...... Chemo #4, or to be pedantically correct, Chemo Cycle 2 day 1 has passed. I'm OK with that but where did the previous fortnight go?
If I had to sum up Chemo, the word "suddenly" comes to mind.
I know it's all about perception but the view from here is that the last time I had Chemo all was well, mostly because I had no recollection of the details of that Tuesday afternoon. However, in discussion with my cancer nurse on Monday my notes did not concur with the Business Secretary's spreadsheet. I was, in a word, gobsmacked. I keep a bit of a diary other than this blog which outlines drugs taken and effects. To see my life reduced to a solitary side of an A4 spreadsheet was a bit of a shock. Especially as my wordy six page diatribe was relegated to where it belongs. Seems that Tuesday afternoon wasn't good at all.
The following Saturday was awful but the spreadsheet didn't acknowledge the fact. Obviously the Saturday battle I fought to follow TMS, F1 and TdF and totally failed to win was insignificant. Wasn't to me. I couldn't hold the phone or string two words together when our son phoned. Worse, when a video call focused on our grandson spreading his lunch over every surface liberally and even managing to get some in to his mouth when he felt like it was beyond my comprehension. By then I was back in bed, knackered and couldn't engage with the video call in any way. That felt awful.
Fortunately I slept till late afternoon and then tried to watch TdF highlights which were beyond me. Even listening to tunes was an effort. Back to bed.
Sunday began with much more promise. Initially it offered great promise, even to the point of feeling that going to church for the first time in months was an option. That soon descended into aspiration. The tiredness was like it was solid.
Late Sunday afternoon and my westernmost advisor rang. Cue a telling off. You're totally knackered, he said. I agreed. You're behaving like a kid with a cold, he said. You can fight a cold and get through it. This is chemistry. You can't fight it. Give into it.
You've got your week off drugs? Yup, from tomorrow morning, I agreed. Don't do anything, he said, especially keep off the bikes. I almost managed the latter.
Sense, yet again, at the point of need, freely given. Chemistry, or what I remember of it, is suddenness. Get test tube, bung in something, pour in something else and stand back. Instant fizz, which once begun had to run its course. You can't easily stop it.
Chemo isn't like a cold, you can't fight it, you can't stop it, you can't change it, you can't explore it. It just is. Which is why, at 1416 after an hour of dopiness I'm slowly taping this virtual keyboard from the relative safety of an extremely bright duvet which ought to have come with Ray Bans if not Oakleys. I didn't choose it but I'm told it's very nice.
The end result of the spreadsheet vs. rambling diary was that the rambling diary lost. Tuesday's response was not good. I should not have left the ward. My fault as I knew something wasn't right but i just wanted to go home. We shouldn't have left, we should have gone back. Once home we should have phoned. It was not a good thing. It shouldn't have happened. I was told to consider myself officially told off. Accepted, not as graciously as she deserved but I'm beginning to understand what's going on.
Thus, Chemo #4 was administered in a ward with beds adjacent the chairs. This was just as well because Cannula attempts one and two were abject failures, my veins were not playing. It was very hot, I hadn't been drinking enough, cue another telling off as it was explained to me that coffee doesn't count. Whaaaaaat? I was so shaken at that news that peripheral shut down ensued. I fainted.
Recovery was about the only slow thing that's happened recently. BP 104/72. Its always low 120s/mid to low 80s. 105, came, 107 and then the wonderful nurse identified a vein boldly standing proud for just long enough to get the cannula inserted.
It was about now that our cancer nurse came to tell us that my Tuesday was likely a result of the steroids. So they've taken me off the steroids. My creativity, denied. My long nights considering all manner of things, planning Grand European Tours curtailed. Nope, no more brain highs, no more feeling high as a kite just Chemo.
This will slow you down I was told. It has. Suddenly suddenly has become far more protracted. You feel ready to get up but it takes a while. You make irrelevant coffee, you feel a bit tired. You start to feel leaden. You become aware of wobbliness, the world doesn't spin but you feel the unconsciously irresistible need to steady yourself on door frames, tables, chairs, whatever is handy. I remember watching mum do the same in her kitchen.
You have to give in to it. Sit. Lie down. Get up the stairs if it feels you should but don't ask me what it feels like to be able to differentiate between degrees of wobbliness although I think it has a lot to do with the voice never far away dispensing advice. Not only am I listening I'm doing, mostly.
Well, I'm off the steroids and suddenly it's no fun at all. However, I'm not nauseous, either, my hair still needs the attention of a barber and when the brain is working hard enough I can consider all manner of things.
Mostly dull boring things but I guess that's a mark of normality for which my gratitude is overwhelming.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
2 x 8 = one day
I don't know what's saddest in a whole plethora of saddishness.
First, I expended a degree of anxiety out of proportion after snapping, crackling and popping because I was unable to find the next sheet of tablets. Normally with 12 the final portion has only 6 and was lying flat in the box, not initially obvious.
Is it sadder that I then spent an inordinate number of minutes arranging said tablets on the table before me?
Nope, it must be the saddest thing to have taken the camera, left on the table all week, I think, and taken a photo of pink pills.
Maybe the saddest reflection on my life currently is the fact that I feel the need to post this.
However, those pink pills represent the next two eight o'clocks in my life. Once the second of those becomes after eight I will have completed my first cycle of Chemotherapy and have a week free of fresh Chemo.
To me this feels quite important.
First, I expended a degree of anxiety out of proportion after snapping, crackling and popping because I was unable to find the next sheet of tablets. Normally with 12 the final portion has only 6 and was lying flat in the box, not initially obvious.Is it sadder that I then spent an inordinate number of minutes arranging said tablets on the table before me?
