Day 2: It's the first time through my treatment that I've managed to take my medicines in the right way so I wake feeling quite normal.
It's raining, with my own forecast: lightly squeamish with a chance of hot flushes.
It's a bleak kind of day, so I opt to stay in bed all day. Motivation is a bit low.
I get up when I hear Lee at the door, my angel bearing her caring nursey touch. The injection doesn't hurt much at all these days. I really must have got used to it.
Lee and I sit on the couch with a cup of tea and a piece of love cake. We talk about our trip to India, Nepal and Tibet. We are booking the first part of this on Tuesday. It's something to look forward to although I guess it's a bit of a bet. We are planning to go in October later this year and who knows what my story will be by then? Still, what is life without dreams.
After Lee leaves, Janet rings to see how I am. Nim phones too.
I go back to bed and watch "One Day" on Foxtel; Al and I play iPad Scrabble; We watch "Mean Girls 2" of all things. I take my medications and fall asleep.
Day 3: We have our house on the market and there's an inspection today. So I don't really have an option. I have to get up. It's raining on and off outside.
I tidy up what I can but I must say, it's a lot of effort for just half an hour. Two families look through.
Afterwards, Al and I decide to go to see the movie 'Hugo'. I meet Louisa there. The theatre is packed and all the while, my stomach is churning.
The nausea is pretty chronic today and frankly, I feel pretty vile.
I nearly doze of during the film which has some incredible sets but it's a bit like watching a very nice piece of paint dry, in my opinion - Moulin Rouge without the music.
Louisa comes home with me for a catch up. She's basically my 'regular hang-out buddy': someone I can be myself with without worrying about being particularly anything much. Someone I can be honest with and happily be completely unconstructive with. While we chat, I have a cup of hot 'rasam, a traditional Ceylonese tonic made from herbs and spices. My mum has recommended it to me to help tame the nausea. Alas, it's only a temporary relief.
What's different this time, seeing I'm upright, is that I actually cook dinner. I'm sure it's tasty but not for me.
I lie in bed afterwards watching the Nadal v Djokovic tennis final. But I am disinterested. I just want to sleep.
I drift off but am woken by Al offering me a banana and strawberry smoothie. I imagine it's nutritious and slowly sip it but it's a bad move as soon, I'm battling some bad heartburn.
Bugger. Still, with some effort, it settles and I drift off into a dreamless sleep.
Day 4: It's still overcast and I wonder if this is affecting my mood. I don't know how to explain it. I feel 'reduced'. There are bleak thoughts running around my head as I lounge in bed in the morning.
What gets me up is the gift I've made for Clodagh, my Facebook friend who lives in Dublin. I want to post it to her before the project gets completely old.
I go to the post office with a parcel that involved enough bubble wrap and sticky tape to satisfy a bondage queen's ultimate fantasy. I send it off with a prayer that it will arrive in one piece.
Then I go to the shops to buy a dress I saw for Karen. We are more or less the same size (my widening girth not withstanding) so if it looks good on me, I figure it'll look good on her. It was on special and I can imagine her wearing it. I also buy myself a couple of things. I know it's naughty but these days I keep thinking too often, that life is short. I've always thought that, actually. But somehow, these days, there's an element of truth to that idea.
Today I just keep thinking: "I just don't know. Whether any of this shit is really working. Who knows when my number's going to be up?" Maybe it's the weather? Maybe I'm just really tired of it all. Already. And I'm not even half way through the whole onerous process of what this seemingly endless treatment entails.
What to do but go for a walk. I walk for 8.5 kilometres, enjoying the fact that the sky is clearing and with it, my mood.
In the evening, Harry invites his girlfriend, Robyn, over for dinner and what's more, he cooks! We take the meal (san soy boy) to Ethel and George's to share. We have to make an effort to eat as a family these days, especially as George is so unwell.
Day 5: One thing I've decided with this illness is that I won't let it entirely shape my days. So today, I'm off to an art lesson. I'm really into my mixed media work and art has become a therapy for me.
My lesson is held at the local gallery, Yurara and on my way, I'm daydreaming so I overshoot the turnoff and have to hang a youie. It's typical these days. Planet La-La is the land I seem to frequent.
