It's Monday, it's the 13th, the Olympics are over, and it's raining. Today never stood a chance, really.
Still, it might have been improved if the district nurse had managed to come and do my bloods and dressing change ("Which part of 'weekly' do you not understand?"). We managed to persuade them to come out just in time to get the blood samples up to the Churchill in time for chemo tomorrow, but it was all rather stressful, and it took hours afterward for my jaw to become unclamped. What with this, and with all the arguments between them and the chemo nurses as to what equipment who should supply, it would really be simpler just to keep going up to the Churchill to get it done. Simpler, but time- and petrol-consuming, so the district nurse it is. For our sins.
I have also still heard nothing about my ascitic drain. I was going to phone the Macmillan nurses today, but their number's on my mobile, and my mobile was out of charge, and the charger was in my go bag, and the go bag was in the boot of Judy's car ...
The blood transfusion went off without a hitch, though. It was quite pleasant, actually, getting to lie down on a nice, cosy bed and doze without guilt with the Olympic show jumping talking away to itself in the background (I was much taken with the jumps, especially Stonehenge and the Uffington White Horse - although, as I said at the time, the Cerne Abbas Giant would have been more of a challenge. And funnier). Whether it's had any effect at all, I'm sure I couldn't tell you. We went out this afternoon to see Rebecca and her kittens, stayed about an hour, and, when I got home, I went to bed and crashed out for almost four hours, so draw your own conclusions.
We put the blood transfusion to the test last Thursday and made a small Expotition to the Uffington White Horse - the real one, I mean - which is about an hour's drive away. I wasn't able to manage the hill that leads up to it, walking across the field before the hill wore me out, but we were close enough to see it, and that's the main thing. And it's so high up that you get lovely views all around. Well, almost all around. If you look out over Dragon Hill, you can see Didcot Power Station in the distance, which rather takes the magic out of it all.
We stopped in Wantage on the way back, mostly for a wee. I have never been to Wantage before, let alone weed in it, and I do say you should try to do something new every year. (Last year I got cancer. That doesn't count.) On my 30th birthday I flew to America for the first time, but these days I have to be less ambitious. There is very little to say about Wantage, which looks as if it used to be pretty but is now the poster child for zero economic growth. It always makes me think of Georgette Heyer (because of Hero Wantage in Friday's Child), and is, apparently, the birthplace of Alfred the Great. He has a statue in the High Street, with a plaque on it that says Alfred found learning dead and he restored it/education neglected and he revived it/the laws powerless and he gave them force. He sounds like a useful type, and would get my vote. I bet he could beat the crap out of any shiny-faced Tory you may care to name.
That was quite enough in the way of Expotitions for the time being, after that I mostly stayed home and flumped. Nairne came and visited on Sunday afternoon, so it has been quite a social sort of week.
It has also been an excellent week for pressies, as no fewer than three people separately decided that I needed a book off my wishlist, and Prince Charles sent me choklit. Okay, it wasn't really Prince Charles, it was my sister, but Prince Charles made it. With his own hands. He may or may not have been wearing one of those little white hats while he did it ... I don't know why this all happened, but I am very grateful. I have recently been determinedly dragging out the started-and-never-finished books from my bedside table and finishing them, no matter what, and now I am down to only five. That's not only five unread books, obviously, there's a whole bunch all out of place on one of the children's bookcases, and three stacks in my study, and also, I suspect, an awful lot that got sorted into the shelves and forgotten about ... but still, I might run out of books one day. It shall not be this day. Thank you, everyone!
More good news: our friend Caro's Maine Coon Aurora went missing, whilst heavily pregnant, last week, and was gone for at least two days. But she came home again, hurrah! and last night she had her babies - two of them - which Caro has named after us. I am most flattered and honoured. The kitten is undoubtedly prettier and quite certainly cuter than I shall ever be, and probably has better hair, too (post-chemo frizz: grey post-chemo frizz; it's not a good look), but hey.
More chemo tomorrow, quite earlyish this week. That's #2 out of the current three sessions. After #3 I expect to find out what the consultants have planned in the way of further treatment. Or, knowing the Churchill as I do: possibly not.
