Wednesday, 12 November 2008

To market to market to buy a fat parsnip, Home again home again jiggety arsenic. Hmm. Need to work on my poetry skills.

I'm doing flu symptoms. Marvelous. Heavy head and neck, back and limb ache, and feeling sick when I lie down. But Tom is in a worse state. He's lying in bed with a hot-water bottle on his tummy and a wet flannel on his head, groaning (Tom, not the wet flannel, though that would be an interesting novelty Christmas present - a sound-effects face cloth...). And Belinda's just had the lurgy, so come to coffee morning at ours ... tomorrow! hehe, only joking. That would be a coffee morning and a half. We could provide sick buckets and boiled rice (my mum's answer to nausea), and you could watch as our washing line falls down, again (can't get it to stay up at the moment, so all our clothes are nicely brown and crumbly from the earth they keep landing on...).

Freddie, on the other hand, is bouncing around full of beans and is working on the adjective 'smooooth' . This morning, he said to me 'Nother cuppa tea, mama?', and when I said 'Yes, I think I will', he said 'You stay 'ere, Mama, and I'll get the tea'. And on Monday, when my mum said 'Let's read a story, Freddie', Freddie said 'Good idea, Danny'. Belinda said to keep nurturing this talent for cheesy lines and offers of help, and soon we'll have a little wine waiter/tea-brewer on our hands. Which reminds me - the other day in a mummy-baby bath, Freddie poured me some water in his little beaker and said 'Glass of wine, mummy?'...

Phuh. Got a sore throat too. Nice.

I passed a kerfuffle the other day in town. An old-fashioned-looking coppa was blowing his whiste and shouting 'Stop her!'. I looked down the street and saw a very red-faced student-type coming to a halt on her bike. It turns out she was going the wrong way down a one-way street, and the copper wasted no time in telling her so. He said 'Now look what you've done! You're being embarrassed in front of ALL THESE PEOPLE', and indeed there was quite a little crowd of onlookers by then. Poor girl. I had to sympathise as I've done the very same thing without realising, plus plenty of people ignore the road signs on that road, wrong though that may be.

I also spotted a wedding party who were jangling along on bicycles, with tin cans clacking against the cobbles of Trinity Lane, and wedding guests bashing saucepans. A novel way to get to or from your wedding venue, I thought - bride and groom included.

Hmm, two and a half hours to go till Freddie's bedtime and therefore my bedtime. At least Belinda is here right now, responding to shouts of 'Aeloplane, Leeenda!' and shovelling pasta into the Monkey's mouth.

Which has given me an idea. Let's watch Bella Lasagne's Italian restaurant go on fire again on Fireman Sam, while the Aussie in the programme says 'I don't know, Bella, it's all Bolognese to me...'. Very funny, makers of Fireman Sam. Not that we've watched that particular episode about ten times...

Tune in next week if you haven't expired from boredom.
Kirstyx

Friday, 7 November 2008

Back to Life...

Back to reality...

Well, hello, and welcome to the Kirsty on the Road to Recovery show. It's week two of post-treatment and I'm, well, full of headache. The dratted hormone tablets may be kicking in, or I may be overtied/run down/still getting over radiotherapy, or all of the above, not to mention heading down some rather unfortunate neural pathways and desperately trying to reverse this using the Lightning Process.

Not to worry. I'm about to have a shower, and do a 'power walk' to town to buy some parsnips. Yes, parsnips. When you've just done the year from hell ie. got a cancer diagnosis, had surgery, chemo, radio and started hormone treatment, the answer is parsnips. Lovely fresh local ones from the market. To be roasted this Saturday night in a grand Roast Chicken Dinner before X-Factor begins. Oh yes.

I think I'm doing 'difficult' with adjusting back to life after all of the above. And losing my sense of humour somewhat. Hence the blog. That's right, it's going to be ha ha, ho ho from here on in. Ho hum. But seriously. I did really well with radiotherapy, then a week of wobbles and then a big Pink Party which went down a storm (and was accompanied by a storm. Actually, more like lots of rain. Oh, all right, just grey nothingness, but 'storm' sounded better... The gazebo's not too happy all the same, but we're going to give it lots of tlc before Barney and Tom attempt to dismantle it). But my high times seem to be shortlived at the moment and are often followed immediately afterwards by a deep gloom. As per last night, after a lovely afternoon with my sister drinking white wine in the Slug and Lettuce at 4pm whilst being regaled by a drunk man telling my sister she's bound to break lots of hearts and by Freddie singing us The Dandy Dook de Dork (The Grand Old Duke of York) in the middle of the pub. I got home, felt an incredible drooping of the lips in a downward fashion, and proceeded to burst into hopeless tears and cries of 'What's this all about?', 'Why me?' etc.

Needless to say I recovered after much wiping of the tears and Tom saying it's all going to be OK and that it's probably just the dratted hormones (or the wine!). Could someone please outlaw hormones? Their misbehaviour in life is surely a criminal offence and worthy of a very long time in Wormwood Scrubs. I shall imagine them in their prison cell, and playing snooker with their jailbird mates, watching tv and doing an 'A' level. Oh - perhaps prison isn't the best image - it seems to be an OK in there! Nb What does jailbird actually mean? Is it someone who has already left jail and is, um, tweeting about it in a seedy pub somewhere?

I have made an amazing discovery. After re-starting our Christianity Explored course with our lovely friends Debs and Barney, I've realised that God is my Recovery Buddy. Oh yes. And that's not a joke or in any way meant to be making light of God (or the Christianity Explored course). It's only that humour seems to be my way of getting through all aspects of this cancer 'journey', including the spiritual side of things. I logged onto the Breast Cancer Care website this morning to help me feel like I wasn't so alone with all this, and Tom said 'But you're not alone. There's me, and also the Big Man', and I realised that he didn't mean Freddie. Actually, Freddie's legs are getting slimmer and slimmer with all his dashing about, revealing rather impressive knobbly knees. I thank God for the sunshine outside (which will aid my 'power walk' to the market and parsnip heaven), my continued strength, and for Tom and everyone else's emotional support. And to Freddie for his current rendition of the Wipers on the Bus. It all helps!

On which note, I shall move onwards and upwards (or horizontally towards the shower), and log in again another time.

lots of love, and Happy Friday!
Kirstyx