Nope, it must be the saddest thing to have taken the camera, left on the table all week, I think, and taken a photo of pink pills.
Maybe the saddest reflection on my life currently is the fact that I feel the need to post this.
However, those pink pills represent the next two eight o'clocks in my life. Once the second of those becomes after eight I will have completed my first cycle of Chemotherapy and have a week free of fresh Chemo.
To me this feels quite important.
Ticking away
"Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines" Time, Dark Side of The Moon, Pink Floyd.
It comes as no surprise that here, now on a beautiful Sunday morning the lyrics of Time fill my head.
The result, I think, of a mental wrestling match being fought in those periods when my brain collapses in a heap and thoughts line up and wait their turn rather than race about, when they tire of shouting at me to let me know how important they are, when they take a moment to breathe before the next bout of pushing and shoving each other out of the way.
It seems my cognitive processes have become so post-modern, every though considers itself more important than the other, all feel the need to be heard, all demand to be listened to and each is convinced of his, her, its, own overriding superiority. Unfortunately it leaves me drained, exhausted, confused and, at this moment, annoyed. I need to make sense of those parts of last week that I remember. I need to write this now.
I've not felt that before. The blog has been a means of condemning events to history. I haven't read this blog. I write it. I move on. Today it feels different. Yesterday, at this time plans were being made. Plans to visit family, friends. Plans to go out for a meal. All sorts of plans. Then Saturday happened. I can't get my head around that, yet.
I've already mentioned Tuesday but after that came Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and although I can recall the days and events I cannot accurately tie them chronologically without help.
I know that on Tuesday one of our friends, our long suffering and always on call
nurse visited my shield and protector. I didn't know she'd visited, mainly because I was out of my head at the time but she spends time with my carer anyway. Indeed, another friend came from round the corner to spend time with her, too. I'm so grateful for this, as is she. I couldn't tell you when she came but I'm so glad she did.
Our nurse definitely came on Tuesday afternoon as I have totally no memory of her visit at all. I do, however, have a cuddly pasty. Wednesday began with the delight of seeing this pasty on my listening seat, it's just where I sit when alone with nothing more than vibrating diaphragms for company.
How good a friend do you have to be to think that the most appropriate gift imaginable at his time, in these circumstances is a cuddly pasty? A very good one is the answer. How can you even look at it without it bringing a smile and an inrun of pleasant thoughts? It is noticeable that pleasant thoughts, whilst still by far a huge majority, are no longer the only ones.
On Wednesday my brother turned up. He'd been shopping, too. A bag full of edible goodness. Most importantly for me, a roll of Hogg's Pudd'n. It was, and remains my second favourite delicacy after a pasty but I probably couldn't manage a pasty yet. The Hogg's Pudd'n was finished last night. So great was the burden of the bag he brought that cooking duties were unnecessary for a couple of meals which I may not have realised was such a big deal as it was.
The doctor came. Wednesday. Largely after advice from our cuddly pasty bearing nurse my protector arranged a house call. The belly, which I felt was trying to leave me was, in fact, trying to do just that. I don't know his name but he was a lovely chap, he understood my flakiness and I was generously assured that he didn't mind coming to see me but I have an incisional hernia. Not really a big deal except that in this case the incision is rather long. Gently the explanations filtered through with the result that I live with it, best option, have surgery but after Chemo or if it gets hard, painful, pops out to say hello or deteriorates otherwise then we'll deal with it at that point. All quite dispassionate, logical and he wouldn't stay for coffee.
The rest of the week appears in my mind under the heading "frenzied."
There are photos cascading from ceiling to floor in two places. I know I put them there, with help, but I don't remember when. All I remember is that I absolutely had to do it then. Whenever then was. I recall a friend helping to order them when he and his wife visited. He stayed to ensure that my carer was at ease when she and his wife went shopping.
Like everything in my carers daily toil, the shopping was for me. A mile or so of crepe bandage to add support to the errant belly and knife blades for the craft knife with which I'd cut yards and yards of mountboard in the preceding hours.
The ideas come. They don't develop, although I'm sure I've had embryos of them they arrive complete. In detail, in dimension, in Amazon boxes awaiting installation.
Once present they have to be fulfilled. They demand completion. Nothing else matters. I get going for minutes. Fall in a heap. Repeat. Repeat. Till complete. This is odd. I am not known for my desire to get things done and the concept of doing it now is a new one. But it had to be done now. This is not the best modus operandi, especially when you can't do it on your own and people are on telly playing bat and ball with nets.
The intensity of these driven moments results in a degree of tiredness that soon becomes exhaustion but I'm powerless to ignore the need to do it. Fortunately for our walls and the aesthetics of our home I have currently run ashore on the mundane coast where the only vestige of creativity has long since rotted away.
It cannot be good that the absence of a creative dribble gives way to a more practical deluge. I speak of mortice locks. I need to fit one to the front door in place of the deadlock. I know how to do it. I have the tools. I have done it loads of times. I have spent hours looking at the dimensions of mortice locks online wondering how many mm in 2 1/2". I know the answer. But it doesn't come when thinking of mortice locks. I have had to resort to android calculator. I know 2 1/2" is 70mm, near enough but when I need it it's not there. I even had to consciously think through the process. I've undertaken the process umpteen times, with Jennings bits and flat bits, not to mention my trusty 1/2" firmer chisel. But I've spent ages turning this over I my head and it just won't go until when it has gone and it's all clear as a bell anyway. It takes till those times, too to remember that the act of winding a brace or driving a flat bit into an old wooden door frame is not going to happen. Not today.
The irrationality of my thoughts is, thankfully, seen as such in the calmer, exhausted, glazed over moments. The problem comes when it isn't but I'm glad to say I neither know how to order from Amazon nor do I have a clue where the credit card is.
