Cancer 176

I had a number of ideas about this blog but the chemobrain means that ideas fall out of my brain like lemmings off a cliff (except lemmings dot do that, do they?). My brain is significantly affected by my treatment, unless the cancer has got to my brain. I wouldn’t know if it has because my head is not scanned. Oh yes, there’s a memory. I got my CT scan results back on Friday. No change, no growth no diminution, no sign of anything on my lung. I have just (literally, I took the bottle off five minutes ago) finished this week’s chemo, round 32 – I bet Mike Tyson couldn’t keep up with me. My blood tests were fine, except the chemo marker which has increased from 6 to 8. The consultant didn’t seem to care so I won’t either.

Apart from memory loss, tiredness, abdominal pains (largely my hernias and stoma), inability to walk far, and turning into a pumpkin at 8pm every night, I am feeling pretty good. Inevitably, the last couple of days on chemo I have done quite a bit of work. My Wingfield Manor history is coming on, first draft competed, second draft on its way. It will soon be time to grovel to publishers to see if anyone is interested. I really should have an agent but they wouldnt make much money from me. I have just had the first draft on my cancer book printed so I can go through it with my pen – better than the screen – and then do the same with the publishers for that. I don’t hold out any great hopes for publication, but then I expect them to be published. I am used to rejections as long as there is a yes from someone at the end of the process. Hey, I am already planning the second cancer book. I just need to stay alive long enough to get it written.

Then there is the novel. The first draft is probably 80% finished but it has been sitting around for a couple of months, which means that when I get back to it I will have forgotten lots of things – there’s that chemobrain again.

I was invited to talk at a Wingfield Manor exhibition (for which I have provided the written materials), but it is the evening and pumpkins can’t talk, so today I provided a PowerPoint version with my pretty face in the corner talking about the history of the manor and the interesting people associated with it, from Ralph Cromwell in the mid-15th Century, through the Talbots until the 17th Century, the Civil Wars, and Immanuel Halton the astronomer. There are also the powerful and interesting women, Queen Elizabeth I, Bess of Hardwick, Mary, Queen of Scots, and the three daughters of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. One wrote a cookery book, another wrote a cookery book and was an early female scientist, and the other, erm, was a good dancer. I could tell you more if you are interested.

It is good to be able to do some work. Tomorrow I might mow the lawn. With the writing I am doing exactly what I wanted to do in my retirement, particularly writing about history. I have left the British Psychological Society, so I am no longer a Chartered Psychologist or an Associate Fellow of the Society, I am leaving the HCPC, so no right to practice, and I am only keeping my Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society – because basically I would rather be a historian than a psychologist. It is time for a change of career. I just hope I can remember that I am now a historian.