I am taking a break from marking to share my relief and my patheticness!!!! and shame.
Ok I have been worried and stressed. This is why.
As you know i have been waiting to see if the current chemo recipe was having any effect – joy oh joy it is. i dont normally worry about my monthly blood results but this one was bugging me. Along with those tests I decided to take the routine test (offered to everyone over 60) for bowel cancer – perhaps i should have waited or just not bothered but anyway this involves sending a pooh sample off somewhere – not a pleasant process and waiting two weeks for the results. Unfortunately my brain decided to fixate on the following scenario
Test 1 – went to doctor with backache – sent to hospital – a week later told got amyloidosis
Test 2 – went to hospital with Amyloidosis – had some bone marrow removed – a week later told I had myeloma
Test 3 – went to hospital with palpitations – wore a heart monitor for a bit – a week later i was told I had atrial fibrillation
so it seemed perfectly reasonable that whenever i have a test its always positive. except for Covid – SO FAR
So i was busy planning for my colostomy bag management in Costa Coffee which only has one toilet – wondering if you could be treated for two cancers at the same time of if they had to wait there turn – wondering how on earth i would manage to consume any more drugs without turning into a walking chemical hazard – getting my affairs in order – ie contemplating releasing Maria from her marital vows, i thinks she quite likes a red face man who also grows tomatoes (that is until he completely failed to recognise her on a walk and was clearly dazed and confused to be regaled with tomato varieties when strolling along the daffy field path – oh how i meanly laughed) planning my requiem mass Verdi would be nice – but might be tough on the non existent church choir and the lady who plays the organ who has probably been by now recipient of her own requiem mass , couldn’t face a Sky Arts programme on Dantes Inferno which seemed like too close to home – blasphemy being a sort of line in the sand it seems for god – UNFORGIVABLE apparently – hubris i say – wondering if Vinnie would pine or hurl himself onto my lifeless but well preserved body (due to all the chemicals) and become a hieroglyph on my virtual burial chamber, wondering if there was a god after all and my well documented rudeness to all immortals was ultimately catching up with me – but i distracted myself over the weekend with some seriously obsessive preparing to be very ill or dead documentation you may peruse it at your leisure here –
https://gravityisahat.co.uk/K6_Tech/k6_hardware/index.html
and here
https://gravityisahat.co.uk/K6_Tech/K6_software/index.html
and i made this epic schematic – a clear reflection of my state of mind – where there is uncertainty and chaos bring order
(you can see where my priorities lie – how to keep my ‘Red Telephone Box the Talks a Bit Like Me’ going in perpetuity – never mind all that choosing a basket weave biologically washable coffin – or have you seen the latest you can be turned into liquid plant feed – Maria and Tomato man might find that useful)
And then behold this morning NEGATIVE!!!!! I am ridiculously relieved and really really surprised – a disease i haven’t got – just like 98 percent of the participants in this test – i am off the hook – well for two years anyway. I forgot to say that i bottled the last one two years ago – just couldn’t face it and not just because of the poo collecting element i was a COWARD. – that’s what i am confessing too – i am not brave i get scared and not always, in fact virtually never, for any sensible reason – i am just a big stupid HAPPY scary cat.
Tuffin 13
Jill’s Dad is called Sid. I like this name because it’s the shortest one I know – so easy to write on a list.
Sid’s job is to cut the grass and to clean the car. He is the first person in our road to have a green car. Mother says that is because he is some kind of artist and that artists like bright colours and she shows me some impression paintings done by Frenchmen. The pictures in the book are in black and white so I don’t really see the point but I don’t tell her because this is her most important hobby after cooking and cleaning. Sid is very quiet even when he is mowing or washing he never talks to anyone loudly. When I play at Jill’s he is usually inside in the dining room with his gun poking out the window waiting for the rats. I suppose this is why he is always so quiet. Jill says it’s something to do with the war but the war was over a longtime ago and I don’t think it had artists in it.
When I grow up I want a medal and a green car.