Above all reflections of the week glistens those who give most. Those who cement this time in reality and leave you wondering why people think to even bother to go out of their way, sometimes a very long way out of their way, those who graciously visit. They provide the mountain top from which vantage point a perspective can be trusted.
Looking back over the last week, I'm confused, tired, useless but so chuffed at having spent time with friends from round the corner who we see frequently, those who have to go out of their way and whom you see rarely. Those you've known all your life, those from school, college and all places since.
I'm not known for ever having been a people person but I'm so grateful that our friends invariably are.
Obviously, it's not me, it's my carer they come to see, I just happen to be here, churning over the minutiae of mortice locks until the next steroid lets loose the chemical leash currently holding the dogs of imagination in check.
It comes as no surprise that here, now on a beautiful Sunday morning the lyrics of Time fill my head.
The result, I think, of a mental wrestling match being fought in those periods when my brain collapses in a heap and thoughts line up and wait their turn rather than race about, when they tire of shouting at me to let me know how important they are, when they take a moment to breathe before the next bout of pushing and shoving each other out of the way.
It seems my cognitive processes have become so post-modern, every though considers itself more important than the other, all feel the need to be heard, all demand to be listened to and each is convinced of his, her, its, own overriding superiority. Unfortunately it leaves me drained, exhausted, confused and, at this moment, annoyed. I need to make sense of those parts of last week that I remember. I need to write this now.
I've not felt that before. The blog has been a means of condemning events to history. I haven't read this blog. I write it. I move on. Today it feels different. Yesterday, at this time plans were being made. Plans to visit family, friends. Plans to go out for a meal. All sorts of plans. Then Saturday happened. I can't get my head around that, yet.
I've already mentioned Tuesday but after that came Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and although I can recall the days and events I cannot accurately tie them chronologically without help.
I know that on Tuesday one of our friends, our long suffering and always on call
Our nurse definitely came on Tuesday afternoon as I have totally no memory of her visit at all. I do, however, have a cuddly pasty. Wednesday began with the delight of seeing this pasty on my listening seat, it's just where I sit when alone with nothing more than vibrating diaphragms for company.
How good a friend do you have to be to think that the most appropriate gift imaginable at his time, in these circumstances is a cuddly pasty? A very good one is the answer. How can you even look at it without it bringing a smile and an inrun of pleasant thoughts? It is noticeable that pleasant thoughts, whilst still by far a huge majority, are no longer the only ones.
On Wednesday my brother turned up. He'd been shopping, too. A bag full of edible goodness. Most importantly for me, a roll of Hogg's Pudd'n. It was, and remains my second favourite delicacy after a pasty but I probably couldn't manage a pasty yet. The Hogg's Pudd'n was finished last night. So great was the burden of the bag he brought that cooking duties were unnecessary for a couple of meals which I may not have realised was such a big deal as it was.
The doctor came. Wednesday. Largely after advice from our cuddly pasty bearing nurse my protector arranged a house call. The belly, which I felt was trying to leave me was, in fact, trying to do just that. I don't know his name but he was a lovely chap, he understood my flakiness and I was generously assured that he didn't mind coming to see me but I have an incisional hernia. Not really a big deal except that in this case the incision is rather long. Gently the explanations filtered through with the result that I live with it, best option, have surgery but after Chemo or if it gets hard, painful, pops out to say hello or deteriorates otherwise then we'll deal with it at that point. All quite dispassionate, logical and he wouldn't stay for coffee.
The rest of the week appears in my mind under the heading "frenzied."
There are photos cascading from ceiling to floor in two places. I know I put them there, with help, but I don't remember when. All I remember is that I absolutely had to do it then. Whenever then was. I recall a friend helping to order them when he and his wife visited. He stayed to ensure that my carer was at ease when she and his wife went shopping.
Like everything in my carers daily toil, the shopping was for me. A mile or so of crepe bandage to add support to the errant belly and knife blades for the craft knife with which I'd cut yards and yards of mountboard in the preceding hours.
The ideas come. They don't develop, although I'm sure I've had embryos of them they arrive complete. In detail, in dimension, in Amazon boxes awaiting installation.
Once present they have to be fulfilled. They demand completion. Nothing else matters. I get going for minutes. Fall in a heap. Repeat. Repeat. Till complete. This is odd. I am not known for my desire to get things done and the concept of doing it now is a new one. But it had to be done now. This is not the best modus operandi, especially when you can't do it on your own and people are on telly playing bat and ball with nets.
The intensity of these driven moments results in a degree of tiredness that soon becomes exhaustion but I'm powerless to ignore the need to do it. Fortunately for our walls and the aesthetics of our home I have currently run ashore on the mundane coast where the only vestige of creativity has long since rotted away.
It cannot be good that the absence of a creative dribble gives way to a more practical deluge. I speak of mortice locks. I need to fit one to the front door in place of the deadlock. I know how to do it. I have the tools. I have done it loads of times. I have spent hours looking at the dimensions of mortice locks online wondering how many mm in 2 1/2". I know the answer. But it doesn't come when thinking of mortice locks. I have had to resort to android calculator. I know 2 1/2" is 70mm, near enough but when I need it it's not there. I even had to consciously think through the process. I've undertaken the process umpteen times, with Jennings bits and flat bits, not to mention my trusty 1/2" firmer chisel. But I've spent ages turning this over I my head and it just won't go until when it has gone and it's all clear as a bell anyway. It takes till those times, too to remember that the act of winding a brace or driving a flat bit into an old wooden door frame is not going to happen. Not today.
