… soup was delicious this evening.
Actually, it wasn’t. But that’s not the fault of the soup, the ingredients or the method of cooking. It’s to do with my complete and utter lack of taste these days.
The soup tasted of nothing but salt, which is bizarre because there wasn’t even a pinch of salt in it. But that’s how my taste buds have gone since I started chemotherapy.
All in all, I’m not feeling too well today, which is no surprise given the night that I had. It was another late night, despite all of my good intentions, and although I was asleep fairly quickly, it wasn’t for long. By 04:20 I was wide-awake.
Having tried my best to go back to sleep and failing miserably, I left the bed at 05:30 or thereabouts and took advantage of the early start by recording some of the radio notes that had been building up.
After that, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been, and it was another disappointing night. That’s twice during the night that I’ve moved too rapidly in bed and pulled a muscle in my right thigh, and awoken in agony. I don’t know what I’ve done to this muscle. It must have been something that the physiotherapist did. If I move quickly, it locks up and hurts like hell.
Looking back, I can vaguely remember the muscle spasms. It seems rather strange, though, that I should dictate something about them.
During the night, there was a whole host of snippets of little moments that came and went so fast that I didn’t have time to record them. There was one that was concerned with music. I was editing songs and putting them in a special file – directory – for some reason but I can’t remember why. This went on all the way through the night.
There have been spells like this in the past where a whole raft of dreams has passed before my eyes. I remember one very dramatic occasion when I was on an intravenous drip in hospital, and it felt as if I was hallucinating. But the editing of songs and filing them in a special directory is one of the ways in which I organise my radio programmes.
Once I’d finished with the dictaphone, I edited the notes that I’d dictated earlier and now that programme is complete.
The nurse was at his usual time today. We had a good chat about the series of injections that I have to have, and also the ones that are in the pipeline, such as the ‘flu injection and the Covid injection.
After he left, I made breakfast and then came back in here to work.
There were a few things that needed doing, and then I carried on with sorting out the music for the two radio programmes that I have on the go right now. With an hour to go, I broke off and did half of my Welsh homework. I want to finish it this weekend if I can.
My faithful cleaner turned up as usual to apply my anaesthetic, and then I had to wait for the taxi.
Our route out today took us to Champeau to pick up another passenger, so we were late arriving at Avranches. However, I was dealt with by Julie the Cook, the first time for ages, and she was quite rapid.
No-one bothered me at all today, but they were using some disinfectant to clean something and the smell was overpowering. I really felt like vomiting, it was so bad. It’s a good job that I only had to stay for three and a half hours. I would never have managed four.
They unplugged me quite quickly and another one of my favourite drivers was waiting for me. However, we had to wait around for the other guy to take him to Champeau again. Not that I minded too much because the driver and I had a lovely chat.
It was quite late when I returned, after all of that, and my cleaner was waiting. Back in here, we had a discussion, the result of which was that she’ll be coming on Tuesday afternoon instead of Wednesday for as long as I have to go to the Centre de Ré-education.
Tea was, as I mentioned, the broccoli stalk soup. And now I’m off to bed to try to make the most of this extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back during the night.
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about disinfectant … "well, one of us has" – ed … my brother’s nickname at school was “Harpic”.
"Why do they call you ‘Harpic’?" asked one of the teachers.
"That’s easy, miss" said one of the other boys. "It’s because he’s clean round the bend!"
