Post 365: I slept for seven hours.
A well-deserved rest after an amazing day with the weeds was just what I needed to feel free and alive.
The TV missed me today because I was most definitely not a lounge lizard. In fact, I felt strong—so strong. I was busy from just before ten until just after three.
Whether it was the new pills or a mental and physical determination, I got a bit more done than I expected. I now feel that not only I’m alive, but I’m so much more able than I thought I was.
I know it’s a one-off, but the weeds got a right hiding today.
I did rush my breakfast a bit, in a spirit of helpfulness rather than the helplessness I normally feel. I tied the laces of my old steel toe-capped boots and walked into the sunshine at the back of the house with the keys to the shed, holding my head up high. There was an immediate sense that I was somehow healthier than normal—but having spent the last six days basically in bed, I should feel like a different person, and I wanted to get going and do something useful with the energy I have.
The last time I came out here to do some weeding was a week and a half ago, and I managed ten minutes before I was washed out. So, in the light of that poor effort, I unlocked the shed door, grabbed the long-handled hoe from the shed, and started to remove the killed weeds from the driveway down the side of the house.
These patio slabs forming the driveway were not the right size or thickness for a heavy car or lorry, and some of them were broken. The weeds—mainly grasses—had grasped the opportunity to nestle in and thrive in the gaps, however they were formed.
I felt my shoulder and back grumble a bit as soon as I started to get going on this four-by-eight-metre area. I wasn’t going to rush anyway, but I did get into the swing of it after a while.
I suppose I was halfway through when I had a pill alarm go off on my watch, and I trudged inside the kitchen for a welcome break. I grabbed the pills and washed them down my dry throat with a handy water bottle, happy with my back and shoulder feeling no worse than earlier.
I got back outside and started to sweep the cut and dried weeds from the bit of the driveway I’d started on, and looked up to see a neighbour from across the road heading my way. With a mug in his hand, I thought I’d better invite him round the corner into the back garden where the chairs were for a chat. He knew the way.
He is a lovely old guy and a real gardener, unlike me. I felt a little embarrassed but it wasn’t the garden he wanted to talk about.
“What’s chemo like?” he came out with, to which I replied,
“Tough.”
We had a little chat, and I got to hear that his prostate cancer, which he’s had for years and years, is OK, but “they’ve found a lump on a lung.” “Radiotherapy is possible too, I think they said—afterwards.”
I shuddered at the news but kept my replies factual and uplifting—keeping stum about the dreadful nightmare I had last year on Carboplatin. He couldn’t remember what the drug was, but after no more than a short natter, by his standards, we both stood and headed back out the side gate to the weedy drive.
He looked worried but stoic and tired as he headed back across the Close. I feel for him, but I know his wife and family are great at rallying around to support him.
My guest, who was now late, had given up and gone home, unable to find his way to me and my messy driveway. I believe he went to the wrong address. I was somehow more relieved than sad at this point, only because I could now continue with my task. As it happened, we will now meet up and my Darling (who’s at work today) can come too for a meal at the café in town—which is better than my horrible tea and chat today. Not horrible chat you understand, just horrible tea.
So I got back to it and made a fairly good job of the rest of the drive, and after sweeping up it looked half respectable.
I cleaned up and shut the gate and had a tangerine from the fruit bowl while checking my texts on my phone.
There was nothing to worry about, so I started on the huge grey crushed-slate raised bed at the back side (ha ha—couldn’t resist) of the house, and pulled and scraped and pushed and threw the manyfold weeds that adorned this area.
Within a few minutes I had exhausted the bits I could reach without kneeling, so I thought I’d take another wee break. This time a banana was devoured with a chocolate bar—that’s more than I usually have at this time of day. I guess the effort in the garden has gained me an appetite.
Anyway, I now realised that this was a bad time to get on my knees considering the time I’d already been out here, and my record of getting back up on my feet—but that’s what I did. I was loving it. And although I had cherry-picked the easier-to-get-to bits of the grey slate, I was doing something, so it was all good, whatever bits I did. Though I had a feeling nagging at the back of my mind that by the time I’d finished weeding all the chequered areas of this garden, I would have to start all over again, due to my speed now being as slow as the weeds were growing.
I’d been out there for a long while, and the weed bin I had beside me was hard to compact down any more, which I suppose meant I could finish at last. And lo and behold, a sound I knew and loved pierced the tranquillity of the moment, and my Darling, freshly back from work, called to me,
“Isn’t it time you stopped—and how are you going to get up, may I ask?”
Oh dear—I’ve been rumbled!
“Yes, dear,” I replied. “I was just going to come in anyway, because I’m done with these weeds.”
And with that she turned her tired eyes towards the bedroom and slept till it was nearly dark.
By then I had tidied up and admired my handiwork too many times before washing my hands, making a cafetière decaf coffee, grabbing a big bag of hummus crisps (they are way better than they sound, I promise you), and heading to the lounge, saying hi to the lonely TV. Well—lonely today anyway.
Later, when my Darling awoke and I showed her around the weeded bits of garden that I had the energy to tackle, we settled down to a TV dinner. I gulped it down like I’d not been fed all day, and she looked like she would fall into her bowl of pasta like a tired child in a high chair. Bless her.
My Darling called it a day well before I did. In fact, I waited till way after ten and my last pills.
The tiredness and aches and pains, that I should have been feeling, were just not there. I got into bed without any repercussions.
I slept well.
What can I say but,
You sleep well too