I spend a pleasant morning, preparing a canvass. I discover that my teacher, Gloria, had breast cancer 20 years before. She just had a one centimetre lump, discovered by accident, and had four perfectly good lymph nodes ripped out for no good reason. She suffered with lymph oedema for three years she said, and still has no feeling on one side of that arm. Cruel isn't it?
I leave a bit early because Janet comes down to visit. We have a simple chicken and salad on the back deck but I admit, it tastes a bit like eating packaging. The sun is out. There's a little breeze and Janet and I pass a lovely couple of hours.
It's actually really great because I learn some things about Janet's youth that I didn't know before. I have at least this to thank my illness for: that I am unpeeling some heretofore undiscovered layers in the people who so genuinely care about me that they will give me that most precious, wonderful thing that is 'time'.
Let me emphasise this. Janet lives in Bellbowrie. It's a good hour and a half by car in traffic I reckon. You know someone loves you when they will take the time, make the time.
As some guy called Syrus once said: "Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them." It's true.
Not for the first time, I think about Chrissy and Jan and my other friends who have battled or ceded to disease and illness and how crap I was at it: being the friend they needed.
My friends are showing me how to express my compassion in ways that go beyond the words I so easily (perhaps too easily?) wield. It's never too late to learn.
When she leaves, I'm feeling quite squeamish so I lie down under the fan. I realise that my heart rate is quite rapid and I notice that the bruise from my episode on Friday is still quite dark on my arm.
I feel very green and there's that dark mood, palpating on the edges of my consciousness, like that rogue ember in the woodpile.
I rouse myself and go for a 6 km walk. I can't say it lifts my mood. People who know me well will be surprised at the kind of thoughts I have. Once again, I think about curling up in a ball. In fact, half way through the walk, I feel tired and I just want to sit down and cry.
But I don't.
I miss my old body. I miss feeling well.
In the evening I start a Rosamunde Pilcher novel I picked up from the Op Shop but my eyes have become quite bad with this treatment so I find it hard to actually physically read.
Ben comes in and watches 'Spongebob Squarepants' next to me and ends up falling asleep.
I feel sick so, once I get him off to bed, I take an anti nausea and go to bed early. Hey, I'm living the high life!
Day 6: It's humid today and my mouth tastes utterly disgusting still. When Al asks me what I want for breakfast, I order my usual scrambled eggs but ask him to season it heavily so I can taste something. No joy. It's tasteless!
Afterwards, I am rewarded with more heartburn. Is there no end to my pleasures.
Everyone leaves the house today, Al and Harry off to work on the Manpad in town, Ben off to school.
I know I have some work to do and make a half hearted start on the corporate profile I'm writing. But it's hard work in my condition.
I lie in bed and watch a bit of 'Red Dog' on Foxtel. But it's really bad. Dear God. Tell me that "Australian Comedy" hasn't become an irretrievable oxymoron.
Louisa rings and I decide to abort the movie. We go out for a coffee and cake at 'Harvest'. (Fuck it, life is short). It turns into a good outing because we bump into Lyndal and Maria.
Afterwards, let me come clean with my dirty little secret... Louisa and I go and see 'The Muppets' because that's the only thing she hasn't seen. (The girl lives at the movies). It's lame, okay I admit it, but it's so innocent, it's strangely uplifting.
In fact, 'The Muppets' is the first and only movie I ever watched on my own (back in the days when the Regent Theatre was still around). I figure that if there was ever a metaphor for LOSER it has to be someone watching 'The Muppets' on their own. Except maybe, watching reruns on 'Baywatch', in slow motion, on your own.
It's today that I start thinking about the big 'what if'... what if I skip the final treatment and wing it?
I don't know if it's the bruise on my arm, but I feel sick about going back to the Cyril Gilbert Centre. It's as if my experiences so far have so graphically informed my memory that I still feel the needle in my arm.
It's like not being able to wake up from a bad dream.
In the late afternoon, though I'm tired and a bit over it, I coax myself to go for a walk and am surprised to find myself completing 6km.