The irrationality of my thoughts is, thankfully, seen as such in the calmer, exhausted, glazed over moments. The problem comes when it isn't but I'm glad to say I neither know how to order from Amazon nor do I have a clue where the credit card is.
Above all reflections of the week glistens those who give most. Those who cement this time in reality and leave you wondering why people think to even bother to go out of their way, sometimes a very long way out of their way, those who graciously visit. They provide the mountain top from which vantage point a perspective can be trusted.
Looking back over the last week, I'm confused, tired, useless but so chuffed at having spent time with friends from round the corner who we see frequently, those who have to go out of their way and whom you see rarely. Those you've known all your life, those from school, college and all places since.
I'm not known for ever having been a people person but I'm so grateful that our friends invariably are.
Obviously, it's not me, it's my carer they come to see, I just happen to be here, churning over the minutiae of mortice locks until the next steroid lets loose the chemical leash currently holding the dogs of imagination in check.
Friday, July 14, 2017
The Real Costa Coffee
It was raining first thing Tuesday morning but we had friends staying so breakfast was an event to enjoy far removed from the normal grab, glug, get on. Thus it was that I was at my best in the hours before Chemo#3 scheduled for 1130.
Arriving in Cherryade in good time the formalities felt normal as did the canulation and dispensation of the chemicals various. Normality extended right up to he point when the tablet I'm typing on now seemed to need more security than I could offer. Hastily it was passed to the keeper of all good things sat almost next to me.
Somewhere a switch moved imperceptibly and with no discernable click but the effect was profound. Cannula removed and a wet walk to the car is barely remembered.
It was raining getting in the car and getting out of it.
Home and the front room sofa was as far as I could manage. Lying down was OK but once I got up even that became impossible. For the first time I was noticeably nauseous, not sick but, oh dear, not nice. Sitting was the only option.
I'm vaguely aware that our friends were there to see the effect of Chemo#3, so totally different and unexpected. They saw me at my worst for which I'm sorry and hope I didn't say anything that shouldn't have been said.
My recollection of the afternoon is effectively non-existent.
About 1830 I was aware of the rain on the bedroom window and the taker of notes attempting to give the impression that all was normal. There was, however, a definite aura of anxiety present. Tea? Yes, please. I'll bring it up. No, I'll come down. Which I did.
The rain was gently running off the veranda as tea was slowly taken. The world had not quite synchronised with me, nor I with it but I did eat. Then I was told that I'd spent the afternoon drinking. Really? I had no recollection of it bar a mug of black coffee but it would appear that I had at various times downed two pints of squash and two mugs of tea. But what about the coffee? You didn't have any she said referring to the ever present notebook. I distinctly remembered a mug of black coffee which I was convinced I'd had because it wasn't in a mug usually associated with coffee and it was black. My first coffee of the day is black to avoid having to start the day with Creon but thereafter a spot of milk is de rigueur.
I was assured that I'd had no coffee and subsequently filed coffee under hallucinatory experience as a result of chemical exposure.
The note book had words like disconnected distant, incoherent, rambling, out of it, crawled up the stairs on hands and knees. And so on. I just don't remember but the notes seem exhaustive.
The bedroom window was steadily rained on when I turned in about 2000 after the pink pills. Unfortunately, now the steroids began their journey to my brain which was rapidly winding itself into overdrive.
Even Wimbledon was unable to stop frequent visits from an obviously anxious and increasingly tired looking minder. I had no needs to be met but that wasn't enough to stop the requests for being allowed to bring mugs of tea or whatever but each time I tried to kindly refuse the offers. Not only had I no needs, I had no wants, either.
By 2200 the rain was as hard as ever and I had a head full of ideas and a tablet with Amazon. The notepad made interesting reading. Details. I felt so alert, feeble, a bit leaden but the brain was on fire.
There was no let up in the rain when eventually I was joined by my puzzled and obviously no less anxious keeper of records. I mentioned the coffee again and was assured that it was just my imagination.
I was still wide awake listening to the rain when in the early hours a quiet voice said, you are right about the coffee, the first thing I did when we got in was to make a coffee for which you had become desperate. Sorry I forgot.
She doesn't forget, she was overwhelmed by circumstances. Swept up in the anxiety of experiencing the unknown for the umpteenth time in recent weeks let alone the months preceding all this.
It was still raining as I realised that the state of the nearest and dearest to me was as troubled at times as mine wasn't. I just do what I'm told, respond to what I'm asked and offer arms to needles. The results just happen and it is what it is.
I deal with it as best as I can but she has to experience it as well and all she wants to do is make things better for me, spends her time wondering what more she can do, frets in case there's anything else she could do that she hasn't done. Every day. All the time it's there. It's become her mindset.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
That's why she "forgot" about the coffee, she was totally overwhelmed by all these goings on.
It's so much easier for me than for her.
That's the real Costa Coffee.
On Wednesday it was still raining at 0300.
Arriving in Cherryade in good time the formalities felt normal as did the canulation and dispensation of the chemicals various. Normality extended right up to he point when the tablet I'm typing on now seemed to need more security than I could offer. Hastily it was passed to the keeper of all good things sat almost next to me.
Somewhere a switch moved imperceptibly and with no discernable click but the effect was profound. Cannula removed and a wet walk to the car is barely remembered.
It was raining getting in the car and getting out of it.
Home and the front room sofa was as far as I could manage. Lying down was OK but once I got up even that became impossible. For the first time I was noticeably nauseous, not sick but, oh dear, not nice. Sitting was the only option.
I'm vaguely aware that our friends were there to see the effect of Chemo#3, so totally different and unexpected. They saw me at my worst for which I'm sorry and hope I didn't say anything that shouldn't have been said.
My recollection of the afternoon is effectively non-existent.
