Monday all I want is a call from the chemo nurse. I wake hoping and by 5 o’clock my hopes have gone for the day. Another day wasted, another day my body as been under attack with no response, without the chemo it needs. Despite the diversion of lunch at Staunton Harold and the fun of driving Elsie I find myself humourless and grim. without dates planning anything related to Christmas, Santa runs, posting is all up in the air. I write nothing except ager and frustration, I’ve no idea what I shall take to the poetry stanza meeting this Saturday, its all so bloody grim. So having had lunch out I return with my partner, me to clamber into the loft to retrieve table centre making materials and to hang the advent calendar up. My partner beavers away wrapping things for Christmas. There is post and an envelop marked “nhs”, so I eagerly pounce on it thinking it might be my chemo appointment, also its just a poxy advert for having an eye test at home. I’ve discovered that I am getting worse at waiting. If there is nothing tomorrow it will be me back on the phone asking what’s going on. I can’t help feeling they are going to put me off till after Christmas, if this is the case I need to know. So we drift to the evening when the highlight will be Tesco delivering provisions and I draft a truncated and irritable blog. I share a poem written when the caring professions caught me on a bad day when they sent me their automatic feedback form , the day they told me my current prognosis was 12 to 18 months, roughly, depending, sort of maybe, I’ve not got a crystal ball.

478
“as a valued patient”
the text says 
as it asks me 
to rate 
my last visit.
What the fuck 
does this mean?
“a valued patient”
that is dying 
but provides employment,
makes all that training 
worthwhile, student debt
tolerable and 
the caring professions 
feeling good?
“a valued patient”
full of pharma,
giving profits
and status to industrialised
caring and potions?
“ a valued patient”
nameless,
full of numbers,
a feedback
data generator
in order to show
the medics 
and the medicines 
work?
“as a valued patient”
who has just been told,
fuck off and die?
You can shove 
your survey 
up your arse.
And yes I am angry 
and I am glad for it,
as it lights the fire
in my belly
that stokes 
me up 
to fight
what is beyond 
the grasp
of statistics
and questionnaires.
“as a valued patient?”
You piss me off!


					478 27-11-2025

So the evening passes and I take my meds and go to bed to wait another day. It appears that waiting is what I now do even when I choose the most pro active option.