On the way, there's a sun shower and strangely, the smell of the rain on the hot pavement makes me feel better. Maybe it's because it makes me feel as if I'm still a part of it. This life.
Day 7: Would you believe I'm still feeling quite sickly and green? I've had a few tiny pains too but nothing I would complain about.
It's actually a lovely morning with a pleasant cool breeze wafting through my house. From my window I can see the bay. It looks a little murky and choppy out there.
This morning I have a meeting with Karen. I'm helping her with her Mayoral Campaign and things have got pretty nasty of late.
I don't know if it's the fact that I'm ill, but these days I'm very sensitive to nastiness and venom which, unfortunately, seems to be part of the territory when you're even tangentially involved in politics. It's an environment that doesn't offer the best perspective on human nature.
I'm not kidding you. Some of the people I've encountered so far are like cancer on legs: destructive; life sucking. I often wonder these days how they can find it so important: to live their lives day to day as angry, nasty, vindictive, derogatory, contemptuous, mean, racist and aggressive, bloated with their own self-importance to boot!
Maybe everyone should have an illness. Maybe everyone needs to ponder their mortality. Mostly, it's a good way to learn how to treat other people.
This afternoon we have an inspection so I can't really lie in bed. Later I will go for another walk I'm sure.
Experience so far tells me that I will probably be about 90% by Sunday.
In the meantime I'll rally on.
The only way to go is forward.
Showing posts with label chemo effects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chemo effects. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Chemo 4
It's an overcast day and slightly drizzly when I leave for my fourth chemo session this morning.
I need to pick up Nim from Cleveland and get there in good time to reach the hospital for T-Time (Toxin Time).
I'm 66% of the way through this series of frankly unpleasant experiences, and I've been channelling the spirits of the Anzacs. Each new phase is a new attack on that dark Gallipoli beach, out of one trench, across the bullet drenched landscape, ducking and weaving the potential shells, the barbed wire lines, bayonets fixed at the ready until the safety of the next trench.
I'm now just two trenches away from safety, having so far withstood the enemy fire by Adriomyacin, Taxotere and Cyclophosphomide (the Axis of Evil).
Just think what the Anzacs did for Australia? That is what true courage is. This business of beating cancer is nothing in the scheme of things.
Today, only Harry is able to accompany me in with Nim, where we meet Lindar and Tracey and once again, I am embarrassed by the orgy of gift giving. Do my friends ever stop?
Nim has also brought food including a Belgian Chocolate Cake especially for the nurses. This woman knows how to win friends because later, we will discover the cake has gone down a treat :)
As I am called into my suite, I feel nauseous already and before I sit down, I can feel the burn of reflux in my gullet.
What's going on? You see, I'm told the brain when routinely exposed to experiences - good or bad - begins to engineer itself to predict your responses. It's really amazing. If only we could channel this capacity to other parts of our lives. Lacking motivation? Feeling anxious? Then retrain your brain!
Today my toxicologist is a pretty Korean nurse called Sun Yee. She is young and sweet. I learn that her mother and brother still live in Seoul. She has been here four years. Her father died at 61 of a heart attack. Kim Jong's Death has unsettled the people of Seoul. Any day now they could go from Shreddies for breakfast to Shrapnel.
I told you already: different shit, different mountain. We all have a hill to climb sooner or later.
Nim has made chicken rolls and delicious fruit salads in enormous proportions. There are also ginger bread cookies.
Later Janet arrives bearing coffees and with her, some memorabilia to help take my mind off things.
I decide to give out the belated Chrismas presents that I have bought. I give Lindar a bracelet and scarf, Tracey a recipe book, and for Janet, some earrings plus a book called "Naughty Origami". (There's a story there but basically, now Janet and her husband Bob can enjoy hours of fun making origami boobs, vaginas, 'French Ticklers' (illustrated with the use of a banana) and I believe, even what looks like a threesome. It's appropriate. Trust me.
To oversee my cannula insertion, I have a nurse I've had before, Mel, and I have to say it hurts rather badly when it is inserted.
At one point she observes my tiny veins and says: "It's not size that matters."
"I tell my husband that all the time," I say.
