Cancer 109

Another day another treatment. After a week’s delay due to pneumonia, I am back in the treatment room. I am bored, so I am going to make you bored. There is nothing exciting happening. I can’t be bothered to read or write – including writing this. My stoma is making rude noises, as my mother used to say, and obviously, I have no control over it. People are very polite. I did have conversations with certain nurses, one of whom is leaving us to go to haematology. That is not acceptable. The other is busy writing, which is acceptable.

There are no exciting patients today unless it is me not being exciting. IT could be. I did plan to do a writing exercise, writing a paragraph or so describing the various people in the room, but it is not worth it today. For instance, Harold just sits there looking at the nurses and doing very little. He looks like a farmer. Gary just sits there. He is in his late 60s, with receding hair and glasses. Gary and Harold occasionally speak to each other. I have just found out that Gary is a beef farmer. I got the wrong one. Harold just smiles, wondering what to say, so he brings up having an allotment and the weather. I still think Harold looks more like a farmer. Gary looks like an ageing Auden until he speaks.

Faith has not spoken since getting here. She has her head covered due to alopecia. Edward is an Indian, and again very quiet. Neither Faith nor Edwards are doing anything other than staring into space. No phones, no puzzles, nothing. Diana has family with her. I don’t hear them speak very often, and certainly not about anything of interest. Gary and Harold are trying to talk beyond the weather but it doesn’t seem to work. Cathy wears a turban and stares into space. I am not sure whether she has even spoken to the nurses. Barbara is rather frail and seems to know a couple of people, interacting with them to some extent, but again spending most of the time just sitting and staring.

That just leaves me, I will call myself Andrew (now you should understand the code). Apart from a few conversations with nurses, I have been reading my Starmer biography, looking at the news, and eating food. It is not an exciting day. Sorry Keir.

I hope this has bored you as much reading it as I have been bored writing it. I have another 2-3 hours here before I can go home and feel queasy all evening.