Coping with Cancer - Chemotherapy or November?



1. Wake up. Its 7am and its still dark. Weigh up motivations for getting up or staying in bed. Stay in bed for another hour.
2. Take 800 mg of highly toxic cancer medication
3. Check the TV guide over breakfast. The highlight of the day is University Challenge – which doesn’t start for another twelve hours. What am I going to for the rest of the day?
4. Read a book for ten minutes to try and feel productive. Decide its too early. Watch the new Taylor Swift video on You Tube instead, then make a cup of coffee.
5. Spend the morning arranging old holiday photos on Facebook. I used to be so happy and good looking. What’s happened?
6. Eat some toast, then stab myself in the stomach with an immune boosting injection. Regret eating the toast.
7. Spend an hour looking for Christmas films on Netflix, then turn it off and watch a repeat of How I Met Your Mother on Channel 4.
8. Change into running kit. Jog around the kitchen until it stops raining. It doesn’t stop raining, so change out of running kit and take a shower. Realise that I might as well have run in the rain.
9. Consider ordering a Domino’s pizza for lunch, then make a cheese sandwich instead. Feel ridiculously virtuous for making this decision.
10. Its still raining. Close the curtains, take some steroids and snuggle up with the cat to watch La La Land.
11. Enter competitions to win holidays to LA. Then enter more competitions to win a holiday anywhere. Then enter a competition to win a year’s supply of things I don’t need - like butter.
12. Go to bed for an hour, just because.
13. Walk to the shop to buy something for dinner. Buy some cat food and a chocolate bar. Forget to buy anything for dinner.
14. Consider going for a run, but it starts to rain again. Stay in and check Facebook instead. No-one is doing anything interesting, so make my own cancer update. No-one seems interested in that either.
15. Walk to Domino’s in full set of gloves, scarf and handwarmers. The rain soaks through my gloves and gives me painful peripheral neuropathy. Wonder if cancer justifies getting pizza delivered (Domino’s is three minutes’ walk away).
16. Take some highly toxic chemotherapy drugs, washed down with some chicken dippers in garlic sauce. Then take three anti-nausea pills and tuck into the cheesy chilli bites.
17. Check Facebook. Five comments on my latest cancer update. A lot of people saying that I’m being really brave and wanting to pray for me. Little do they know what I do all day.
18. Watch University Challenge in blank, depressing silence.
19. Watch five minutes of Nigella’s Christmas, then decide to go to bed. Read a book for five minutes, watch some more Taylor Swift videos, then pass out.
20. Wake up the next morning. The chemo nausea is better. Decide I must be completely fine and go for a run. Today is going to be a better day. Then it starts raining again.
Chemotherapy 2, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20
November 1, 3, 4 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Alliterative Alternative

Yes, that was the exercise. A poem with alliteration on every line written about love for an object. Very trying, but it did mean that I got to let out some more confessions about the concerning relationship between my bike and I. Love on Two Wheels - A Poem Clunk clunk clunk Shifts will shank and slip Click click click Barings bounce and break Squeaal. Squeaaal. Pads rasp on rim Scratch, scratch. Saddle scrapes my crotch Handles hammer hands Wheelarch rakes the thigh Pedals pummel my shin You’re unreliable as a rat Painful as a piercing You hurt and harangue me, You make my stomach sick Yet my bike, my beau I love you For all the hurt and the pain When we pedal the peaks, We speed and fly on the freeway You make me live and laugh; Clamour and acclaim. We journey, one organ, one person. We join together, cycle and soul We are welded Amalgamated A bond unbreakable That’s why you are more Than a painting or
Read more

Why I run fifty miles a week

'Why do you do it?' my friends ask me day after day. 'Why do you get out there and run every day? Don't you think you might be a bit of a masochist?' Little do they realise that in this one statement, they have touched upon exactly the reason why I run fifty miles a week through all fifty two weeks a year. I do it because it hurts. There are some very simple reasons why the pain that running causes can become a pleasurable feeling, in fact for many people the hurt is the very reason why they go out running in the first place. 'I want to get fit,' they say. 'I want to lose weight, I want to challenge myself.' They know that running is going to hurt, and in the back of their minds they want it to. In hurting running validates itself, it attains a purpose. As the steps get harder and the sweat begins to build, a constant reminder in your head says: 'I am getting stronger, I am getting fitter. I am losing the pounds off my arse.' Then as you star
Read more

A Poetic Interlude

Hello all Its poetry time on the Creative Writing Course. I am dothing my beret and will go and sit in the nearest field, just when it stops raining and/or being freezing. So far it has proved a mixed bag. I have written a poem while listening to music (exercise 12.3) which went well, and i have written a poem about a cow (exercise 12.5), which was awful. I will share the former if you don't mind. The Lake The plain of your stomach Still and serene as a mountain lake I kiss the top of the water A ripple up your body A breath of air sounds above me Leaves rustle in recognition The waters lap against my face Warm and soft like the womb I want to dive in Submerge myself in blue syrup Fill my pores with your touch Mix my body with you You urge me down deeper Until i can see or feel no other The world is blue, is you I am blue. I am the water. So that was written while listening to Tender by Blur interestingly enough. Okay its not perfect, but its a start. Next assignment - a poem with
Read more