"Well we won't tell him and embarrass him," Mel laughs, getting my lame attempt at innuendo.
"Aah no, it's the other way round for me, Mel," I say, "You know he eats a lot of hay."
With such banter, some anxiety lifts. The good thing is that it takes just one go with the cannula and eventually the pain subsides as I practice some brain reengineering muttering "It doesn't hurt, It doesn't hurt." It seems to work.
The girls chat sweetly around me. Janet has brought some photos to show us of the many, many good times we've shared over the years.
One is a photo taken on my 41st birthday. There is Lindar, Tracey, me and Janet and dammit, we all looked so hot! Time, that incompetent fool has left us with someone else's saggy jowls.
Janet has also brought some unusual memorabilia to share. Some ancient artefacts, 2000 years old, gouged from an archaeological site in Rhodes, and courtesy of some drunken archeologists she and her husband Bob befriended by bibulous banter behind a bar. What an unusual experience, one I could really dig! (boom tish).
As it happens today's conversation does graze over a wide array of topics: beginning as you do in ladies' circles with the vexing issue of vaginal dryness - at some stage ladies, I will have to discuss this subject with you - one of the several and somewhat disconcerting effects of menopause, one of the side effects of my treatment which will be discussed in depth in a later blog.
The conversation is candid as we move onto discussing the sex education of our kids, comparing notes of our 'bad mother' moments (the ones you usually have when hidden under that handy cone of silence: the family car - when you can blithely threaten murder and bombard your children with crushing vitriol and sarcasm, possibly scarring them for life, just because you are ready to explode with frustration). We all feel a lot better sharing these stories: just knowing you are not alone in allowing "Psycho Mum" to show her ugly head.
But for all the joviality, when the Adromyacin is being inserted I feel a bit anxious and my friends work really hard on keeping my eyes away from the syringe full of red fluid. If only it weren't coloured red, I'm sure I'd cope a lot better.
However, by the Taxotere I am really felling quite unwell. Nim and Janet stroke my hands. Soo Yin offers me the anti nausea tablet that has a sedative effect and I decide to accept it. I feel hot and vile.
In an effort to perk me up, Nim hand feeds me some home made fruit salad because my hands are in the oven mitts.
"I would hate to be a seal," I observe as the lack of fingers is really quite a handicap.
Then she feeds me a chicken roll she has brought for each of us, with a bit of the chilli both she and I love. What can I say. This friend is just a gem. She was probably Florence Nightingale in a previous life. Of Nim I have discovered she is the Yin to my Yang, a woman who continues to teach me about opening up other parts to the person I am, and vice versa. Nim is open, passionate, competitive, driven, emotional, giving, generous, and operates on about 400,000 KW of energy. She assesses most people from the heart and will lavish love and affection on people without a second thought.
I on the other hand have a Virgoan's natural caution with people. I am an observer and in many cases,gravitate toward those I wish to be friends with based on a fairly cerebral assessment of their personal qualities and how they mesh with mine. As I found myself saying just yesterday: Life is to short for cheap wine, bad coffee and boring conversation. May I emphasise Good Conversation. It really seems to be a dying art and when you find it with someone you meet she or he is a keeper. Good conversationalists are rich in life experiences, many are highly educated and/or well read, they have an ear for listening, they usually have lots of interests, and they show an interest in others. In short, like cancer-free left breasts, they don't grow on trees so if you find them, hang onto them.
I imagine that, as time goes on, Nim and I will adopt the best of each of us in our efforts to some balance in our interactions with the world. From this, who knows what could grow in the future?
The point is, I choose my friends wisely, and I hope that this is one reason I have four such wonderful women by my chair-side today.
So, after being spoon fed, I don't feel as ill and, once the cyclophosphamide is doing its work, I feel kind of okay but a little woozy still.
Janet, Lindar and Tracey finish off Nim's fruit salads and are very thankful.
After we leave, Lindar drives Nim and me to the Manpad under construction in Merivale Street. I manage to get home without falling asleep, dropping Nim home safely.
Today I have managed a few laughs although I can tell that the intensity of my bon homie
is plateauing.