About 1830 I was aware of the rain on the bedroom window and the taker of notes attempting to give the impression that all was normal. There was, however, a definite aura of anxiety present. Tea? Yes, please. I'll bring it up. No, I'll come down. Which I did.
The rain was gently running off the veranda as tea was slowly taken. The world had not quite synchronised with me, nor I with it but I did eat. Then I was told that I'd spent the afternoon drinking. Really? I had no recollection of it bar a mug of black coffee but it would appear that I had at various times downed two pints of squash and two mugs of tea. But what about the coffee? You didn't have any she said referring to the ever present notebook. I distinctly remembered a mug of black coffee which I was convinced I'd had because it wasn't in a mug usually associated with coffee and it was black. My first coffee of the day is black to avoid having to start the day with Creon but thereafter a spot of milk is de rigueur.
I was assured that I'd had no coffee and subsequently filed coffee under hallucinatory experience as a result of chemical exposure.
The note book had words like disconnected distant, incoherent, rambling, out of it, crawled up the stairs on hands and knees. And so on. I just don't remember but the notes seem exhaustive.
The bedroom window was steadily rained on when I turned in about 2000 after the pink pills. Unfortunately, now the steroids began their journey to my brain which was rapidly winding itself into overdrive.
Even Wimbledon was unable to stop frequent visits from an obviously anxious and increasingly tired looking minder. I had no needs to be met but that wasn't enough to stop the requests for being allowed to bring mugs of tea or whatever but each time I tried to kindly refuse the offers. Not only had I no needs, I had no wants, either.
By 2200 the rain was as hard as ever and I had a head full of ideas and a tablet with Amazon. The notepad made interesting reading. Details. I felt so alert, feeble, a bit leaden but the brain was on fire.
There was no let up in the rain when eventually I was joined by my puzzled and obviously no less anxious keeper of records. I mentioned the coffee again and was assured that it was just my imagination.
I was still wide awake listening to the rain when in the early hours a quiet voice said, you are right about the coffee, the first thing I did when we got in was to make a coffee for which you had become desperate. Sorry I forgot.
She doesn't forget, she was overwhelmed by circumstances. Swept up in the anxiety of experiencing the unknown for the umpteenth time in recent weeks let alone the months preceding all this.
It was still raining as I realised that the state of the nearest and dearest to me was as troubled at times as mine wasn't. I just do what I'm told, respond to what I'm asked and offer arms to needles. The results just happen and it is what it is.
I deal with it as best as I can but she has to experience it as well and all she wants to do is make things better for me, spends her time wondering what more she can do, frets in case there's anything else she could do that she hasn't done. Every day. All the time it's there. It's become her mindset.
And there's nothing I can do about it.
That's why she "forgot" about the coffee, she was totally overwhelmed by all these goings on.
It's so much easier for me than for her.
That's the real Costa Coffee.
On Wednesday it was still raining at 0300.
Sunday, July 09, 2017
Morgies and Bounce
Earlier this week I was asked how I felt. Like a stewed morgie, I said. The surprised puzzlement induced by this reply was bordering on the incredulous.
This morning an uncle of mine phoned. Owarreeeenbuy?
Like a stewed morgie, I said and the conversation continued naturally on its way.
In a corner of this country there’s a place where a few will completely understand how I feel. There are those of the diaspora who will get it, too. Somehow it encompasses perfectly how my week has been and if you understand the term you’ll know how I’m feeling. If you don’t it’s to do with dogs.
Not the smelly things that stain our pavements and drag their selfish owners around cycle paths on the end of bits of string long enough to completely go across the entire path. Not like the yappy thing a few houses down from ours that gets let out every morning between 0630 and 0730 and yaps incessantly leaving me lying awake wondering what time high tide is and thinking of a sack, a brick and a cable tie.
Dogfish. There are two types, morgies and bounce. Bounce get quite excited when taken out of the net or off the hook, they twist, turn and generally show wriggly signs of agitation. Morgies, on the other hand are far more docile and lethargic. Thus to feel like a stewed morgie is to be decidedly sluggish, slow, reluctant to expend any effort or as my carer described me, sludgy and dopey. That, however, doesn’t begin to do it justice. It doesn’t conjour up a picture which language should. It needs embellishment, which language shouldn’t, it just isn’t fitty.
It’s another example of the absence of shared experience impacting negatively on this wonderful English language of ours. When communities existed for generations in stable proximity local experience flavoured the language enriching its use by evolving such descriptors to say a vast amount with great economy of words. More importantly, it was universally, in a local context, understood accurately and required no elucidation or explanation. Nor did it elicit a deluge of questions as invariably is now the case.
Furthermore it could be passed on to any other local enquirer and they, too, would have a full and precise understanding of the situation in the time it took to pass one another in the street. No room for exaggeration in the exchange of information, no massaging or embellishment of the message, no minimising it’s import if any.
It seems that answering even the simplest of questions in the plainest of language is insufficient to satiate some questioners. Invariably it merely leads to the exasperation of being unable to explain yourself in a manner that is found acceptable. Every nuance has to be further explored, every inevitable implied uncertainty must be turned over and sifted until the meaning is understood to the satisfaction of the listener.
Unfortunately this leads to the desire for accuracy to be subsumed under the need for peace and quiet. Thus subsequent questions become increasingly valueless as the answers given are in response to the desire for an end to the process not a desire to be accurately understood.
Thus, today, I have realised why the sum total of the English language for purposes of question and answer sessions can effectively be rendered as good as it needs to be by the use of just three words. Yup, nope, alright.
