CYCLE 3 DAY 3

Yep I woke up thinking about stabbing myself with one of the above today. I know why, I blame the plumber who was coming to finish off putting in a new stopcock, which meant I had to get up and get this stabbing thing over with before he arrived. So implement out of the fridge to thaw for 30 minutes while I rustled up fried egg sandwich and coffee for breakfast. All went to plan until the guy who helps with the garden showed up unexpectedly. This sped things up a bit and I have to say I was pleased with the speed with which I got it over with. So coffee for the garden man in the front garden and the plumber turns up. Much chatting abut the weather, the garden and retirement and then everybody cracked on with their tasks. I scuttled off to the village shop for a paper and more importantly to access their cash machine as I had no money to pay either of the two workers back at the house. Mission accomplished I return home to make more coffee and to find odds and ends for the plumber who has discovered that neither of the stop cocks to the house cut off the kitchen area taps. We play hunt the stopcock and find one in the downstairs toilet, which does actually stop the flow in the kitchen area. Handy to know in an emergency. The plumber cracks on and I do the crossword, while garden man continues to empty a compost bin onto the front garden to feed it for the winter. By twelve I am alone with a new stopcock a tidy garden and an empty wallet. It’s money that makes the wheels go round and oils life.

At this point the postman delivers a box in which I find a water Lilly that I had not expected till the weekend. No time to loose and I follow the instructions for planting and introduce it to the new pond.

There really is not anything else I can do for the pond now except wait and be patient and see what winter and spring bring. Its all down to mother nature and her elements now, for both the future inhabitants of the pond and me.

It’s time to get out and collect the Krona that I ordered for my grandson’s birthday. My master plan was to have lunch at Sainsburys, write a card and send it all off. The reality was that I was not feeling at my best and when I saw the queue for food I just collected the Krona and came home, improvised a snack and then posted the card and Krona from the post office in the next village. Home again to prepare dinner, pie in the oven, and to spend some time picking away at my guitar in order to fend off the numbness in my fingertips. The oncologist, “he who made a pact with the devil”, said that the worst thing about the numbness is that it can become permanent. I’m not having that so I’ve turned to my guitars to help me. I am just hoping that if I make the effort that things will turn out okay, and we all know that okay is good. So my guitars are to take up a therapy role and I might actually learn how to play something beyond the three chords everybody learnt in the sixties. I’m hoping for some sort of progression to tunes that people can recognise, although I think Status Quo have managed a career out of the three chords they learnt.

By the time dinner is done and my partner is in with her singing teacher I am printing off a hard copy of the blog so far. Its something my partner wanted after coming across a record of an interview with one of her relatives. It was a revealing account of his life, which explained quite a lot about some of her family history. So she thought having a hard copy of my blog might be a good thing to have, so from now on I will print each day out and add it to the growing tome. I will be asking for printer cartridges for Christmas.

I’ve been tired today, day two after chemo and the first self stabbing day, seems to be a day where my body just gets fatigued. I try to pace myself but my body just does what it needs to do to cope with being poisoned. I am lucky to be dealing with this so well at the moment. When I read about others experiences or talk to fellow chemotees I realise that I could be far worse off. I think at root the that fact that I tried to keep fit and active and see myself as having lots still to do and to understand has helped create some resilience to this onslaught. My aim is to keep making the effort to do the things that have given me the resilience even though they may demand more energy than before. I see it as an investment in me and my future. So I take myself to bed to read for a while and to look forward to having dinner with a group of old colleauges tomorrow night, and of course another opportunity to stab myself.