Post 438: Appetite wondrous.
After all is said and done, the pills I’m on are really doing the job recently.
Twice today I was complimented on my steady walking and altogether happy and fit demeanour. The facts speak for themselves, but I’ve a notion my weight this week will be fantastic – back in the mid elevens. I’m now an eating machine. The only problem is that I’m constipated too, but you can’t have everything, can you?
Our eldest was going to be off early this morning, and I was woken just before six – an ungodly hour – to wave him goodbye.
In point of fact, I had so much to thank him for that it was a pleasure, not a pain, to see him off home.
He was driving to Banbury to pick up our daughter-in-law after last night’s Harry Styles concert, which she said was “just what I needed.” The three-hour drive from here would at least give them a useful changeover point before the long journey north to Cumberland’s shores.
While my Darling was keen to wake me so I’d be there when he left, it was also nice that a little more of “his stuff” would be gleefully going back with him.
A huge art folder, hidden behind a wardrobe in the spare room, had been spotted. As he’s on an arty kick at the moment, it was finally time for him to relieve us of it.
Patience.
It really is a virtue that pays you back in surprising ways.
This was a bit of his old schoolwork that he absolutely loved at the time. I’m sure the time he spends on creativity is still worth it. He works in finance for an insurance company now, and I imagine the colours, smells and visual stimulation around where he lives must pull him back to those carefree school days, where fun was had with a few mates in the art room. The stories flowed, the creativity flourished, and a zany little team of misfits spent their days playing up to the cameras and their teachers.
A time he must look back on with a real sense of freedom.
After one final look around, my Darling went back to bed and our son started the long journey home. Three duplicate LPs from my collection also went with him. He simply couldn’t resist arranging my record collection into alphabetical order by band name, and these doubles were his reward.
He’d been such a help all weekend that saying goodbye felt genuinely heartfelt. A slightly sad moment for me… but no tears, thank goodness.
With him on his merry way, I had one eye on the clock because the blood test was looming. A little later than planned, but still well before ten, when my excited pal was due to collect the old sixties bike – the Plover – as his winter project.
The bloods were taken after a mighty wait in a really busy GP surgery, where the chatty people chatted about this and that. I sat quietly in the corner, listening. Listening for my name too. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d hear it over the din, but eventually a nurse appeared to rescue me from the waiting room and take what she needed.
Then I was free to head home before my pal arrived with his trailer.
I was only just in the car when the rain started. Although it didn’t last long, it delayed loading the trailer, so we had a cuppa while we waited. Eventually the rain eased and the treasure – for him – and the nightmare – for me – was loaded and sent happily on its way.
Cool beans.
Now I could finally have a rest before work.
Which, strangely enough, I was looking forward to.
A little bit of work keeps me in the loop with my colleagues and gives me a reason to get out of the house and feel useful.
I was tired, so I sat down with a Kallo beetroot and balsamic chickpea cake… or three.
My taste buds exploded.
Then came some fruit, followed by a few biscuits, and before I knew it I was sitting there completely full, quietly watching television. Subtitles are a real boon because they allow me to keep one ear tuned to my Darling upstairs, still resting with her pressure bandage wrapped around her calf and painkillers by her side.
Eventually she came down on the stairlift. She looked the picture of ill health, hobbling about in that stubborn way of hers that meant I couldn’t help very much.
I did, however, get dispatched to the kitchen to make her some lunch.
At last I could be useful, even if it was only by making sandwiches.
We watched Ludwig together on BBC iPlayer. It’s a funny little detective series where one brother steps into the shoes of the other, solving murders in his own peculiar way while quietly trying to discover what has happened to his missing brother. It’s not really my Darling’s sort of programme, but she never asks to turn it off, so I take that as approval.
It’s a little hard leaving her alone while our roles are reversed. She’s the patient and I’m the nurse… so to speak.
I’m not especially nursey.
But I do try my best.
I go to work with a smile inside me, and when I arrive the lads all tell me how good I look compared with last week.
What a lift that is.
I’m happy to be there for my two hours because, truthfully, I do feel better.
Better.
Alive.
Normal.
And it’s the normal bit I love the most.
When I get home, the blood results have already appeared on Patients Know Best, so naturally I go looking for surprises.
The bloods are for my oncologist before my review next week. Another three months have gone by without any new treatment, apart from pain relief, hormone therapy and now iron infusions, which is exactly how I’d like things to continue.
I Googled one or two of the bigger swings in the numbers, but I still don’t really know what they’re telling me.
After all these years I don’t think I’ve gained much insight into blood tests.
They still need someone who can read them like an Egyptologist deciphering hieroglyphics.
I only ever see the individual symbols.
My oncologist sees the whole story.
So I’ll happily wait until next week and let him explain what matters and what doesn’t.
Meanwhile, our family WhatsApp group has spent the day documenting my nephew and his new wife’s holiday adventure. They’re off to Greece, but not before a grand meal at the airport.
The photographs have been arriving thick and fast, especially the ones with all the children together.
Lovely to see.
While all that was going on, I cooked a mushroom stroganoff. No, not from scratch, before anyone gets excited.
Then my Darling reminded me…
“Don’t forget the rock cakes my bestie made for you.”
Well…
There isn’t a man alive who can resist homemade rock cakes.
Especially me.
I finished the remaining two without the slightest hesitation.
Wonderful.
By this stage I was absolutely stuffed.
No room at the inn.
Of course, I’d also opened the medicinal packet of Jelly Babies. Not that the babies were medicinal… the packet had been kindly gifted to me by my nurse up north.
Once I start, I really can’t help myself.
My stomach was fuller than it has been at any point this year.
I can only imagine what my sugar level was doing, although I don’t bother counting these things.
It was probably having a wonderful time.
And so was I.
Good night and sweet dreams.
Take care.
PS
I think I can already see a little improvement in my Darling’s torn calf muscle.
Tomorrow I have my second iron infusion.
I’ll leave her with food, drinks and tablets before I go. I’ll miss having her there, but she really does need the rest.
Bless her.
