CYCLE 2 DAY 3
Its 5:45 and time to get up and go to London for a meeting but first there is something to do. So I slip from bed and raid the fridge for a stab stick, putting it to one side for it to warm up while I take a shower and have toast and a sip of coffee. Collecting up my now room temperature stabber I go upstairs to the spare bedroom where my drugs live and get ready for the stabbing. No time to think about it I’ve got a train to catch. So its a quick swab, a quick pinch, a quick removal of the safety nose and then a quick stab, plunge and withdrawal. Into the sharps bin and on with an Elastoplast. Job done. Into clothes, gather up the prepared bag and off out into the still dark and rainy morning.
I drive ot the station, collect my tickets and hang around the platform till my train arrives. The journey is uneventful, I read some papers and scribble on them, I think this counts as work. Its old fashioned as everyone else around me seems to be tapping away on laptops, I do wonder if as a species we will forget how to write and evolve into a tapping mammal. By the time I reach St Pancras I realise how irritated I am from the noise of all the tapping that is going on around me. I glance up and see in the distance my favourite bit of St Pancras and I am reminded that this is why I make the effort.
I follow my usual route to the underground taking a preemptive pee on the way. I find talking to people that I am not alone in my pre emptive peeing, apparently others do as well, who knew. The sardine can of the underground swept me up and threw me out at Aldgate where I walked to the RCP. It was good to meet up with colleagues and friends again but I will not bore you with the business of the day apart to say that the books we bought our departing colleague were well recieved, which made me pleased I had made the last minute efforts yesterday to get them.
By the end of the day I was tired and returned to St Pancras accompanied by my colleague and friend who has just retired from the prison service and who for some strange reason is a Rangers supporter. We parted and I left to get a train and journey back to Leicester station, where I picked up my eldest daughter and drove home. Food was waiting which was just what I needed, and my partner was in full swing with her singing teacher, a regular weekly session.
So I am now realising how tired I am and how much this chemo lark can take out of me, but I am determined not to buckle under any circumstances. What I enjoy in my life are the people in it and being with them is paramount. That ability to go on shareing ideas, feelings and exploring how we make sense of life is not something I could ever give up. I guess I am as nosey and curious about people as I was when I started out to be a psychologist and therapist. But tonight I need to sleep, tomorrow is another busy day and another stab stick.
