Chemo 10

 Have you ever hoped to have a positive covid test?  Hoped that is, not got.

I thought if I had covid I could get out of my chemo sessions for a week or two. 

So I wasn’t in a very positive mood when I showed up for my 13th session yesterday.  It had been a fraught day. I needed to pick up a prescription that I was all out of before I took the cab to the hospital, and the driver agreed to do that.  I said I would be five minutes, but there was a queue of four people in front of me. When I finally got served, they couldn’t find one of my prescriptions, so I said, forget that, I’ll just take what you have. If was getting on for 10 minutes of waiting time for the cabby, and I was afraid he might have gone off.  But he was there, but he had no idea where the entrance to the hospital that I needed was. So I got out at the nearest bus stop and walked the rest of the way. 

So, first of all I was late for my appointment, so I was fraught with that, and then they all ignored me for a good half hour before they came to take my blood. It takes two  hours to get the results back, so I settled down to wait.  Suddenly I had the same sharp squeezing pain in my left side, just below the breast, and it got worse and worse.  I knew from previous experience of this sensation, i needed to get up and walk around and drink some water. I got up and was so faint that the effort of walking four steps to the water dispenser was too much, so the kitchen lady, seeing my distress, asked if she could get me something. Just water, I said, and collapsed down in my chair. She brought it over and iI had a sip, but the pain was getting worse, and luckily the nurse walked by.  I managed to convey to her my problem, and she rushed to get the BP machine.  All my stats were normal.  But the pain wasn’t stopping, and although it seemed to lessen for awhile, it got worse again.  I had never had it this bad before.  But eventually it settled down.  She talked to me about other episodes and how I had been getting on this last week.  I wrote it out earlier but didn’t post it because it sounded so pitiful. 

I have been crying all morning. Not sobs and wailing sort of crying, just a slow regular flow of big fat drops that showly roll down my cheeks. Why? Everything. 

I think I have given myself food poisoning at least twice this week.  Not intentionally, but knowingly.  I find preparing food for myself a job that I don’t really want to do. So I get frozen meals, and microwave them, and they are pretty awful. So I made use of the leftovers from a week ago - and guess what?  Not a good idea.  I didn’t get sick, but lots of diahhrea.  

And before that I had half a frozen lasagna, but then fell asleep in front of the TV and when I woke up, I was very disorientated, so went straight to bed, forgetting to put the leftovers in the fridge. But I ate the other half the next night - knowing it might have been growing nasties in the night. Why? Couldn’t be bothered to cook anything else.  

And I made jelly. That took some enterprise. I had to pick the crab apples, boil them, mash them, sieve them, boil the juice, sterilize the jars.  But I got impatient with the boiling process.  My thermometer went to 99, and then eventually to 102, but it was supposed to get to 105.  I gave up, put it in jars, left it out. A couple of days later, some of it was mouldy. I threw those bits away, but I had been eating it, and Google tells me spores get into the produce so even if you get rid of the mould, they are still there and not good. So maybe that made me ill too.  I did boil it again and haven’t tried it since. Boiling gets rid of mould.  

I think my saddest thing is that my daughter isn’t coming to see me this week. That is totally selfish of me, because she is a Uni lecturer and they start back this week, and she was totally unprepared as she spent the weekend trying to settle her daughter at her Uni - and it wasn’t easy.  The studio she is renting hadn’t been used last year, and hadn’t been cleaned either, so my daughter had to wash walls and floors and all the cupboards etc.  And kill loads of monster spiders. 

I sleep but wake up tired.  

That’s the end of my earlier writing.  Sorry if it sounds pathetic. I am better now. 

But the update of my episode was that the nurses decided I was too ill to have chemo so they sent me home despite the fact that my blood tests came back normal.   I am so glad I didn’t have covid. I have a lovely free week, feeling better than I possibly could have had if iI had been given my usual dose. 

I feel like I have been given a get out of jail free card.