In my view the dire state of the English language can be laid fairly at the door of Facebook and twittering. I don't do either but I notice with risible anger that much, if not most news on the web now comes from the authors of such facile outpourings, if a tweet can constitute an outpouring. I'm sure that a picture of a cake, meal, drink can certainly not offer anything of more than milliseconds of interest which no doubt explains it's popularity in the sorely tried mind of the Facebook users attention span. I just find it slightly concerning that it stays forever in the 0 and 1 vaults of the virtual garage never to be cleared out.
I don't engage with social media, apart from this blog and am increasingly disparaging of those whose lives are constrained by 144,000 characters or whatever Facebook allows. Despairing, too of those whose passage through life is head down permanently observing the screen below their nose oblivious to all about, even to the ones for whom they have responsibility. I'm not the best user of an iPhone, I haven't taken to contracts although I have embraced streaming tunes. Rather well, actually.
What I value most has been found in friends, not virtual ones but ones like my advisor who turned up this week with a bag of cherries. I'd forgotten how much I liked them so from the vantage point of a garden seat I now expect to see cherry trees rise up in random places before me. And those like an aunt of mine who took the time and effort to write a wonderfully expressive card this week. Sadly, but predictably, she is unworthy of her nephew who has yet to respond. Maybe tomorrow after the blood tests. Sooner than dreckly, though.
However, one feels that one's comfortable stance from outside the wall of virtualised reality is somewhat under attack. Not that I'm likely to add to a Facebook page or twitt any time soon but, but, but.
Late yesterday afternoon my carers iPhone6 Super Deluxe whistled as it suffered an attack of Facebook incoming. In this case it was incoming via video from the seafront, 10 minutes away. Sent by a friend who I think I'd last seen on August bank holiday 1984. We'd shared halls at college and he turned up here in a Daimler Double-Six Van den Plas. It was a memorable day, doubly so, in fact as it was also the day that our daughter came home from hospital and England lost to Ceylon, or was it Sri Lanka?
We hastily arranged collection but too hastily to convey his family in the time scale so we look forward to meeting them another time. Isn't it amazing, 32 years pass and its like you were yarning yesterday. Social Media engineered that. It also engineered a communication from afar expressing delight over our visit, very nice but only my carer was privy because I don't do Social Media.
Late this afternoon another incoming Facebook missive from a friend with whom we shared the same halls in the 70's. This one and his wife we have seen since, about twice in over three decades. They're passing by on Friday. Courtesy of Social Media a visit has been arranged and is being looked forward to.
Finally, thus far today, a phone call, a landline phone call. How wonderful is that? I answered and was met by the familiar voice of one with whom I was at school and at college. He and his wife will visit tomorrow. How great is that? No Social Media involvement in evidence. My comfort zone has been partially restored but seeing Social Media bridge the virtual and real has caused a degree of unease.
So, a week during which I have been like a stewed morgie has also been characterised by having had a bellyfull. In English that is not a full belly, but a bellyfull, a proper bellyfull. In this case I've had a bellyfull of my belly which has at no time been full but which at times has felt like it's having a life of its own and which seems intent on divorcing itself from me. It's not painful but it is uncomfortable. I can't explain it any better so do not even think of supplementary questions and consider it fortunate that I don't do Social Media otherwise I may have had photos of it in its wide angle scarred glory all over my Facebook page. It's far too big for a twit.
It may have made Instagram, but I don't do that, either.
This morning an uncle of mine phoned. Owarreeeenbuy?
Like a stewed morgie, I said and the conversation continued naturally on its way.
In a corner of this country there’s a place where a few will completely understand how I feel. There are those of the diaspora who will get it, too. Somehow it encompasses perfectly how my week has been and if you understand the term you’ll know how I’m feeling. If you don’t it’s to do with dogs.
Not the smelly things that stain our pavements and drag their selfish owners around cycle paths on the end of bits of string long enough to completely go across the entire path. Not like the yappy thing a few houses down from ours that gets let out every morning between 0630 and 0730 and yaps incessantly leaving me lying awake wondering what time high tide is and thinking of a sack, a brick and a cable tie.
Dogfish. There are two types, morgies and bounce. Bounce get quite excited when taken out of the net or off the hook, they twist, turn and generally show wriggly signs of agitation. Morgies, on the other hand are far more docile and lethargic. Thus to feel like a stewed morgie is to be decidedly sluggish, slow, reluctant to expend any effort or as my carer described me, sludgy and dopey. That, however, doesn’t begin to do it justice. It doesn’t conjour up a picture which language should. It needs embellishment, which language shouldn’t, it just isn’t fitty.
It’s another example of the absence of shared experience impacting negatively on this wonderful English language of ours. When communities existed for generations in stable proximity local experience flavoured the language enriching its use by evolving such descriptors to say a vast amount with great economy of words. More importantly, it was universally, in a local context, understood accurately and required no elucidation or explanation. Nor did it elicit a deluge of questions as invariably is now the case.
Furthermore it could be passed on to any other local enquirer and they, too, would have a full and precise understanding of the situation in the time it took to pass one another in the street. No room for exaggeration in the exchange of information, no massaging or embellishment of the message, no minimising it’s import if any.
It seems that answering even the simplest of questions in the plainest of language is insufficient to satiate some questioners. Invariably it merely leads to the exasperation of being unable to explain yourself in a manner that is found acceptable. Every nuance has to be further explored, every inevitable implied uncertainty must be turned over and sifted until the meaning is understood to the satisfaction of the listener.
Unfortunately this leads to the desire for accuracy to be subsumed under the need for peace and quiet. Thus subsequent questions become increasingly valueless as the answers given are in response to the desire for an end to the process not a desire to be accurately understood.
Thus, today, I have realised why the sum total of the English language for purposes of question and answer sessions can effectively be rendered as good as it needs to be by the use of just three words. Yup, nope, alright.
