… a really bad, horrible, awful 24 hours since I last published my notes.
In fact, I would go as far as to say that today has been the worst that I have felt for a considerable number of years. My faithful cleaner has told me that she has seen me "much worse than this" but I remain unconvinced.
It’s really reaching the limit right now and I’m not sure that I want to keep on like this. These days when I am totally unable to function, I thought that I’d put them well behind me, but apparently not.
Everything began to go all wrong last night. I’d finished my notes quite early … "for a change" – ed … and was looking forward to something of an early night, but while I was … errr … contemplating the state of the nation before going to bed, the stabbing pain that I have occasionally in my foot suddenly recommenced.
And recommenced in spades too.
After I finally managed to crawl into bed, in total agony, the stabbing pain continued. And continued throughout the night too. Every time I began to doze off, there was another stabbing pain that aroused me from my slumber, and so it went on. Round about 06:00 I finally managed to fall asleep, but what good is a sleep of twenty-nine minutes?
It took a good while (longer than it ought) for me to rise to my feet, and then I staggered – quite literally – into the bathroom. Once I’d washed, I went for the medication, which I really didn’t feel like taking, and then came back in here.
Had Isabelle the Nurse not been coming round, I would honestly have gone back to bed, stabbing pain in the foot notwithstanding, but as she would be arriving in half an hour, I had a listen to the dictaphone. And to my surprise, there was something on it from the night. I dreamed that my visitor for next week was here already. She turned up and we began to chat about old times. She was her usual exuberant self. It turned out that she had left her bags in the laboratory which was in the classroom next door so she wanted to go to fetch it. I set off on my crutches and she followed me, and we went into the classroom next door. What she was asking for was – I can’t remember now but it was a strange term that she used. I was puzzled as to what it was that she actually mentioned. Then she pointed to a white box, so I went over to the white box, and it was full of ammeters. That was what she was finding. I went to pick it up but of course I couldn’t. In any case I couldn’t hold it with having to hold my two crutches, so she picked it up and slung it over her shoulder and we went back into my apartment next door. Again, this is another dream where I was sure that there was more than this
And that’s something else that’s bothering me. She’ll be here in three days’ time, with a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby, and if I’m not going to be in any kind of better shape by then, she will have had a long drive from Limoges to here, all for nothing.
When Isabelle the Nurse came round, she took one look at me and told me to go back to bed once she’d finished with my legs. She said that I looked awful, and that it must be the contre-coup following the chemotherapy.
However, I went to make some food. I’ve been having very little to eat just recently and it’s not doing me any good at all. I made a small bowl of porridge, and that was that. No coffee, no toast, no nothing else.
It took an age for me to summon up the energy to leave the table when I’d finished. I really was thinking about going back to bed but there are things that I wanted to do.
Firstly, I wanted to finish this important letter that I’d been writing. It’s now all finished and reviewed, but it took me all day to do it, given my current state of health etc. I’ll be reviewing it again before I send it off, though, which is likely to be Monday now.
Something else that I have done is to relearn (because it’s been so long since I last did it that I’ve forgotten) how to add layers to my images. I mean – I know how to add layers of course, but how to set the various sizes and configurations that I need to use.
It took several hours to figure it all out, but now it works even better than it did before, which is good news.
My faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff. She had been intending to help me into the shower seeing as I didn’t shower on Wednesday, but one look at me was enough to convince her that it wasn’t going to be a good idea. I could hardly stand up straight. Instead, she packed me off in here to sit down. Apparently, I was swaying about all over the place.
Even though I didn’t feel like it, I managed to force down some food. Overboiled potatoes and veg with a vegan burger, and not very much of that either. But I’m really going to be very ill if I don’t eat anything at all.
It’s strange, though, what’s happening right now. Apart from the stabbing pain in my foot, I could be sitting down feeling quite normal, and then my head begins to spin round and I feel really faint.
All of a sudden, there’s a very short moment of a brilliant flashback of memory, although when I try to analyse it, I can’t actually place the flashback into anything that I recall having done. Nevertheless, it seems to be so incredibly real. It’s almost as if there’s some kind of chemical release in my brain that’s triggering some long-lost memory or some hidden part of my brain.
Whatever it is, it’s totally bizarre and I don’t understand it at all.
However, right now, I’m off to bed, hoping that this foot issue eases off so I can go to sleep. I’m thoroughly exhausted right now with having had so little sleep.
But seeing as we have been talking about stabbing pains … "well, one of us has" – ed … Nerina once rang me up and asked "do you ever suffer from these really stabbing pains, you know, the type as if someone is stabbing a voodoo doll image of you with a pin?"
"You know what?" I exclaimed. "That’s a really good way of describing what’s going on with my foot right now."
"Oh good!" she said. "It really does work!" and she hung up.
