A Visit to Chemo

Or, my original title, abandoned when the strike through wouldn't work in the title box...

The C word ward.

Cathedral ward is not a ward in the normal sense of beds and lockers. It is a large room where large comfy looking [but growing steadily more uncomfortable as the hours drag by] leather armchairs line the walls  in curtained bays. Each bay has a wall of plugs, lights, and fan behind the chairs, and drip stands with special boxlike attachments which cleverly time the speed of the poisons delivered to us in an effort to kill or cure us or, in my case, prolong my life.

All the chairs are occupied. Some patients relax and read or do puzzles others talk to their companions, seldom is anyone alone. NOAOS and I talk or play scrabble on his remarkable phone. He is not too well this week and it is very hot in the ward. An hour drags by as my arms are wrapped in a heat pad in an effort to enlarge my tiny veins .
Success at last only two attempts,then 10minutes of a flush, 30 minutes first chemo. bag, another flush and final chemo. bag of 60minutes  and another flush. Only 3hours and 40 minutes...then another wait as my drugs are collected explained and handed over..  I was given some Steroids so I'm quite happy.  No time today for joy rides so it is straight back home.

I nag NOAOS to make an appointment to see his doctor. He now has a date for his knee replacement operation; please please let there be an end to his pain.

I feel OK but I know that by day two/three that awful lethargy will have hit me and I'll be good for nada. Still, just one more to go and we'll see.

Ta Ta darlings. Hope I haven't written anything that could scare a newbie...it truly is a pain free experience simply rather boring...oh and take your own lunch...their sandwiches are either processed cheese or ham.

And the nurses are all totally fabulous, hard-working, dedicated, funny and have become friends.

Procrastination is the thief of time...

No 1 and only son called me the other day and asked me to hurry up and get the pictures together for The Family History. Not a small undertaking, and one that I have been putting off for some time.  I finished the book almost three years ago and it sits, in his computer and mine, safe and sound, waiting for him to find the time to put it all together and get it printed.

NOAOS is a graphic designer. He has been very busy, building up his business while enduring three knee operations and a lot of pain. Perhaps he thinks he had better finish the job before we peg out, hence the phone call.

Trouble is, all the photos are EVERYWHERE.

In Boxes, envelopes, albums,

 in frames

or simply stuck on walls.

I read through the draft and started to make a list, got to number 43 before deciding there had to be a better way.

I am going to look through every box, envelope, album etc.. and make another pile containing any picture that rings a bell. That should only take a few hours, like ten or twelve.

But there is a problem. Like with the picture below, they each have a tale to tell. And I'll never get the job done.

A quickie then:

This is my great-great grandmother, Granny Gregory. At the window of the room in which she spent the last few years of her life, in the house of her youngest daughter-in-law, married to her son Teddy. This next bit is taken from The History.

I have no recollection of school then, but as Granny had to go to work we were obliged to find something to occupy the hours until she returned.  We would go down the road and visit with great granny Gregory sometimes. Just a short visit because she was very old by then and slept a great deal. She lived in a small room that smelled of talcum powder and lavender water, in the house belonging to Aunt Rose who was married to granny Young’s brother, Teddy.  I believe Teddy was quite successful at whatever he did, because we seldom saw him out of his working clothes of suit and black overcoat. He wore a Homburg hat and was very tall and serious. He had a large car that we were forbidden to touch.[Perhaps he was an undertaker]

Great granny looked rather like the old Queen Victoria. She always wore a long black dress with a white lace collar and a square of lace sat on her swept up white hair.  She would offer us a biscuit but usually forgot and nodded off to sleep before she had delivered. We would giggle and creep out of the room. I think we probably went to see whether she would ever remove the lid off the tin or if sleep would win. 

I don't think The History will be ready this side of Christmas.