Mr Blue Sky

Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why you had to hide away
For so long… where did we go wrong.

Hey there Mr. Blue, we’re so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do,
Everybody smiles at you.

Hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race
A celebration, Mr. Blue Sky’s up there waitin’ and today
Is the day we’ve waited for

 

So today’s the day I’ve been waiting for. It’s chemo day 2, and all the chemicals have been delivered and piled up in my living room.

I woke up with a headache this morning which isn’t ideal, because that’s put me in the wrong mood to have people sticking needles into me and yattering at me for 2 hours whilst horrid chemicals are pumped in and make my arm ache. But we shall see. Nice Alice will just have to try harder to be cheerful.

Carrying on from that thought from yesterday about diving in to cold water… I hate diving. Water shoving itself rudely up my nose and making my head ache. The chemo meds make my sinuses ache like that, which I’m trying not to think about too much because I really don’t want each chemo session to be this big stressful event. But I am feeling stressed and sad and grumpy and sorry for myself today. I think it’s because I’m not sleeping terribly well.

I haven’t tested any theories about the poor sleep / headache yet, but the mattress I’m on isn’t the most wonderful thing in my life at the moment. It’s all memory foam, and so there are no edges to the bed, and it feels like I’m going to fall out at any minute when the edge squashes down unexpectedly. I changed it because it’s supposed to be better for your back… I have to say I have yet to be convinced of the benefits but I am determined to complete the test scientifically by giving it enough time to do some good. I wake up every day with all the sheets and blankets having re-arranged themselves into massive rucks (how?!) so it’s not getting my vote on practicality either.

Anyone who knows me well, will know that I didn’t get the nickname princesspea for nothing. If I don’t sleep well, nobody will be having a good day the next day! Kind of an anti-Bagpuss. Alice is awake, so all of the mice on the mouse organ, Professor Yaffle, Madeleine and Gabriel are going to bloodywell hear all about it – and they will ensure that it doesn’t happen again!

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18:15

My parents were with me for my chemo today which was nice to catch up. My mum even managed to sit still for more than a few minutes. 😉 We had a natter to Claire the nurse. Before she arrived, my dad brought the mower over and blitzed the back garden grass (the strimmer went kaput at the weekend!) whilst my Mum helped me with the housework and we arranged some lovely flowers she bought me.

Then of course I had to sit still for the treatment with my arm wrapped in a heating pad. The only reason for that heat pad is that the drugs are all in solution in syringes and in a polystyrene box with an ice pack when they are delivered in the morning – so they’re rather cold going into my hand, and for some reason they go down to my ring finger and little finger first before they go up my arm – so I end up with an achy hand if I don’t wrap my arm up with the pad. So the heat from that helps warm up the saline and drugs as they go in my arm. Boy, did my hand ache though when the heating pad turned itself off! We soon re-set the heater again when I started whinging about that! 🙂

We had the records on the player – Queen’s “A day at the races”, Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” and Simon & Garfunkel greatest hits, to keep us entertained. Having a record player is lovely… there’s a real old fashioned theatre to getting up off your backside, crossing the room to put a record on the player, having pulled the inner sleeve out of the cardboard cover, often filled with song lyrics or larger format photos of the band than you can get on CD, and then running the little brush round to get rid of the dust… it’s a real performance but it’s a bit like cookery, you do some of the extras for the sheer pleasure of it.

Once the treatment was done, about 3.45, I was determined that it was time for a treat – so we headed down to the cake shop – Fancy on Roff Avenue – for one of their lovely cakes. I had chocolate cake and some hot chocolate – so my full chocolate hit for the week all in one go! Mum had shortbread and Dad had a slice of lime and coconut cake. I was straight on Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook hooting, tooting, tweeting and feebing about it. 🙂

I’m fairly wired now with all the steroids pumping around – it’s like a massive bottle of coke and 4 chocolate cookies… Hee!

Lyrics from Electric Light Orchestra – Mr Blue Sky