I anticipate that over the remaining two sessions, I will find it quite a struggle and I'm hoping my friends will have the energy to see this through with me to the end.
I did not see Dr Choo today as she is on holidays. I will see her later next week.
Dr Choo has said that after Dose 4 is when the true menopause symptoms should start to raise their cheeky little heads from the tundra of my own Antarctica. Global warming it seems has already commenced and I have started to spend most nights lathered in a veil of sweat.
I have also started to notice that I am as sensitive as a hand grenade when dealing with vexatious situations - like not being able to find something unimportant - and the poorly educated halfwits who want to argue politics.
What other unpleasant experiences lie ahead this week time will tell.
All I know is that I'll be ducking and running as fast as possible through the explosions across that battle field until another 3 weeks when my next trench is claimed.
In the meantime, Al is battening down the hatches. And my Mum is making me my favourite spicy fish balls as I speak.
Harry is working on a DJ mix as he's been secured for the launch of a new 'Scooter Magazine' down the Gold Coast next week. (He's quite chuffed about it, actually).
Tonight we are going to Ethel and George's House for dinner.
Everything seems pretty normal.
And I will continue to work as hard as I can to keep things that way.
I need to pick up Nim from Cleveland and get there in good time to reach the hospital for T-Time (Toxin Time).
I'm 66% of the way through this series of frankly unpleasant experiences, and I've been channelling the spirits of the Anzacs. Each new phase is a new attack on that dark Gallipoli beach, out of one trench, across the bullet drenched landscape, ducking and weaving the potential shells, the barbed wire lines, bayonets fixed at the ready until the safety of the next trench.
I'm now just two trenches away from safety, having so far withstood the enemy fire by Adriomyacin, Taxotere and Cyclophosphomide (the Axis of Evil).
Just think what the Anzacs did for Australia? That is what true courage is. This business of beating cancer is nothing in the scheme of things.
Today, only Harry is able to accompany me in with Nim, where we meet Lindar and Tracey and once again, I am embarrassed by the orgy of gift giving. Do my friends ever stop?
Nim has also brought food including a Belgian Chocolate Cake especially for the nurses. This woman knows how to win friends because later, we will discover the cake has gone down a treat :)
As I am called into my suite, I feel nauseous already and before I sit down, I can feel the burn of reflux in my gullet.
What's going on? You see, I'm told the brain when routinely exposed to experiences - good or bad - begins to engineer itself to predict your responses. It's really amazing. If only we could channel this capacity to other parts of our lives. Lacking motivation? Feeling anxious? Then retrain your brain!
Today my toxicologist is a pretty Korean nurse called Sun Yee. She is young and sweet. I learn that her mother and brother still live in Seoul. She has been here four years. Her father died at 61 of a heart attack. Kim Jong's Death has unsettled the people of Seoul. Any day now they could go from Shreddies for breakfast to Shrapnel.
I told you already: different shit, different mountain. We all have a hill to climb sooner or later.
Nim has made chicken rolls and delicious fruit salads in enormous proportions. There are also ginger bread cookies.
Later Janet arrives bearing coffees and with her, some memorabilia to help take my mind off things.
I decide to give out the belated Chrismas presents that I have bought. I give Lindar a bracelet and scarf, Tracey a recipe book, and for Janet, some earrings plus a book called "Naughty Origami". (There's a story there but basically, now Janet and her husband Bob can enjoy hours of fun making origami boobs, vaginas, 'French Ticklers' (illustrated with the use of a banana) and I believe, even what looks like a threesome. It's appropriate. Trust me.
To oversee my cannula insertion, I have a nurse I've had before, Mel, and I have to say it hurts rather badly when it is inserted.
At one point she observes my tiny veins and says: "It's not size that matters."
"I tell my husband that all the time," I say.
"Well we won't tell him and embarrass him," Mel laughs, getting my lame attempt at innuendo.
"Aah no, it's the other way round for me, Mel," I say, "You know he eats a lot of hay."
With such banter, some anxiety lifts. The good thing is that it takes just one go with the cannula and eventually the pain subsides as I practice some brain reengineering muttering "It doesn't hurt, It doesn't hurt." It seems to work.
