I honestly don't know why I don't just go and live in the Churchill. Well, I do know, it's a bit bleak and my house is much nicer, plus it's a bugger to get a bed. But for all the time I spend there, I might as well move in. I'm already due for chemo on the 15th, and on the 18th I have to go and see Naj (and tell him I think the fluid's back, which I don't imagine will amuse him); then, while I was asleep this afternoon, Judy took a phone call telling me to be there on the 19th for some kidney function tests, which will, apparently, take five hours, wtf!
Got up at the ungodly hour of 7.00 this morning (hah: I used to be at work for 7.30 am when our office was in Oxford; now I barely get out of bed at all) to go and see my GP. I like to drop in on her every now and then as a kind of living memento mori; if she'd been a bit more on the ball (she started out by trying to treat the fluid on my lungs with antibiotics which was, not surprisingly, unsuccessful), I wouldn't now be as ill as I am - or, at least, I'd be further along with my treatment. While the look on her face when she saw the "got cancer" letter from the Churchill was, admittedly, priceless, I would really rather have had an earlier diagnosis. Eh. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Anyway: today I had to give her my drugs list for re-upping - I've almost finished all those lovely painkillers the hospital gave me although, to my credit, I haven't even touched the morphine - and book a pre-chemo blood test, and also ask her if she could sign my hospital insurance claim. I have a highly amusing hospital insurance policy that I took out years and years ago, which pays me £30 for every full day I spend in hospital. I would have been better off stuffing the money under my mattress (or, better yet, putting it in a dedicated bank account), but it seemed like a good idea at the time and, once again, it's too late now. Anyway: she wasn't sure her signature would be acceptable - the form is hopelessly vague - and neither am I, so I have to phone up the insurers. But I was too tired today. Maybe tomorrow.
I got her to tap me on the back while I was there, on the grounds that she may as well make herself useful. She agreed that it sounds as if there's fluid on the left-hand lung, although she did it in a very cautious and qualified manner. I may have her scared. Do I want a scared doctor? Better than no doctor at all, I suppose, although I can't really complain about that, not when half the medical team at the Churchill seems to want a piece of me.
How nice to be wanted. Or is it?