In my view the dire state of the English language can be laid fairly at the door of Facebook and twittering. I don't do either but I notice with risible anger that much, if not most news on the web now comes from the authors of such facile outpourings, if a tweet can constitute an outpouring. I'm sure that a picture of a cake, meal, drink can certainly not offer anything of more than milliseconds of interest which no doubt explains it's popularity in the sorely tried mind of the Facebook users attention span. I just find it slightly concerning that it stays forever in the 0 and 1 vaults of the virtual garage never to be cleared out.
I don't engage with social media, apart from this blog and am increasingly disparaging of those whose lives are constrained by 144,000 characters or whatever Facebook allows. Despairing, too of those whose passage through life is head down permanently observing the screen below their nose oblivious to all about, even to the ones for whom they have responsibility. I'm not the best user of an iPhone, I haven't taken to contracts although I have embraced streaming tunes. Rather well, actually.
What I value most has been found in friends, not virtual ones but ones like my advisor who turned up this week with a bag of cherries. I'd forgotten how much I liked them so from the vantage point of a garden seat I now expect to see cherry trees rise up in random places before me. And those like an aunt of mine who took the time and effort to write a wonderfully expressive card this week. Sadly, but predictably, she is unworthy of her nephew who has yet to respond. Maybe tomorrow after the blood tests. Sooner than dreckly, though.
However, one feels that one's comfortable stance from outside the wall of virtualised reality is somewhat under attack. Not that I'm likely to add to a Facebook page or twitt any time soon but, but, but.
Late yesterday afternoon my carers iPhone6 Super Deluxe whistled as it suffered an attack of Facebook incoming. In this case it was incoming via video from the seafront, 10 minutes away. Sent by a friend who I think I'd last seen on August bank holiday 1984. We'd shared halls at college and he turned up here in a Daimler Double-Six Van den Plas. It was a memorable day, doubly so, in fact as it was also the day that our daughter came home from hospital and England lost to Ceylon, or was it Sri Lanka?
We hastily arranged collection but too hastily to convey his family in the time scale so we look forward to meeting them another time. Isn't it amazing, 32 years pass and its like you were yarning yesterday. Social Media engineered that. It also engineered a communication from afar expressing delight over our visit, very nice but only my carer was privy because I don't do Social Media.
Late this afternoon another incoming Facebook missive from a friend with whom we shared the same halls in the 70's. This one and his wife we have seen since, about twice in over three decades. They're passing by on Friday. Courtesy of Social Media a visit has been arranged and is being looked forward to.
Finally, thus far today, a phone call, a landline phone call. How wonderful is that? I answered and was met by the familiar voice of one with whom I was at school and at college. He and his wife will visit tomorrow. How great is that? No Social Media involvement in evidence. My comfort zone has been partially restored but seeing Social Media bridge the virtual and real has caused a degree of unease.
So, a week during which I have been like a stewed morgie has also been characterised by having had a bellyfull. In English that is not a full belly, but a bellyfull, a proper bellyfull. In this case I've had a bellyfull of my belly which has at no time been full but which at times has felt like it's having a life of its own and which seems intent on divorcing itself from me. It's not painful but it is uncomfortable. I can't explain it any better so do not even think of supplementary questions and consider it fortunate that I don't do Social Media otherwise I may have had photos of it in its wide angle scarred glory all over my Facebook page. It's far too big for a twit.
It may have made Instagram, but I don't do that, either.
Monday, July 03, 2017
Empathy for Keith (Richards)
Sat as I am in the presence of greatness one cannot but help appreciating Life, I haven't read it but I'm sure it's author will one day write volume two. Certainly, as he gives life to "You got the silver" I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to have seen him and his band on more than one occasion. Probably the greatest rock and roll band in the world. I've even had tea with the father of the lead singer in Chippenham. That was a while ago, though.
This week my appreciation of Keef has increased immeasurably. I've had a week on drugs, he's had almost a lifetime. It has been weird, extremely weird. No two days have been the same, I'd go as far as to say that no two hours have, either. One afternoon I think I watched a big hand race a little one for three full turns of the clock face. Can't remember much else but it wasn't any great effort to do.
One morning I wandered downstairs into the kitchen, no big deal but this once I saw empty spaces on the walls as opportunies for photos I wanted to print, mount and hang. Clear as day.
Inspiration of a magnitude way beyond my normal functionality. I went up and printed one photo but my hanging skillset seems to have deserted me. That's not to say the photo isn't hung, it is but it has been poorly mounted and badly hung. The fact that it is emplaced is testimony to my acceptance that things are not as things were. I have printed another, I have cut a piece of mountboard and once I get some 3M Spraymount I will endeavour to hang it properly.
If such inspiration was the norm for Keef then I can only conclude that no matter how wonderful the out working of his chemically inspired inspiration was it should have been more.
Undoubtedly the most important events during this whole period have concerned the concern of friends. One phone call from 120 miles away has already been mentioned, another from nearer advised to look for patterns as they will appear and will likely have a degree of predictability which I suppose is what makes them a recognisable pattern in the first place. We'll see her for a cup of tea this week sometime I hope.
Visitors have made the week memorable for all the right reasons. A couple we've known for ever and who we last saw in Malta came for a few days. Their visit brought a tangible degree of normality to what is, no matter how we may like to describe it, a most abnormal situation. It was sheer joy to be left to my own devices, if only for a short while. Not that there were many devices I could turn my hand to, whilst my carer went shopping/walking/whatevering with her friend as she always has done. I'm seriously thankful that they came and stayed as they normally do.
Normality is a big deal.
The visit of grandson avec parents was also more than a bit special but it would have been so no matter what. Again, normality.