The girls chat sweetly around me. Janet has brought some photos to show us of the many, many good times we've shared over the years.
One is a photo taken on my 41st birthday. There is Lindar, Tracey, me and Janet and dammit, we all looked so hot! Time, that incompetent fool has left us with someone else's saggy jowls.
Janet has also brought some unusual memorabilia to share. Some ancient artefacts, 2000 years old, gouged from an archaeological site in Rhodes, and courtesy of some drunken archeologists she and her husband Bob befriended by bibulous banter behind a bar. What an unusual experience, one I could really dig! (boom tish).
As it happens today's conversation does graze over a wide array of topics: beginning as you do in ladies' circles with the vexing issue of vaginal dryness - at some stage ladies, I will have to discuss this subject with you - one of the several and somewhat disconcerting effects of menopause, one of the side effects of my treatment which will be discussed in depth in a later blog.
The conversation is candid as we move onto discussing the sex education of our kids, comparing notes of our 'bad mother' moments (the ones you usually have when hidden under that handy cone of silence: the family car - when you can blithely threaten murder and bombard your children with crushing vitriol and sarcasm, possibly scarring them for life, just because you are ready to explode with frustration). We all feel a lot better sharing these stories: just knowing you are not alone in allowing "Psycho Mum" to show her ugly head.
But for all the joviality, when the Adromyacin is being inserted I feel a bit anxious and my friends work really hard on keeping my eyes away from the syringe full of red fluid. If only it weren't coloured red, I'm sure I'd cope a lot better.
However, by the Taxotere I am really felling quite unwell. Nim and Janet stroke my hands. Soo Yin offers me the anti nausea tablet that has a sedative effect and I decide to accept it. I feel hot and vile.
In an effort to perk me up, Nim hand feeds me some home made fruit salad because my hands are in the oven mitts.
"I would hate to be a seal," I observe as the lack of fingers is really quite a handicap.
Then she feeds me a chicken roll she has brought for each of us, with a bit of the chilli both she and I love. What can I say. This friend is just a gem. She was probably Florence Nightingale in a previous life. Of Nim I have discovered she is the Yin to my Yang, a woman who continues to teach me about opening up other parts to the person I am, and vice versa. Nim is open, passionate, competitive, driven, emotional, giving, generous, and operates on about 400,000 KW of energy. She assesses most people from the heart and will lavish love and affection on people without a second thought.
I on the other hand have a Virgoan's natural caution with people. I am an observer and in many cases,gravitate toward those I wish to be friends with based on a fairly cerebral assessment of their personal qualities and how they mesh with mine. As I found myself saying just yesterday: Life is to short for cheap wine, bad coffee and boring conversation. May I emphasise Good Conversation. It really seems to be a dying art and when you find it with someone you meet she or he is a keeper. Good conversationalists are rich in life experiences, many are highly educated and/or well read, they have an ear for listening, they usually have lots of interests, and they show an interest in others. In short, like cancer-free left breasts, they don't grow on trees so if you find them, hang onto them.
I imagine that, as time goes on, Nim and I will adopt the best of each of us in our efforts to some balance in our interactions with the world. From this, who knows what could grow in the future?
The point is, I choose my friends wisely, and I hope that this is one reason I have four such wonderful women by my chair-side today.
So, after being spoon fed, I don't feel as ill and, once the cyclophosphamide is doing its work, I feel kind of okay but a little woozy still.
Janet, Lindar and Tracey finish off Nim's fruit salads and are very thankful.
After we leave, Lindar drives Nim and me to the Manpad under construction in Merivale Street. I manage to get home without falling asleep, dropping Nim home safely.
Today I have managed a few laughs although I can tell that the intensity of my bon homie
is plateauing.
I anticipate that over the remaining two sessions, I will find it quite a struggle and I'm hoping my friends will have the energy to see this through with me to the end.
I did not see Dr Choo today as she is on holidays. I will see her later next week.
Dr Choo has said that after Dose 4 is when the true menopause symptoms should start to raise their cheeky little heads from the tundra of my own Antarctica. Global warming it seems has already commenced and I have started to spend most nights lathered in a veil of sweat.
