Sunday and I wake up late feeling the full force of the chemo. Its not unusual but always a pain in the grillocks. So I take my time doing my vitals and checking my messages and social media. Eventually I get up and get into my relaxing blanket and get myself hot water and my morning meds. Fancying something different for breakfast that is easy to do I open up a new box of muesli. I settle down on the sofa and type up the poem that I scribbled in bed this morning.

523
This pen, this ink
write darkly,
not by my hand
but in a me I hide.
That part of me 
scared and letting
the chemo do 
its worst
on a body
that cannot resist.
A tearful me,
depressed and desperate
who wonders if anyone 
notices.
No option but to fight
and see this me
through poetry.
This pen, this ink
is my mirror.
My portrait in the attic
where I can 
keep sight
of this cancerous
reality.

					523 03-05-2026

With the poem typed up I turn my attention to researching book cases. I’m going to pull all my poetry books into one place in the office so I need some new big bookcases that will take them all. I find a couple of possibilities and note them. The ordering and building can take place when I feel better. I move on to watching the world snooker championship. Tesco deliver the weekly food order, which gets squirreled away. This takes me through to the early evening and tea. I have entered the “inability to taste” stage of post chemo toxicity. I am at the flannel stage, diet coke tastes foul. I slide into the evening keeping an eye on the snooker and the football scores while finishing off the blog draft. It will inevitably end up with my taking my night meds and getting to bed as soon as I can. Hopefully tomorrow the post chemo will ease a bit.