and it is quiet...
The children are in bed and so am I, in fact I have been in bed since around 4 pm after I fetched older master T home from school. It rained this afternoon, the kind of heavy rain that is somehow comforting when you are indoors listening to it. It has always been one of my favourite things, listening and watching heavy rain while I am cosy indoors.
Last week was full on. My tutorial in Sheffield went well up until the point I began bleeding from my bladder and missed the train home. With minutes to spare my train's platform was switched. I watched with despair as it left the station without me, I tried to run, really I did. I can't though. I can't even walk fast. Not now. I got back home at around 9 pm where I had to jump in a taxi straight to the hospital to be checked out for the bleeding as I was on Tinzaparin. I got to bed at midnight after being up since 4 am. Radiotherapy was scheduled for 8.00 am the following day and again at 2.40 pm to make up for missing one while in Sheffield. No rest for the wicked eh?
I had my chemotherapy bottle taken down on Friday ready for me to visit some friends on Saturday with little Miss H. We had a lovely time, just me and her, spending some quality time together in the company of some fabulous ladies. I should have had the twins with me also, all our babies are the same age and were I not ill I would have, but I couldn't cope with them on the train. Instead we chatted, scoffed and the children played, we talked about the cancer because you do, but it was not in control. I was. I requested my chemo bottle removal and radiotherapy to fit around my life this week. There is an unwritten assumption that you just accept the schedule, that you will adapt your life around it and be passive. I won't. It is a small thing but somehow it helps to know that it doesn't totally own me. They were accommodating, the staff, they understood I think?
In the meantime, I have been attending for radiotherapy each day. Some days it has been delayed others not. I will be seeing those treetops and the blue sky in my sleep. They also pipe music into the room while you are treated. Sam Smith. I shall forever associate him with being irradiated from this day forth.
They also tried to take blood to no avail early this week. I saw Dr Oncologist Tuesday to discuss how my treatment is going so far. Apparently my bladder is never big enough so the plan has to be changed. He carefully explains why. They are treating my small bowel as well as it stands and this is not something they want to do. I nod and accept. Then he asks how I am. Hmmm. Well I told him. I told him I am sick of my bladder ruling my life, I am fed up of feeling like I am 70 and not 38 and that I am sick of treatment. That I want a break. Although that is not really true is it? What I really want is precisely the one thing I can't have. My old life back. I cried. There was a trainee radiotherapist in the room. Poor girl. Not really what she bargained for I'll be bound. On the plus side, the tears earned me a reprieve from the blood letting until next week.
The side effects are now starting to kick in, they did warn me that around the seventh session I would begin to feel tired. I have also felt nauseous and my bowels are misbehaving. I hope the Bastard feels this grotty. I can imagine it squirming. Dying. Good Riddance. That's a track from my youth that should definitely be played at the bastards wake.
