Blood, books and babes

Another week, another blood test, and this week's hospital visit was enhanced by a dose of Pentamadine. Pentamadine is given through a nebuliser (which pumps air or oxygen through a liquid medicine to turn it into a vapour, which is then inhaled), and is to protect me from getting pneumonia. I think. The blood results were fine, and though the Pentamadine isn't exactly tasty, it's never a problem or remotely painful having it.

There was, as usual, a decent amount of time spent waiting, but that helped me to read 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka... It was funny, and had me laughing out loud occasionally, but also managed to be quite moving in places. I'd recommend it, as I would (perhaps even more so) 'The History of Love' by Nicole Krauss. The latter was stunning: beautifully-written and heart-breaking. It's also very literary.

I'm back in on Monday, because they think my blood counts may have started to drop by then. I've also signed up to attend a patients/medical staff meeting the week after, organised by the Cancer team. It might be interesting, and it'll be a good chance to mention i) food and ii) internet provision.

Here's a photo of MC and me chez Jo, Sooz and Aoifeu (and Tara, though she was taking the photo):

2007, eh?

This might be a record for not posting, which is particularly impressive considering at New Year I vaguely resolved to post more regularly... Too vaguely, no doubt. The usual excuses apply: I've been far busier than I should have been, and far lazier than I should have been, too. But now I'm back!

Christmas was, as my last post hopefully made clear, fabulous. It was good even when we were joined by Tomandalice on Boxing Day. A couple of times I stopped and thought about just what I'd been through, and how lucky I was to be able to enjoy Christmas in such good health. It was very special.

New Year was fun: a Murder Mystery at Big Phil's house... I'm not a big fan of going out for NYE, and a small dinner party with added acting responsibilities (including variable American accents) proved to be a great way to see in 2007.

I never seem to be able to think of decent resolutions in time, so generally I'm just going to try and be better this year. Better at keeping in touch with people, better at getting things done sooner rather than later, better at helping at home, better at giving people what they deserve. That sort of thing. It's a bit vague, I suppose, but it might be better than nothing.

Oh, and I want to get Burt Bacharach to perform at my 25th birthday party.
2007 has, as I mentioned, been a bit busy so far, but good. My first hospital visit of the year was meant to be for an Intrathecal injection, but counts were still a bit marginal, so they postponed it for another week, while restarting the chemo tablets (though halving the dose). This worked quite nicely, as I had the White Knights Ball coming up, and didn't especially want a sore back or any side effects. As it was, the IT happened last week instead, and was very easy - fortunately a doctor who had given me two before did it, so he knew exactly where to stick the needle! I don't seem to have had any nasty side-effects, either.

The White Knights Ball (follow links from www.omv.org.uk to see photos) was magnificent, and the bits I helped organise seemed to go OK. Best of all, I had all my family along for the first time, as well as a table and a half of friends from Jesus, Oxford, many of whom I hadn't seen for a while. It was great to catch up with so many people, though as always there were still lots I barely saw, if at all. We seem to have raised lots of money, too, but I'm yet to discover how much. I also had a great night at Row's house, for her brother's 21st birthday.


I'm now throwing myself back at the Malteser, which I had hoped to finish sooner, but which was somewhat ignored over Christmas/New Year. What I have done is looking fairly presentable, and there are some great articles, in my opinion.

Meanwhile, I've started doing some part-time research for Jim Naughtie, the Radio 4 presenter (he works on the Today programme these days). He is frantically working on a new series and book on European classical music in its political, social and historical context, and needs a little help now and then to find certain obscure facts. Gilly Orr, who works for the Today programme, recommended me: big thank you to her. It's not a lot of work, but it's a start, and is probably quite a good way to ease myself back into the working world.

However, all this talk of work and so on is thrown into relief by a wonderful surprise on Wednesday: Mariacristina came over from Italy... I didn't have a clue until I turned up at Jo's house and MC opened the door! It was wonderful, and I loved having her over. She even took me to Spamalot!, which was very entertaining. Thank you MC...

So, that's all keeping me busy, and life seems to be getting back to something like normality. My daily tablets and weekly hospital visits for blood tests don't let me forget that treatment is still far from over, but they've become such a regular part of life they tend not to bother me at all.

I hope the year's been good for you all so far! I'll blog again soon.