CYCLE 4 DAY 19

Friday was a day of catching up with the domestic chores and organising the week to come.  I was very lazy and allowed myself to lay in till gone 9 o’clock, which was all well un good until I realised I was due to give blood at the GPs in about five minutes time. For the first time I drove to the surgery, something that I had always thought to be the ultimate in laziness. I walked in, punched my info into the self reception screen and sat down to be instantly called by the nurse. The practice nurse is just ace at taking my blood, no sharp scratch stuff or anything just a quick pause and a cheery “that’s it”. I drove home to find my partner working away quietly so I retreated to the village cafe to do the crosswords and to have a late breakfast. Somewhere in all of this I remembered to take my drugs. I was soon back at my office desk getting ready for the telephone conference that was due at 12:30. This three way call was the final preparation for the therapeutic community accreditation visit that I am doing on this coming Thursday. The call went well, I was able to check some of the details of the evidence that I had been sent and to request some new information for the day. We checked the days timetable and other practical matters and concluded the call. A job well done I thought. The audit day falls on day three of a new cycle so I am hooping that I shall not be in the worst grip of the chemo. With the call out of the way I drove to the post office to send a surprise pre Christmas to my son and family in Stockholm. Every time I try to send something to them it always ends up delayed, so hopefully things will go well this time. Then on to Sainsbury’s to buy the remaining ingredients for the Christmas cake baking that is going to take place over the weekend. I return home to organise the next weeks drugs. I order a new prescription over the internet link to my GP and refuel my weekly rainbow pill box, remembering to add the block doses of the steroids that are required. So I am good for drugs for a week, I just have to remember to take them. Time for a bath. I rummage through the bottles to try and find some bath oils, suds, bubbles, unguents, or soap. After several disappointments I find a bottle of bath cream and start running my bath. As I eased myself into the warm bubbles and lay there soaking I became aware that the irritation from last 21 day injection was noticeably easing. The more it eased the more I lazed. I must remember that this works for me the next time I have the injection. Somehow I had forgotten that this is what I did originally to ease the discomfort of having a duck egg size lump in my stomach. Time to go and dine with friends.

We drove the few minutes to the Castle Hotel and ordered drinks while we waited for our friends to arrive. A busy pub and full of people out for a Friday night drink or meal. It seems that most pubs now make their money from food and that fewer people go to the pub just to drink. Our friends arrive and greet us with “treats” presents for us both, mine generated from reading my blog. So there was lip balm, bath bomb and Maltezers, it is a super surprise and indeed lifted my spirits immediately. Such a thoughtful and kind present was absolutely lovely. We go to the table and begin to catch up and order food. The evening went very quickly, the company good and people with whom it is no effort to share how I am to be able to open about how it effects us. We shared our plans for a civil partnership in the new year and chatted about the practical details of what that means for us. At teh end of the evening we wished each other well and went our separate ways. On arriving home I found I was very tired and retreated bed very quickly too tired to even contemplate writing the blog.