"The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people passing by ..." Thank you Nigel for suggesting that my final colour choice is ALL the colours of the rainbow. Today is a very special day. I'm in remission and have been signed off treatment. What a year... Continue Reading →
Guess the musical ... "All I want is a room, in Bloomsbury ..." Yes? No? It's one of the lovely songs from The Boyfriend which I have recently re-discovered. In my teens the lyrics sang to me and I had romantic visions of living a life with a penniless artist ... "In our attic, we'll... Continue Reading →
As a cook and creative taste inventor, one of the most depressing parts of chemo has been the dry mouth and lack of taste. And by that I mean the gastronomic version, not those lacey scalloped net curtains or the giant wishing well with a grinning gnome fishing in your front garden. Today I found the gem of all gems taste-wise; Graze cherry bakewell bites. Have you tried them? On offer in Tesco ( hint, hint, boss of Tesco). Wow - are they delicious or what? Forget the X Factor, these have got the Mmmm Factor.
6.10am, wide awake and the colour silver is running through my imagination. Rather than counting sheep to help me drift off, deep breathing or picturing a grey wall to (which usually works, by the way), I've got images of David Soul, flutes and spoons in my mind. And like any sensible person who should be trying to... Continue Reading →
Five consecutive days of arsenic drips and mega drugs completed and I'm back home with the silly idea that I'd be able to sleep in my own bed, catch up on dreams, enjoy the comfort of my super (if slightly old) memory foam pillow. I'm wide awake, but dozy, slightly brain-dead with a thousand thoughts rushing through it. Oh yes, and the one big factor driving all this mental mayhem is the morphine. Having had a pretty constant headache for the week, the chemo team reminded me that I could take an oral morphine solution to ease the headaches when back home. It's eased the pain alright and in exchange for the relief, has flooded my head with a load of very daft thoughts, a horrid taste of old metal tubes stuffed with rotten garlic and the feeling that body fat has been replaced with dense concrete.
I knocked the bag of fruit from the table in frustration, then slipped and trod on it. My feet are still a bit weird with no sensation owing to the neuropathy, so it was only when orangey juice flooded out that I realised I'd mashed the easy peelers. Damn! As always when confronted with the mess of something I've done when angry or frustrated, I try to see the funny side. The only image that came to mind was my bulky Christmas bod, in a sumo outfit, stomping the floor and looking ridiculous while crouching down with my belly hanging on the floor.
"Why are his trousers vermillion?" One of the lines from The Boy From ... which features in the uplifting West End show "Old Friends", a collection of some of Sondheim's best songs performed by incredible artistes. I took my darling, one-in-a-million nephew Tristan to see it as his Christmas present and ... ok, a teeny... Continue Reading →
'tis the season to be singing and last night TC and I went to see my darling sister Tam and her lovely husband Armen playing with a community band in Barnet. The music choices were lovely - from screeching James Bond medleys to soft accompaniments for Christmas carols. I haven't sung properly at full pelt for months... Continue Reading →
Surrounded by silver tinsel, baubles and glitter yesterday, I had a long waiting day at the Macmillan Centre. While I twiddled my numb thumbs I wondered what the colour silver sounded like.A tinkly, high-pitched bell? Orange, a crackly fire noise? And green a deep whoosh of whistling air as wind parts tall branches?
I’m struggling a bit to be honest with the idea of more 5-day runs on arsenic drip every day and horrible medication making me feel feeble. I know deep down that this is all coming to an end soon. The real issue is having the strength to overcome the urge to throw all the drugs out and say “bo*****s” to the whole thing.
I made a hardened newsman weep with uncontrollable laughter when I told him that a perfect anagram of my name is "I am so blonde". Too good to be true, eh? He set me off into hysterics too, just watching the tears streaming down his face while he tried saying "sorry ...". To get my... Continue Reading →
I’m surrounded by pink chairs, pink foot stools and discarded Financial Times papers. The symphony of soft bleeps is lulling me in and out of snoozy sleep and guess who had dark pink cheeks earlier? I’ve been a bit dozy today after interrupted sleep (thank you bladder) and thought I know what will wake me... Continue Reading →
Next time I'm about to say out loud the silliest thing that comes into my chemo brain - please stop me.
In the effort to spread awareness and highlight some of the symptoms that we should look out for, I gave an interview to The Metro and it's all in there in black and white. The great news is that my last bone marrow biopsy showed a negative result, so one more consolidating cycle to go... Continue Reading →
Chemo-Chameleon 