Dangerous Del

Today I have been wildly reckless.  I have changed the quilt on my bed from winter to summer mode.  So now I'll be snoozing under 9 togs instead of the usual 15.  I know, CRAZY (given the erratic summer we're having here in England), but that's the way I roll.

I've been doing quite a lot of snoozing lately, either in bed or on the sofa.  I think it's due to the current chemo but as side effects go it could be so much worse, so I will cease my whinging here.

Before I move on from the subject of cancer I just thought I'd mention that Breakthrough Breast Cancer (one of the charities we will be raising funds for at the forthcoming barn dance) has merged with Breast Cancer Campaign to form Breast Cancer Now, the largest breast cancer charity in the UK.  The new website is still nauseatingly pink (don't start me on the whole pink thing) but other than that I'm impressed.  They seem to be taking metastatic breast cancer seriously and their new TV advert is, I think, spot on.  You can view it here.

I'm still obsessed by my tiny but, I think, lovely garden.  Here's the latest - front and back

This is what happens if you scatter poppy seeds with wild abandon (I will be starting an opium farm shortly)

Not content with sitting in my own garden I recently went on a tour of neighbourhood plots as part of the open gardens scheme.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and at one point we were sat in someone's garden listening to a string quartet while drinking tea and scoffing cake.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Here are some edited highlights (and yes, I was very, very, jealous)

Herbaceous borders to kill for

Someone else with a poppy fetish

Swoon fest

 

shed envy

and scarecrows with attitude

And lest you think I have gone completely peculiar over plants, don't worry my number one concern remains mog-based.  I leave you with pictures of the cats I came across during my garden tour (all in all a blissful afternoon).

A Cyril look-a-like (apart from the full set of back legs)

Hello handsome

This one, Celeste, was in disgrace for bird murder (in full view of guests)

 

 

 

Oh yes, he knew he was beautiful

Me again

Just a short note to pester you with the fact that my latest burblings for Vita (an online magazine for the Breast Cancer Care charity) can be read here. 

Not the cheeriest of reads so here, have a free photo of Cyril, the three-legged monster cat, to be going on with:

Now, if you'll excuse me I've got things to do.  I want to finish this excellent book before this excellent film comes on in an hours time.  It's all go go go.

Gardeners' Question Time

A couple of posts ago I wrote about how the back garden has looked like this

ever since the builders left, after using it as a storage area, last June.  This despite the fact that the other-half used to garden for a living.  Well I'm pleased to say he finally ran out of excuses (one being 'I've got gardeners' block') and now it has been transformed.  

Behold the new garden:

Ha ha ha.  I am very funny.

Actually it looks like this:

It all looks a bit plinky plonky at the moment but once the plants start growing it'll be a thing of beauty.  We haven't replaced the grass opting instead for flowers in the hope of encouraging bees.  This may be a tad foolish as the other-half is wildly allergic to wasp stings.  He's never been stung by a bee so we've no idea how he'd react but maybe I'd better think about life insurance.  The eagle-eyed among you may be wondering why there is an unconnected shower head fixed to the shed (far left).  It's because, here at Discombobulated Towers, we are not afraid to embrace the twee.

Talking of twee I went shopping in lovely Ludlow the other day.  I meant to buy sensible things like toilet rolls and socks.  Instead I came home with a handbound notebook, a quince for the garden and an hourglass.  That's just the kind of town Ludlow is.  I've been sad enough to check and it actually takes 62 minutes for the sand to trickle from the top to the bottom of the hourglass.  Should I ask for a refund?

I had chemo yesterday and, after feeling like a dog's dinner last time, I am stuffed to the gills with anti-nausea medicine.  On the plus side I have spent the day lying on the sofa with the cat, a packet of ginger biscuits and a book about the nasty Normans duffing up the Ango-Saxons.  I've had worse Wednesdays.

Cold turkey for New Year

Picture from here

I can’t be trusted to get anything right.  Remember the cock-up I made ages ago with steroids?  Well I’ve messed up with two other prescription drugs since I last posted.  I feel I should get some sort of medicine mishap medal.

Firstly, way back when I was first diagnosed with secondary breast cancer I was prescribed citalopram, an anti-anxiety/anti-depressant drug.  Finding out, very unexpectedly, that I had terminal cancer was, to use a medical term, a complete bugger of a bloody, buggering bastard.  My anxiety levels went through the roof.  I couldn’t even stroke Cyril (the three-legged monster cat) because my palms were permanently sweaty with fear.  My feet were permanently sweaty too and more than one pair of slippers ended up sealed in a hazardous waste bag in the bin.

Anyway, citalopram, time and a treatment plan helped me return to something of an even keel (as much as my keel has ever been even) and, over the last few months, I’ve been feeling pretty chirpy and have managed to cut down on the amount of citalopram I take.  (If anyone reading this is in the unfortunate position of just having been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer I would say, take heart, there’s a very good chance that you will feel intermittently less devastated given time and, if need be, prescription drugs.) 

Now, cutting down on the citalopram with advice from my GP is one thing.  Having such a high time over Christmas that I forgot to take it at all for several days is another kettle of bananas altogether.  It wasn’t until shortly before New Year, when I was sat in a puddle of misery (that’s a metaphorical puddle in case you’re worried about my new-ish sofa), that I remembered the untaken tablets.  I’m back popping the pills now and feeling a lot better for it. 

