Suddenly .......

...... 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.