I have also started to notice that I am as sensitive as a hand grenade when dealing with vexatious situations - like not being able to find something unimportant - and the poorly educated halfwits who want to argue politics.
What other unpleasant experiences lie ahead this week time will tell.
All I know is that I'll be ducking and running as fast as possible through the explosions across that battle field until another 3 weeks when my next trench is claimed.
In the meantime, Al is battening down the hatches. And my Mum is making me my favourite spicy fish balls as I speak.
Harry is working on a DJ mix as he's been secured for the launch of a new 'Scooter Magazine' down the Gold Coast next week. (He's quite chuffed about it, actually).
Tonight we are going to Ethel and George's House for dinner.
Everything seems pretty normal.
And I will continue to work as hard as I can to keep things that way.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Hair 1
Yesterday it's two weeks after my first chemo and when I run my fingers through my hair, I watch with a kind of revolted curiosity as a large handful of follicles are dislodged.
For days I've felt a burning sensation at my roots, as if someone is pulling my hair. Actually, it hurts like Fuck, as we Australians like to say.
How much does Fuck hurt? I hear you ask. That is a good question but I do not believe it has been quantified in clinical studies yet. I just figure Fuck hurts a little more than Shit and considerably more than Fiddlesticks.
It's the day that my isolation period for low immunity reaches its climax, seven unremarkable days that comprise an eclectic mix of energy and industry, malaise and boredom.
There are five high points:
- I submit part of a long-term writing project to my client (ka ching!) ;
- I finish the last few requirements for my Certificate III in Fitness;
- Last Saturday, instead of walking the five kilometres I manage every day this week, I jog it - albeit at the pace of a one-legged 90-year-old man.
- I manage two outings, one when I have coffee with a friend (Emmily) and two, when Al and I go to Trivia with the gang (and win!).
For the first five days, my mum and aunty are here, cooking me curries and cooking everything they can lay their little Sri Lankan mitts on. They make me about 2,085 curry rolls. They create feasts of such magnificent proportions I have to remind them that it's just Ben and I!
By the time they leave, I am channelling my inner Oompah Loompah. Even the dog is looking bloated.
I diarise each day but it makes for soporific reading.
The one helpful thing I note is the way my sleeping patterns are disrupted, including two nights of terrible insomnia when I have to recourse to a sleeping pill. (What fabulous drugs. No after effects.)
I also note that isolation is about as fun as doing an exercise class in a high care nursing home - especially the bit where you have to work up a sweat moving your ankle in a circle.
Where once I would recoil at the notion of WASTING time watching bad mid-day TV, I can now report that 'The View' is truly a boring, boring show: all those opinionated women talking over the top of each other. Horrible.
Where once I thought twice about pharmaceutical intervention, now I think I might name my first grandsons, Pfizer and Glaxo (what do you think?)
My motto has gone from Carpe Diem to Pass-the-Remote. I suppose I should be grateful that it hasn't become Pass-the-Kidney-Stone.
Today, Maria - the Michaelangela of hairdressing - picks me up early in her neat little beamer and we drive to Carindale.
I have a voucher for $75 from the Cancer Council to spend on a wig. My girlfriend Chris says she hardly used hers, but I know I have a couple of social engagements coming up when I would prefer that I looked less Humpty Dumpty and more, I don't know, Hairy McLairy?
The importance of hair, of course is not to be underestimated. In most societies it is a totem of sexuality and more. Although, I think in Donald Trump's case it's probably just a totem of sad-old-man.
So I suppose it's understandable that my impending defoliation has required some adjustment.
When we get to Starkles, I try on a few wigs. You'll have to guess which one I chose:
I have a good collection of ratty party wigs too, so I'm torn... perhaps I could go for one of the looks below:
The Skank:
The Ho
The Fro (Cue Minnie Riperton)
After selecting my wig and purchasing some other hair - um, scalp - adornments, Maria and I do some Christmas shopping and return home for - da da da sum - the last haircut.
We decide not to go for the Colonel Klink look and instead opt for, perhaps a Le Beau (all you Gen Ys out there - look up 'Hogan's Heroes').