Last night a txt from afar offered the prospect of another visit from friends less frequently seen who may well come to stay a while. A fellow Cornishman who married an English wife, wise man, eh?
I / we have been blessed with visitors, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for hours. However short or long the visit it is always enough to take you somewhere.
This blog is so useful in this respect as those who want to know already do which means that the how are you question has already been answered so enabling conversation to start elsewhere. Another touch of normality.
Earlier we had friends from not too far away who visit most weeks but who have been on holiday recently. It was so good to see them again, then another friend popped in and later another dropped by for a cup of tea and a yarn with the PA. Delightful.
Today was an equally differently strange day. The pink pills and Rice Krispies at 0800 are normally followed by a lie down but were today immediately followed by a trip to our local surgery to have some blood taken. Alas, I was rubbish at that, too. The nurse tried valiantly and apologetically but despite attempting to pull a pint or two from both arms neither was interested. Eventually she managed to squeeze out a drip or two. If its not enough they'll have to try again in Cherryade tomorrow when Chemo#2 is due to be dripped in. Hey, ho, just as well it's all good!
Now, in an hour the next dose of pink pills will fall due but before then I have a delicious Guinness to imbibe, albeit slowly. This, and its colleagues, is part of a gift from friends I once worked with. If the truth be told, they worked, I attended. Another example of unmerited kindness from busy people who have better things to think about than me/us but who exercise their concern in a hugely supportive manner. Gratitude abounds toward them.
I may not have Keith's talent, skill, creativity, chemically enhanced or not but if he hasn't got friends like ours he is a poor man to be greatly pitied.
And if you're ever tempted to visit, give in to the temptation whoever it is and if staying over is what you do, do it. If you know where we are, drop in! On a good day the coffee has been known to be rather good. The tea isn't bad, either.
Normality is most precious and well worth encouraging, at which point I ought to mention that Keith is currently singing "Happy."
How appropriate is that?
This week my appreciation of Keef has increased immeasurably. I've had a week on drugs, he's had almost a lifetime. It has been weird, extremely weird. No two days have been the same, I'd go as far as to say that no two hours have, either. One afternoon I think I watched a big hand race a little one for three full turns of the clock face. Can't remember much else but it wasn't any great effort to do.
One morning I wandered downstairs into the kitchen, no big deal but this once I saw empty spaces on the walls as opportunies for photos I wanted to print, mount and hang. Clear as day.
Inspiration of a magnitude way beyond my normal functionality. I went up and printed one photo but my hanging skillset seems to have deserted me. That's not to say the photo isn't hung, it is but it has been poorly mounted and badly hung. The fact that it is emplaced is testimony to my acceptance that things are not as things were. I have printed another, I have cut a piece of mountboard and once I get some 3M Spraymount I will endeavour to hang it properly.
If such inspiration was the norm for Keef then I can only conclude that no matter how wonderful the out working of his chemically inspired inspiration was it should have been more.
Undoubtedly the most important events during this whole period have concerned the concern of friends. One phone call from 120 miles away has already been mentioned, another from nearer advised to look for patterns as they will appear and will likely have a degree of predictability which I suppose is what makes them a recognisable pattern in the first place. We'll see her for a cup of tea this week sometime I hope.
Visitors have made the week memorable for all the right reasons. A couple we've known for ever and who we last saw in Malta came for a few days. Their visit brought a tangible degree of normality to what is, no matter how we may like to describe it, a most abnormal situation. It was sheer joy to be left to my own devices, if only for a short while. Not that there were many devices I could turn my hand to, whilst my carer went shopping/walking/whatevering with her friend as she always has done. I'm seriously thankful that they came and stayed as they normally do.
Normality is a big deal.
The visit of grandson avec parents was also more than a bit special but it would have been so no matter what. Again, normality.
Last night a txt from afar offered the prospect of another visit from friends less frequently seen who may well come to stay a while. A fellow Cornishman who married an English wife, wise man, eh?
I / we have been blessed with visitors, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for hours. However short or long the visit it is always enough to take you somewhere.
This blog is so useful in this respect as those who want to know already do which means that the how are you question has already been answered so enabling conversation to start elsewhere. Another touch of normality.
Earlier we had friends from not too far away who visit most weeks but who have been on holiday recently. It was so good to see them again, then another friend popped in and later another dropped by for a cup of tea and a yarn with the PA. Delightful.
Today was an equally differently strange day. The pink pills and Rice Krispies at 0800 are normally followed by a lie down but were today immediately followed by a trip to our local surgery to have some blood taken. Alas, I was rubbish at that, too. The nurse tried valiantly and apologetically but despite attempting to pull a pint or two from both arms neither was interested. Eventually she managed to squeeze out a drip or two. If its not enough they'll have to try again in Cherryade tomorrow when Chemo#2 is due to be dripped in. Hey, ho, just as well it's all good!
Now, in an hour the next dose of pink pills will fall due but before then I have a delicious Guinness to imbibe, albeit slowly. This, and its colleagues, is part of a gift from friends I once worked with. If the truth be told, they worked, I attended. Another example of unmerited kindness from busy people who have better things to think about than me/us but who exercise their concern in a hugely supportive manner. Gratitude abounds toward them.
I may not have Keith's talent, skill, creativity, chemically enhanced or not but if he hasn't got friends like ours he is a poor man to be greatly pitied.
And if you're ever tempted to visit, give in to the temptation whoever it is and if staying over is what you do, do it. If you know where we are, drop in! On a good day the coffee has been known to be rather good. The tea isn't bad, either.
Normality is most precious and well worth encouraging, at which point I ought to mention that Keith is currently singing "Happy."
How appropriate is that?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)