Post 90: I don’t like Mondays.
The week started full of promise.
Then Monday turned, snarled… and bit my bum.
———
Being off work for so long now, I’m used to the relaxed feeling that comes with Monday — that otherwise depressing day if you’re still clocking in to earn your baby a new bonnet.
The only thing in my diary was to head to my local Hospice for the 5th of 6 counselling sessions by eleven.
After another hard-to-sleep night, I was still tired when I slumped into the chair and sipped a glass of water, ready for today’s chat. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s talk. It’s like turning on a tap — it runs until someone finally reaches over and shuts it off.
But with the incessant chatter comes a protective edge: the comfort of distraction. I dance around the nub of the problem with stories and recollections, gently steering the talk away from that awkward, unwelcome place: my feelings.
I’ve been hauled back to the core question time and again over the sessions: How do you feel?
And, truthfully, I haven’t answered it. Not properly.
Here on the blog, where I can be expressive and open, I still maintain my first line of defence. I help myself to a bucket full of distractions rather than be brutally honest.
Memories, anecdotes, childhood moments — these are facts about how I came to be me. But that’s not the issue.
The issue is: How do I feel now?
Not then.
Not before the chemo, the pills, the biopsy, the blood tests - NOW.
So I have some counselling homework this week?
A frighteningly awkward dive inward. A task I’d happily swap for a root canal with no anaesthetic.
Because I protect myself. I hold fast to other people’s positivity — whether that’s My Darling’s warm hand and soft voice, or a friend’s cheerful story of keeping his prostate for twenty years and “you’ll be fine — just give it time.”
I smile, nod, agree.
But it’s not the same.
It’s not the whole story.
I’m different. I’m special. I’m awkward.
So…
(Feel free to skip the next bit if you’re dodging a miserable Monday.)
I’m not on a curative pathway.
It’s not officially palliative care — but let’s not kid ourselves.
My job now is to hold back the bast’rd cancer as best I can. That’s the game.
My life is foreshortened, and I’m past the halfway mark. I’m feeling the ingress — the slow, sinister progress of the disease that’s eating away at me.
I feel tearful — mostly.
I feel sad — sometimes.
I don’t feel angry.
I don’t need 20 more years. I don’t crave my 80th birthday.
But I do care.
I do worry.
I dread the one unbearable thing: leaving My Darling behind.
Is that an answer?
No, not really.
How do I feel?
I feel like the captain of a sinking ship, still trying to lead the passengers to safety. Still pointing to the lifeboats, still reassuring the crew. But the ship — once vibrant, full of possibility — is rusting, and the water’s rushing in.
And the captain’s last job?
He stays alone with the vessel until the end.
———
Returning from the Hospice café after a surprisingly lovely lunch of cheesy mushroom bake and veg, I got home with my homework haunting me.
My Darling asked, as she always does, how it went.
And I thought, okay — here’s my cue. Maybe now is the moment to share the real question of the day.
What I wasn’t expecting was her reply — raw, unfiltered, protective.
“Angry,” she said.
“Why are paedophiles running around healthy and you are struck with this?”
It stopped me in my tracks. There’s fury in her love. I don’t blame her.
———
Moving on…
Around the same time we got back, I had a weird, worrying feeling that the AFib was back. My heart was skipping; I felt tired and grey — textbook signs for those of us in the club.
And then it got worse.
It stayed too long.
I cancelled Little Bro’s visit that evening.
I was glum.
By the time it ended, I was in bed, washed out.
At least the rib pain had settled a bit — not all bad.
Three and a half hours of palpitations is enough for anyone, though still less than the last episode two weeks ago.
Now that made me think.
I’ve had barely any AFib over recent years, but now — every two weeks — like clockwork, here it comes.
Could it be the same with the new sotalol regime?
I hope so.
I like a pattern. I like maths in my chaos.
———
I’m still on the bus.
Homework is set.
Dentist tomorrow.
Covid’s lurking — beware.
Glad Monday’s over.
