Paying attention to underfoot – where our feet tread, in my pre-chemo life something I never thought twice about, apart from when picking my way across a pebble beach to reach the sea. Now, though, nature created a perfect parallel to the sudden inflammation on my feet. Warned about this as a common side effect of chemo, why did I think I’d be immune from it? Do chestnuts not fall from trees? Encouraged by those recent strong winds the annual tumbling of the sweet chestnut casings (not to be confused with conkers) came on thick and fast. A line of sweet chestnut trees border the end of my garden, from a copse beyond. Every year they release their bounty, little by little, but this year, it was a mighty unleashing! The lawn became a carpet of spiky pricklies, with chestnuts strewn everywhere. The casings are so sharp and spiky you have to wear very thick garden gloves to handle them, and the pain of trying to pick one up un-gloved seemed to mirror the pain of my poor inflamed feet, as I shouted “ouch” as I got out of bed each day and hobbled across the carpet.
This blog has a theme of “counting” – counting down the days of chemo, and now it became a case of counting (up) just how many chestnuts had fallen. With the help of family, we spent a happy hour in autumn sunshine picking up all the chestnut casings and hurling them back over the fence, under the trees they came from – counting each one. Our total: over 1,800, quite staggering and also joyful. So, as we cleared away the autumn’s prickly bounty for this season, so too have my feet started to heal as I benefit from an extra week free of chemo.