Medication mistake number two.  I’ve been taking slow release morphine since last summer when I experienced horrible pain.  The horrible pain, I am very glad to report, has since been under control but I have continued with the morphine mainly because I’m a sacredly cat and didn’t want to run the risk of experiencing such pain ever again if I could possibly avoid it.  However, one of the side effects of morphine is that it, erm, gums you up somewhat.  Oh for goodness sake stop looking so puzzled, I’m talking constipation here, it’s no good trying to be delicate with you lot is it?  Over Christmas, probably due to over-indulgence in all things yummy, I was well and truly gummed up to the gills.  I decided, in my dimwitted way, to stop taking the morphine in the hope it would ease things.  Sure enough my insides became un-gummed and thankfully the horrible pain did not return.  So far so good.  But then I began to feel well and truly grotty.  The grottiness continued so I belatedly read the leaflet that came with the morphine.  It advised patients not to stop taking the drug without the advice of a doctor because of the risk of suffering withdrawal symptoms.  Oops.  So I went back on the morphine pronto and am now feeling much better for it.  I’ve seen my GP and have a plan for weaning myself off over the next few weeks, so stand by for future moaning.  I assume that the grottiness I experienced was about a million-trilloneth-zilloneth of what somebody going through real cold turkey feels like.  All I can say is hats off to anyone who undergoes the real McCoy.

So there you have it.  I’m only on two prescription drugs at the moment and I managed to mess up on both.  Thank goodness the swamp juice (chemo) is administered by nurses.  I dread to think what I’d do left to my own devices.

Despite the whingy tone of this post I had a good Christmas and New Year, although there was one very traumatic moment when the other-half unwrapped the CD shown below

Oh the horror

If any non-UK readers think that this is a CD of howls from the wild, then you are pretty much right.  Except this is songs sung at Wolverhamptom Wanderers Football Club rather than the cries of noble beasts.  Maybe I should double up on those anti-depressants after all.

A mixed bag

Picture from here

I saw Mr Oily (the oncologist) yesterday.  The appointment was both good and bad. 

Let’s deal with the grot first.  A few days ago I found a new lump in more or less the same area as before.  Mr Oily says it’s a ‘thickening’ rather than a lump but it does need watching.  Hopefully it’s just scar tissue but there’s always the possibility it’s a new tumor.  I will add it to my list of things to worry about, probably a few notches above my concern about how to keep my new cream sofa clean when there’s a very dirty three-legged cat in the house.

This was a good day.  I don't always manage to get a throw on the sofa before Cyril makes his mark.

 

I’ve been getting quite a lot of pain in my side, maybe due to the (possible) cancer in my ribs.  However, I have now been prescribed vast quantities of top strength co-codamol.  Hurrah for drugs.

On a happier note my blood tests and heart tests are all tickety-boo.  Mr Oily said that the flu-like side-effects I had after my first dose of the trial drug, TDM1, are pretty standard and now he is confident that this chemo doesn’t have an effect on the white blood cells, he advised me to take paracetamol as a matter of course for the first couple of days after treatment.  So hopefully, I won’t feel quite as vile after my next dose of new swamp juice next week.  I’ll let you know either way.  There is no escape.

Also, I think, maybe possibly touch wood, that my breathing has improved.  I’m certainly coughing less and the other day I walked to and from the supermarket (a 15 minute round trip), something I haven’t been able to do for ages.  Who’d have thought that going to the supermarket would ever be a cause for celebration?

In other news Cyril (the three-legged monster cat) loves his new carpeted cat tunnel.   

 He comes and goes at all hours of the day and night and likes to mark his return home by miaowing incredibly loudly, often at around 3am, to let us know he’s home.  I’m wondering if I can fit him with a silencer. 

My new kitchen is still a source of delight and wonder to me.  In fact I have just been sneaking my recycling into next door’s boxes (it’s kerb side collection day) as I don’t want to litter my lovely kitchen with recycling containers.  Not only do I think this marks me out as just a little bit bonkers but I also reckon I have lost any chance of a neighbour of the year award. 

I live here

Note proximity of cuppa, biscuit tin, iPad and cat - all life's essentials

My life is still revolving around the sofa.  I’d no idea that having an operation would make me feel so tired.  I’ve read bits and bobs on recovering from a mastectomy and there is every shade of opinion from people who think that, at two weeks on from the op, I should be leaping around like a young and frisky gazelle to others who reckon I’ll be out for the count for up to six months (six months? bugger off). 

Apart from the tiredness all seems to be going well.  I am (as yet) untraumatised by the whole thing and while I’m in a bit of pain it’s not horrendous, nothing like having toothache or, as I can bloody well testify, stubbing your toe by walking into the clothes airer with bare feet.

I’m sorry for the extra dull post but I’ve very little to report (aside from the horror that is walking into the clothes airer with bare feet).  However, during a period of intensive research (which some people might mistakenly call faffing about on the internet) I found the only source of information anyone will ever need.  Click here to find the most useful database* in the universe (click on the dots within the table for pictures/films). 

* I hate the word ‘database’ and am a bit ashamed at myself for having used it.  I also hate ‘pantyhose’, ‘matrix’ and ‘comfy’.