Monday its jab day and I need to be at the GP surgery for 9 o’clock. I am up early, shower and out the door having had time to take my morning meds and a couple of paracetamol. I check in and I am called in to the clinic room straight away. My usual nurse prepares the injection and has trouble finding an area that is not lumpy from previous injections. We get the stuff in and I leave to return home via the village shop to pick up a paper.
Once home my partner and I go to the gym where my partner trains and I sit in the lounge and eat bacon rolls while doing the days crosswords. I have time to think about a to do list and think about the coming days and my oncology review. I’ve still not heard from the cardio boys and girls. My partner and I go to a nearby garden centre for a late lunch before going home where I crash out, my injection site is getting sore and I need more paracetamol. I nap and stay napped until its time for tea and my partner has her singing lesson.
While my partner is in her singing lesson I watch Dune 2. It is my way of switching off before taking my night meds and more paracetamol.
Tuesday and after a reasonable nights sleep I find myself alone as my partner has gone to work. I take my vitals which are good and then get up as there are things I need to do but as I get out of bed my injection sight reminds me that I am sore and tired. I take my meds and then organise what I can before go to the local pub for a full English brunch. When I get home there are chores to do in readiness to take in the Tesco delivery. On cue the delivery arrives and then I am free to go to the post office to get a paper and send a letter.
The bulk of my afternoon is spent editing the final final draft of The cancer Years: Breathless. It appears that the collection is now ready to go to publication. I now wait for the Americans to get the mechanics rolling. With that done I select a poem to take to this Saturdays Poetry Stanza. I go for something less cancer driven than usual. I run off copies and as this coming Stanza meeting is a face to face one. I share the one I have selected.
409
I misheard “Titanium skull”
for “New soul” and thought,
I’m up for that .
How relieving it would be
to recycle the sins of the past
for an empty virginal one.
Do new ones have a distinctive
Smell like a new car/
Do new borns sniff the world
And take in the aroma of innocence?
If I ever had one
It’s been mislaid along the way,
Dropped somewhere along the
Grey brick pragmatic way,
a sort of wizard of Oz
without a Dorothy and her
red, take me home , shoes.
Fly my pretties fly,
I hear myself call
And wonder where my
journey will end.
409 03-08-202
Having done all my poem work I turn to getting some rest and fall asleep for a while until my partner returns from work. Tea follows and the Great British Bake Off but I am distracted by drafting the blog and an increasing awareness that my injection site is getting more sore and I am running rapidly out of spoons. I take my night meds but I resist the temptation to take pain killers. Tomorrow is my oncology review. I have spent today updating my blood pressure spread sheet and reviewing my blood results. I need who ever I talk to, to listen to what I have to say and take it seriously as I do not want to go on taking the chemotherapy to the point where the side effects make me so fatigued that I stop to function, which is one of my hypotheses. The other hypothesis is that I got a bout of COVID. My guess is that the oncology boys and girls will prefer the COVID hypothesis. My guess is that they will let me finish the current cycle 17 and go onto cycle 18 and then see me again. I will find out soon enough.