Here is what I look like:
The roots continue to hurt afterwards but at least the follicles being dislodged aren't so offensive.
Soon, I realise the soap opera that is my life will make the transition from "The Young and the Breastless" to "The Bald and the Beautiful".
Soon, I shall have to add a position on the billiard table to my personal Karma Sutra, preferably with my head positioned neatly over a corner pocket.
So what can I do other than celebrate the hair and now ... and hone up on my bad-hair puns.
To be continued...
For days I've felt a burning sensation at my roots, as if someone is pulling my hair. Actually, it hurts like Fuck, as we Australians like to say.
How much does Fuck hurt? I hear you ask. That is a good question but I do not believe it has been quantified in clinical studies yet. I just figure Fuck hurts a little more than Shit and considerably more than Fiddlesticks.
It's the day that my isolation period for low immunity reaches its climax, seven unremarkable days that comprise an eclectic mix of energy and industry, malaise and boredom.
There are five high points:
- I submit part of a long-term writing project to my client (ka ching!) ;
- I finish the last few requirements for my Certificate III in Fitness;
- Last Saturday, instead of walking the five kilometres I manage every day this week, I jog it - albeit at the pace of a one-legged 90-year-old man.
- I manage two outings, one when I have coffee with a friend (Emmily) and two, when Al and I go to Trivia with the gang (and win!).
For the first five days, my mum and aunty are here, cooking me curries and cooking everything they can lay their little Sri Lankan mitts on. They make me about 2,085 curry rolls. They create feasts of such magnificent proportions I have to remind them that it's just Ben and I!
By the time they leave, I am channelling my inner Oompah Loompah. Even the dog is looking bloated.
I diarise each day but it makes for soporific reading.
The one helpful thing I note is the way my sleeping patterns are disrupted, including two nights of terrible insomnia when I have to recourse to a sleeping pill. (What fabulous drugs. No after effects.)
I also note that isolation is about as fun as doing an exercise class in a high care nursing home - especially the bit where you have to work up a sweat moving your ankle in a circle.
Where once I would recoil at the notion of WASTING time watching bad mid-day TV, I can now report that 'The View' is truly a boring, boring show: all those opinionated women talking over the top of each other. Horrible.
Where once I thought twice about pharmaceutical intervention, now I think I might name my first grandsons, Pfizer and Glaxo (what do you think?)
My motto has gone from Carpe Diem to Pass-the-Remote. I suppose I should be grateful that it hasn't become Pass-the-Kidney-Stone.
Today, Maria - the Michaelangela of hairdressing - picks me up early in her neat little beamer and we drive to Carindale.
I have a voucher for $75 from the Cancer Council to spend on a wig. My girlfriend Chris says she hardly used hers, but I know I have a couple of social engagements coming up when I would prefer that I looked less Humpty Dumpty and more, I don't know, Hairy McLairy?
The importance of hair, of course is not to be underestimated. In most societies it is a totem of sexuality and more. Although, I think in Donald Trump's case it's probably just a totem of sad-old-man.
So I suppose it's understandable that my impending defoliation has required some adjustment.
When we get to Starkles, I try on a few wigs. You'll have to guess which one I chose:
I have a good collection of ratty party wigs too, so I'm torn... perhaps I could go for one of the looks below:
The Skank:
The Ho
The Fro (Cue Minnie Riperton)
After selecting my wig and purchasing some other hair - um, scalp - adornments, Maria and I do some Christmas shopping and return home for - da da da sum - the last haircut.
We decide not to go for the Colonel Klink look and instead opt for, perhaps a Le Beau (all you Gen Ys out there - look up 'Hogan's Heroes').
Here is what I look like:
The roots continue to hurt afterwards but at least the follicles being dislodged aren't so offensive.
Soon, I realise the soap opera that is my life will make the transition from "The Young and the Breastless" to "The Bald and the Beautiful".
Soon, I shall have to add a position on the billiard table to my personal Karma Sutra, preferably with my head positioned neatly over a corner pocket.
So what can I do other than celebrate the hair and now ... and hone up on my bad-hair puns.
To be continued...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)