Cancer 70

I am in treatment again. Number 5 out of 6. I have got them to pump the muck into me as quickly as possible so I can get away from the hospital as quickly as possible. The novelty has worn off. The two week cycle is getting tedious. These three days of treatment, instead of providing an ideal opportunity to sit and write, is just something I want to get over asap. I still have my 6 day reward to look forward to. On Friday we head to Northumberland again, our latest favourite place. If you don’t know Northumberland then you should. If I was entirely neutral about my favourite and least favourite counties, which I am not, then Northumberland would be my favourite county. It has great castles and houses, hills, Roman bits and pieces, lovely food and people, and not least, the lowest number of people per square mile in England. What is not to like?

I wonder whether I will have another 6 fortnightly treatments immediately after this one, whether I will have a break from treatment, be moved onto another treatment, or be seen as a dead end case where there is no point in further treatment. The way my abdomen feels most of the time I am not always able to generate my external positive optimistic self, though of course it could just be the effect of the drugs. I still haven’t lost my appetite. My weight is still increasing. Good or bad? No idea.

The hospital is so noisy. The beeps of the machines, the television in the waiting room, the radio in the treatment room (it is on one of those ghastly commercial stations which have adverts – shocking. Haven’t they heard of the BBC?), people who think watching videos on their phones with the sound on is somehow acceptable. Then there are the tattoos – so visual they are auditory.

I am still trying to write. I am enjoying studying my novel writing course and have just sent off the work for the 4th module. I am going through them at the rate of one a week – not bad considering I wanted to achieve one a month. I have also written 9,000 words of my novel about the Civil War. It might be the second draft of something I wrote 100,000 words on about 20 years ago but this is a total rewrite, this time I am trying to write in the 1st person. I write quickly but not often enough.

I have got the proofs through for my Applied Narrative Psychology book. That will be fun to go through, so I had better get on with it from tomorrow as I sit there with my damned bottle attached.

It is better than working – isn’t it?

See, the optimism – or the delusional thinking – still applies….