… what on earth they must have tried in this latest cocktail of products to try to counter the vicious side-effects of the Bandamustine, the second and third parts of this chemotherapy that I have, but if they had tried it after the first or even the second visit, I would not have had all the issues that I had had in the past and I would not have lost my enthusiasm for going to Paris.
In actual fact, I had to ask the nurses twice if they had already given it to me because in sharp contrast to the two previous visits, I felt no effects at all. Not even a single shiver. Mind you, the stabbing pain in my foot, that had been absent since the previous visit, returned to haunt me at some point during the night and continued throughout the morning.
One probably unwanted side-effect might have been that I thought that I had had a nuit blanche – a night when I didn’t go to sleep at all.
That could possibly have been because I had crashed out in the afternoon yesterday – and royally too. I was totally out of it when one of the nurses called in to see me, and for a moment I didn’t have a clue where I was … "for a moment only?" – ed …
But anyway, that was yesterday. Last night, having finished my notes early, I went to try to have an early night during the pauses of the chemotherapy sessions, but I ended up not going to sleep even though I was tired.
At least, I thought that I hadn’t gone to sleep, but when I listened to the dictaphone, I discovered that I must have because there was actually something on there from the night. There was something about a woman and her daughter aged eleven being on one of these express buses going somewhere. The bus was involved in an accident and luckily the girl was sitting somewhere else because the mother took the full force of this lorry coming through the side and was killed immediately.
To whatever that particular dream relates, I really have no idea at all. It doesn’t seem to tie in with anything that has sprung to my mind in recent past. However, I did note that I refrained from saying “a little girl”. The last girl of eleven to whom I referred as “little” was definitely not amused and I still had the bruises two weeks later.
It was a very slow and unsteady start to the day and it took me quite a while to come to my senses, which is a surprise seeing how few senses I have left these days. I checked the stats, transcribed the dictaphone (see above) and just as I had finished, the doctor came to see me.
He told me that the University Hospital at Rennes is licensed to dispense the Bendamustine and so he’s been in touch with them. However, the professor in charge of the unit is away on holiday so he won’t have a response for a couple of weeks. Consequently, he’s reserved a bed for me for the 16th and 17th of September for my next course of chemotherapy, but he’ll let me know about Rennes and will cancel these dates if appropriate.
He also said that the last session of Bendamustine will be given at 10:00 so after a rudimentary breakfast, I dashed into the bathroom for a good wash and shave. If I’d known earlier about the long delay for the final session, I’d have had a shower.
When they came to give me this last session, I checked again to make sure that it was the same that they had given me earlier, to which they agreed, so I carried on working, trying to work out the chords to two songs by Lindisfarne, WE CAN MAKE IT
and BORN AT THE RIGHT TIME, because for the former, one of the recurrent themes in my postings is the loss of knowledge of the old men that they take to the grave with them. For the latter, I think that those of us born at the later stages of the “Boomer” generation really were born at the right time and really did have it all.
When they came to disconnect me completely from the machine I obviously had to notice, but I was so distracted later that I didn’t notice the arrival of the taxi driver until he yelled at me.
He had been booked to appear at 13:00 but it was actually 14:00 when he arrived. Not that it was important because he had had to drop off someone here in Paris or thereabouts on the way, and then go round to another hospital to pick up a lady to drop off in Bréhal up the coast.
The lady, I have travelled with before and she’s quite chatty The driver knew how to talk too, and of course, I am not renowned for my reticence so we had quite an animated drive back here, and you’d be surprised at how quickly time flies when you are having a good chatty drive.
We dropped off the lady first and then came home to Granville where we arrived at about 18:30, and found my reception committee awaiting me.
Not having to climb twenty-five steps is a real boon, and I fell in here to find that despite my instructions for everyone to take the day off as a Day of Rest, they had carried on working and they had made another great difference to the rooms here. I was astonished.
The shower is finished too and never mind the money that it cost me, it is a masterpiece. He had put a lot of work into it and you can tell.
While I was at hospital, I hadn’t eaten my sandwiches so I had them for tea while my friend finished off the stuffing with some mashed potato. But now that he and his sidekick the Hound of the Baskervilles have gone back upstairs to where the sofa is, I’ve written my notes and when I’ve done ten minutes of tidying up, I’ll be off to bed too.
But seeing as we have been talking a lot about talking a lot and “little” girls of eleven years old… "well, one of us has" – ed … one of them once asked me "why do you spend so much time talking to yourself, Eric?"
"Well, Pernilla," I replied. "When you reach a certain age, you become accustomed to talking to the most intelligent person in the room."
