I have just rubbed udder cream into the soles of my feet, specifically the balls of my feet behind the toes and the heels, just in case anyone was even slightly interested.
This is not normal. I am not known for loitering in the vicinity of male grooming outlets. I have never understood why after shave is worthy of so much TV time, nor razors for that matter, I just don't get the spray it all over adverts since 'enry Cooper stopped spraying whatever it was he sprayed. Brut, I think.
However, udder cream seems to help with the sore feet. Sadly, I recognise the pattern too late. The same thing happened 24-36 hours after chemo #5 and now it's barely 40 hours since chemo#6, which went well.
The real bummer is that I mentioned it in hospital last week and this was taken as an excuse to order new slippers, not that I needed them. Thus, I now have new slippers, not just any slippers but M&S slippers and very nice they are, too. They just don't quite fit like the old ones.
My now old slippers lie in a wicker bin from which they need rescuing. They have hardly been used over the last 20 or 30 years, most used in the last 6 months. I recall using them abroad where civilization mocks our carpeted floors as they can revel in the cool joy of ceramic and stone tiled floors. But you get used to slippers.
I know that they're not in the best of health and haven't aged particularly well but I've kept them going. As each of the moccassin threads has unravelled I have managed to keep upper and sole together with appropriately sized and correctly trimmed cable ties. I could easily find something to stick inside them to cover the worn out areas, notably the soles and heels which initially, and incorrectly took the blame for my udder creamed feet. You just can't throw stuff away because it's old, can you?
The feet are the result of chemo. We were warned but it just sounded a bit far fetched all those weeks ago, which actually wasn't that long ago. Chemo screws with any notion of normality. I can see the start of patterns but what constitutes normal I have no idea.
At each chemo the cancer nurse asks a zillion questions, mostly about my wee, poo, feelings of nausea, vomit and tiredness. When I say I've been in bed for umpteen hours I'm told it's normal. I don't need to discuss other aspects but these, too, are considered normal. I sit and struggle but mostly I want to scream out just to say it's not normal. It is not in any way normal.
Normal is getting up and doing stuff, normal is visiting family, normal is visiting friends, normal is going to church on Sunday, normal is flying to warm places, normal is catching a ferry and driving on deserted French roads stopping to sample le baguettier, le patissier, le boulangier et aussi le supermarchè, or le supermercado.
Normal is doing the loadsajobs I ought, indeed want to do. I want to touch up and repaint the areas affected by the replacement windows fitted before Christmas. I want to build a shed, I want to fit a mortice lock to the front door. It is normal for me to be able to do such things and normally I do.
Normal is enjoying an outdoors summer, normal is riding bikes along tow paths and stopping for a pint and cheesy chips in a not too busy pub. Normal is pointing my camera at whatever composition catches my eye. Normal is putting the world to rights over a pint or two with friends.
Normal is a wife who, very occasionally and never without justification, fusses, moans and complains at my uselessness and constant invocation of dreckly. Now that I am totally useless she offers nothing but support, help, calmness, control and decisiveness with frequent displays of ill disguised anxiety. It's called love, in sickness and in health.
It is not normal for her to rub udder cream into my feet because i just can't manage even that now. It may be that she will react normally when she sees that I've rescued the old slippers from the bin into which she indelicately pressed them. I was instructed to wear socks but you can't do that in summer, it's not normal and I don't want to ruin my new M&S slippers when they're only a day or two old, do I?
Normality may never be what it once was but normal this is not.
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