Week 5 - Day 24

Today’s session was 9.15am (earlier than usual) so the erratic driver picked me up at 8am. Topic of pointless conversation today was a billionaire client of his who apparently gets stressed about needing the toilet on long car journeys, and who only tips £2. The only tip he’ll be getting from me will be to tell him to stop providing passengers with unsolicited information about his life.

Things got even better when I arrived at the hospital to be told that the internet was down. The radiotherapy machine can’t operate without a working internet, so my early appointment came and went and I was still sitting in the waiting room. At 10am they took me into a little room to tell me they didn’t know when the internet would be back up and running, so a car would take me to Windsor for my treatment instead. Oh joy. Better than Milton Keynes I suppose, as the journey home is shorter at least. It wasn’t the best start to the week though. Going to a different centre with different staff is quite a daunting prospect. I can currently just about get through the daily mask ordeal because the staff know me, they know how to calm me and they know when to put the music on – and how loudly to play it. We are now in a routine and it seems to work. The Windsor staff would know none of this. This made me feel very apprehensive, but I didn’t have a choice, so I had to tell myself to just go to Windsor and take it step by step. As none of the Oxford staff were going to be in Windsor with me, I also had to take my mask in the car, so it was put into a clear plastic bag and sat in the footwell next to me. I wasn’t looking forward to looking at it for the next hour; there was a strong possibility I might ‘accidentally’ stamp on it.

We had only been in the car five minutes when I realised I had forgotten to pick up my prescription, so I asked the driver to turn around and go back to the hospital. At reception, I overheard one of the staff members saying the internet was now back up. This was music to my ears and I immediately asked to have my treatment there instead of Windsor. Initially, I was told no, I still had to go to Windsor because it was now scheduled and it would still take an hour before the machine would be working again. I would prefer to sit in the Oxford waiting room rather than spend another hour in the car, so after much discussion, they agreed to fit me back in to the schedule in Oxford. This was a huge relief and, despite another hour of waiting around, I was very pleased to stay on familiar territory.

This all meant I got home 2 hours later than expected, so rather than the dog walk I had planned, I went to sleep for an hour instead. It’s amazing how tired I have become. As many of you know, I have always been a pretty amazing sleeper – if there were an Olympic sleeping category, there’s a good chance I might have qualified in my younger days - but this is far beyond what I am normally capable of.

After my little catnap, my mum arrived with some goodies for me and the girls, which was a lovely treat. Dinner was fish pie – I managed some of it but eating is definitely getting harder now, not to mention completely losing its appeal. Everything burns, even after the morphine, and when I do manage to get some food down, I can’t taste it so it’s a very odd experience.  The creme caramel desserts are still sliding down nicely, so I may be on a pudding diet very soon!