Sunday and I wake up at a reasonable time and check my vitals and my messages. I get up and make breakfast and go out onto the patio to eat in the fresh air. I do the days crosswords and then find I am unexpectedly chilled so I retreat to the sofa. There I work on getting my next poetry collection on its way, so I sign off on the contract letter and pay my 50% deposit for my editing and publishing services. After a couple of goes I manage to get the right zip files to send and then follow it up with some more parts of the full manuscript. My partner returns from visiting her mother in hospital with her brother and we have lunch. I am feeling fatigued as usual after starting a new chemo cycle and everything I do is slow and needs to be checked as I discovered when I found I had no orange Lucozade in the shopping.
One of the effects of my chemo treatment is a mild neuropathy of my fingers and hands which, when I write with a pen or ball point means I write like an old person in a shaky hand. What I see appear on the page is definitely not me. Its like looking in a mirror and seeing someone different. The reality is that when I look in the mirror now I do not see anything that is remotely like me in my head. I have a steroid induced football head. I look like a Francis Bacon self portrait or from one of his Three Figures at the Foot of the Cross, but more like a self portrait. Does nothing for my self esteem and in a way I look forward to ending the rechallenge just to see if my face and head ever go back to anything I recognise as being me. Maybe its all just vanity but it is a very disconcerting to know that a version of the self is out there in the world that you no longer recognise or like. I feel like a pig on which lipstick would make no difference , certainly no incentive to dress up, clothes can look cool but not this face. It resembles a fictional ageing criminal from some Balzac or Dickens novel.
My hope is that once off the chemo my hair will return and my jowls recede, energy flow and I become able to train properly once again. For now I content myself with resting, getting through the chemo rechallenge and looking forward to the world cup. Right now I am going to watch the women’s FA cup final in the hopes that Brighton win.
Brighton lose, Leicester Tigers lose at rugby, the athletics are poor. The family eat tea and I watch more Bay of Fires before taking my meds and finishing the days blog, go to bed hoping that I get some sleep and feel better tomorrow and up to doing some activity in the garden. Of course I’ve now lost my sense of taste again thanks to the chemo, so its back to eating flannel and lint.
