BASKETTCASE

I haven't blogged since the beginning of December,  I am not sure why although some of the reason is connected with the novel-writing challenge I took up in November, which occupied all my computer time for a whole month and then some.  It got to the stage where other members of the family felt neglected, and I lost the impetus to write anything at all.  The novel is sitting here on my hard drive, four thousand words short of the 50000 target, and I am finding it hard to finish.  This is probably the trouble with using your own experiences as the basis for a work of fiction: it can't finish because things keep happening.

So what has happened?  Well, the other reason for losing the will to blog is living in this three-week cycle.  I am not very good at this - every cycle I am convinced that I am having different symptoms, including a recurrence of the cancer, and in the last two cycles I haven't even had the reasonable week just before I go for the next intravenous, (tummy bug in December, bad cold in January needing antibiotics for my sinuses.)  But this week I have been given a jolt, which has made me count my blessings and hope to stop being a miserable moaner.  Here's the picture of what happened yesterday:

Dave took this picture before I got up this morning, by artificial light.  The colours are a bit bleached out: the black eyes really are navy bue.  James had gone to nursery, but Joe was more than happy to see me as an alien.  His next dressing-up day is on the theme of 'lost in space'.  I have already been recruited to make an alien's head-dress, but he thought if I turned up as part of the dressing-up day people might suspect I wasn't a child as I look old.

Everyone has been very kind and sympathetic but I have to say I am fully responsible for neglect of my body, and incredibly lucky that it wasn't worse.  I braved the frost to take James for his injections, arrived in good time at the surgery, not our practice, and negotiated telephone consent for the jabs because I am not a legal guardian.  James was good considering that he had a jab in each arm and only snivelled a bit in indignation as we walked down the road.  At the end of the road we saw about 8 people waiting for our half-hourly bus into town, and as we had the library books with us we decided to proceed to town and treat ourselves to a coffee.  The bus came slowly round the corner as we got to the junction, so we ran across the road and I was just saying to James that by the time all the people had got on we would be there, when I tripped and we both went our length on the pavement.  James b ashed his knees and I took the full force on my face.  It all happened in a split second.  I suspect that my padded boots with good grip actually stopped me dead when I failed to pick up my feet properly.  Maybe the moral is that 68 year old grandmothers in charge of a 3 year old shouldn't run for the bus.

I was dusted off and marched back to the Toftwood doctors by a very kind passer-by, and there I was cleaned up and assessed and told I needed stitches.  Our friend Frances from church who was working there got her husband Richard to take us home as neither Dave's nor Dom's mobiles were giving them coverage, and after a cup of tea we set off for the N&N.  Dave says his car knows the way by itself!  Three hours later I emerged with stitches inside and outside my lower lip.  The rest of the contusions are on the surface, ugly but not needing repair.

So the period of being fed up and bored with routine treatment is over.  I hope I have learned my lesson.  I have certainly learned to count my blessings:
1) I was wearing a heavy imitation sheepskin coat which cushioned my tummy.
2) I didn't break my ribs or fracture my skull
3) I didn't trip in front of the bus
4) The library books were unbloodied and everything else was washable
5) Richard who took me home was the one who had got hold of me on Sunday and prayed for me in church - God has a great sense of humour!
6) James was none the worse for wear once we had found and removed the lengths of micropore and cotton wool from his upper arms.  (Before that he was apparently disabled by the injections, requiring Daddy to do the reaching out to put his food on his fork and bring his drink close to his hand.  The words 'drama queen' came from Mary-Ann, but the effect of seeing the intact and uninflamed skin was miraculous.)
7) I am too ashamed and cross with myself to broadcast my accident, but everyone who knows has been so kind.  I have had flowers and phone calls and so far no-one has refused to look at me, although I wouldn't blame them if they did.
8) Life has gone back into perspective; every day is unpredictable, the same for me as everyone else.  I am living with cancer; so what?  In the last week people have had a horrible traumatic experience on a captised liner, some have lost their lives while they thought they were going to enjoy themselves.  A 23 year old Rugby player had to travel to the other side of the world to make arrangements for the funeral of his mother who had died on holiday, and while doing that he died.  And a local high school girl died on a trampoline during a supervised lesson.  What's a few bruises?

I could go on, but I need to get this blog posted after all the complaints I have had!  It's different, anyway!