So where was I before I got so rudely interrupted? Ah yes. I got the results from my anniversary scan in a little which said that my scan showed no convincing evidence that my cancer has returned. Yes I just wrote “in a little” when I meant “in a letter.” Chemo brain lures, K.O. My mate Eric who is an Oxford graduate in languages said that the language of reassurance is complicated. Eric can speak seven languages fluently – a couple of years ago he finished Greek and now he is trying Arabic for the second time. What a shame he can’t speak English so we can understand him. What does the language of reassurance is complicated mean.
Today was a joint effort by the council and the Welfare to hew down the town centre Christmas tree, transport it to the shopping centre and then slide it into the hole where it sits “like a carpet.” It was a very frosty Friday morning as I marched down the lane to the field of trees. The sun was out and we sang as we marched.....we sang....sang....sang.....”Oh I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK, I sleep all night and I work all day......”
Well I drove in my car. Well actually I was still in bed when the dirty deed was done and I arrived to see the tree being dragged off the trailer. It is twenty three feet high but it goes into the tree socket for three feet so it is twenty feet high and a handsome brute it is.
I did intend to go to the hewing but Tom-ass has been very naughty on a number of fronts. My attempts at weight reduction have failed not least because of the fact that salads and porridge (not together you understand) as part of a weight reduction regime do not work. During the Drew days B.C (before colostomy) I used to go every day without fail. Now it is eight or nine days with disastrous consequences.
Today for example I was freezing. I put on my Calvin Klein underclarts – normally reserved for surgeons, radiographers, nurses and oncologists – porquoi you may ask and ask you may. I don’t know. It’s not as if they were the only ones in the drawer. On top of the Calvins I put on my stoma support. This is like a pair of underclarts with a short gusset and long waist and they are made of elastic and are rather like a ladies foundation garment ( I should imagine – no I am not a cross dresser or a pervert – a few feathers are fine but not the whole chicken!)
So I rolled on my roll on and then my Marks and Spencers merino wool thermal long underclarts. In between all of this I had a long T shirt tucked in to my long johns and then my green corduroy britches with another polo shirt on top. Phew! I was knackered getting that lot on.
Back at the tree erecting ( and I use the term loosely) we soon had the bad boy standing proud and I went back to the welfare office to work. I hadn’t been there long when Tom-ass broke wind although I knew by the smell that it was more than a fluff – more like a full blown eruption. One of the Trustees was in the office and he asked me if I had broke wind. I told him something like that and went to the toilet with my pocket size stoma kit. I got a complimentary shaving kit when we went to Lake Garda by train from the Italian Railways (bit different to ours who don’t give us much at all) and it’s great for hiding away all of the little stoma accessories that any colostomite has to have but when I started unwrapping myself I realise that this was a full blown bed destroying four in the morning eruption except that it was ten in the morning and I wasn’t in bed.
I made my apologies and got home and started to peel the layers away. Yep it was a shower job. Why oh why have I gone from a daily to a weekly? And my Calvin Kleins. It should be quicker with a shorter bowel surely? I got the shower head on blast and gave it all a good sluicing including Tom-ass. I like to give him a good dowsing a few times a week and when I had finished he sat there glowing bright pink with a nonchalant look as if to say “What have I done.” He knew bloody well what he had done!
I have got a couple of pictures of Bonnie the Kamikaze Houdini dog but they don’t really give an idea of scale. Last night for example I started getting restless legs. It started the night before and Irene said that I was jumping about like a flea on a hotplate. Where has that come from? Another ploy to stop me getting a good night’s sleep. Anyway I have given up sleep.
We have now moved Bonnie’s basket from the bedroom and she is back downstairs but she still doesn’t like it but she is settling down now that we leave the radio on for her. Last night I was up at three having a cup of milky coffee with honey in it (another chemo aberration – I don’t like coffee and I don’t like sweet things) and we sat listening to Timothy West reading an episode of Rumpole. Who says dogs aren’t educated?
I have got the canal blog on the sprags somewhere but my computer got chemo brain and I don’t know where it is but no doubt one day it will come to light and I will be able to regale my stories of sailing on the high seas, a little piracy and how we stemmed a mutiny.
Bonnie Houdini - how can something so small cause so much chaos.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
