A view from the chemo bridge

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This is my view from the bridge. It’s very quiet here today but the lovely chatty nurses keep me company and lavish me with tea and quality street. I also get my lunch here – quite a picnic, crisps, cake and sandwiches – I feel like I am at Charlie Chalks – I am hoping for a balloon at the end “I have had chemo today”.

I am being pumped with stuff for 9 hours solid so plenty of time to blog. Because of the volume of liquid being pumped in one is obliged to relieve one self of it about every hour still attached to all the tubes. I have seen this in movies but never had a go myself. It’s a surprisingly free spirited process. First you unplug a couple of devices from the mains, at the back of your mind is the thought that you might A – accidentally unplug the person next doors life support, B – deflate like a punctured lilo, then you need to wrap the wires around your wheely tripod thing as the alternative is to negotiate a load of tubes and a load of wires like something from Jules Verne with the potential to end up in an undignified sprawl as you slip surreptitiously past the waiting room. Having negotiated a series of doors cunningly not designed for persons bearing a wheely tripod thing you with your voyeuristic tripod wheely thing take a leak or a dump. However during said process the machine that pumps stuff may sound it’s alarm. The effect is an instant curtailment of urinary flow and thus the commencement of a vicious circle –

A little while later – I am now on the the heavy duty poison and feel completely stoned – not bad – very good indeed! I have just conducted an interview with two charming medical students while under the influence – oh dear – I hope I did not go on about God or vintage telephones. Very interesting chat, at least for me. The cyclophosphamide is my usual chemo but this mega dose has produced my usual Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds symptoms – it seems that almost any drug induces euphoria in me – aren’t I lucky.

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