, the ones I designed and ordered on Monday. It was a sort of occupational therapy via Pronto print when I was feeling so crap on Monday. Its the same process that saw me buy a baseball bat and become an ordained internet priest on the same afternoon during a similar down moment.
It turns out that the DPD delivery driver is as bad as the EVRI delivery drivers. Neither of them are able to get to the front door or the porch and can only drop the packages over the gate. So when I go to look for my package I find it dropped behind the car on the drive, no wonder I did not spot them on arrival.
I thought when designing it I did not know which “me”, pre or post chemo rechallenge, to put on the card but in the end decided to add both. They are both equally me just the adaption that allowed or allows me to deal with my current situation. Same person who pens the poetry but the packaging is just different, so who sees me as what is a mystery really. So I now have 250 cards to distribute and a neat little card holder so that I can carry 25 cards with me at all times. Of course there is some sanity in this apparent madness. I shall use some when I go to the States of Independence literary day at De Montfort University later in the month and I will give some to my publishers who will also be there. I am also intending to go to a new monthly poetry evening at the Leicester University later in the month so they will be useful there as well. At worst it is a vain frippery at best a conceit that might be useful.
By lunchtime I am wilting again but it is a lovely sunny day so I may take the camera and sit in the front garden, in the sun, and take photos of the birds that come to join me. Nothing comes to visit me so I give up my photo hunting and end up watching the rest of Bridgerton with my partner for the afternoon. I am now up to date with the whole Bridgerton saga. It was an easy transition into the evening and the Brokenwood Mysteries followed by football and night meds before bed.
