Do NOT try this at home – ever

Day 20: Intermezzo - a canine interlude

General status update

Hair: Frozen in terror in anticipation of Wednesday

Nausea demon: Doing one-armed press-ups to get himself in peak condition for the renewed nausea offensive after FEC 2. There’s a trick to it, apparently: he learned it from an old con he was tormenting in Wormwood Scrubs a few years back.

Chemo Muse: Getting very excited, and hoping to be able to dictate at least 10,000 words to me while I’m hopped up on steroids from Wednesday – Saturday. My main worry here is getting repetitive strain injury from all the typing.

Sleep, lack of: I don’t give a monkey’s if Lorazepam is addictive, I’m taking one tonight – don’t forget they are for anxiety as well as sleeplessness. Double whammy.

Anxiety level (1-10): 3 days until the next dose of poison – what do you think?

State of mind: better than Hank’s, for sure (see below). 

News from North Yorkshire: read on 

No animals were harmed in the writing of this blog – not by me, anyway. The following account is a reconstruction of the events in question put together from conversations with some of the less-traumatised participants and witnesses.

 

Boxing Day chez Big Sis Fo and the MC in rural north Yorkshire is always a very quiet day: after the enormous effort that goes into producing the Christmas Feast, and enjoying to the full the extraordinary array of wines that accompany it, the MC and Big Sis Fo (who functions as his sous-chef ) retire early, and sleep long; it is a House Rule for those guests who have stayed overnight that they should not expect their hosts to surface much before mid-day on Boxing Day, and should make their own breakfast.

Thus, earlier this week on Boxing Day morning, Big Sis Fo stumbled downstairs in her dressing gown at about 11 a.m., and headed towards the kitchen in search of some strong coffee. 

As she walked into the kitchen, yawning, she saw something which made her blink, for a moment quite unable to comprehend what she was seeing. She stood stock-still on the threshold trying to make sense of the tableau before her: the room had three occupants, namely Hank, the huge and demented Hungarian Visla, the MC, and Nick, another Fo brother-in-law who, as regular readers may recall, has bravely offered to assist in the implementation of my Viking funeral (now scheduled to be held on the River Derwent, which flows past the end of his back garden and thence into the North Sea, via the River Ouse), in defiance of any adverse legal consequences that may follow.

On Hank’s large, daft face there was an expression of extreme anguish, and he rolled his eyes at Big Sis Fo in mute, desperate appeal, as well he might, because Nick was holding Hank’s head, with the jaw firmly clamped shut, while at the other end the MC, clad in a cowboy-patterned Cath Kidston oil-cloth apron accessorised with a pair of bright yellow rubber Marigolds, had his fore-finger inserted into Hank’s rectum and was wiggling it about inside, as if trying to find something. Beside him, on the kitchen table, stood a large tub of Vaseline.

Big Sis Fo, not one to mince her words, especially when she comes across her partner in life apparently sodomising the dog, with company, barked: ‘What in HOLY HELL is going on here?’

Nick looked up, panic-stricken ‘It's not what it looks like...'

The MC, unperturbed, and without ceasing his digital exploration of Hank’s inner recesses, said: ‘Darling, you know Hank has to have his anal glands stimulated from time to time to get all the fluid out.'

 ‘I know perfectly well  it needs to be done’ said my sister, through gritted teeth. ‘But it needs to done by the vet. In his surgery. Properly. Wearing surgical gloves. Not IN MY KITCHEN by an enthusiastic amateur wearing bloody MARIGOLDS.’ 

‘But it’s Boxing Day’ said the MC. ‘Last time we had to take Hank to the vet on a Bank Holiday it cost nearly a hundred quid.’ 

‘That’ said my sister, somewhat tersely ‘is BESIDE THE F***ING POINT’ (she says this a lot, as you may have noticed). 

‘But his tail was down, and he was looking really uncomfortable. His bum is so sore he can hardly sit down.’ 

My sister lost her patience: ‘If I were a dog, I would infinitely prefer to endure a little discomfort, rather than have you f***ing around in my arse. LEAVE HANK ALONE. And throw those Marigolds away, please. NOW.’  

A few minutes later Big Sis Fo, now armed with strong coffee and beginning to revive, looked into the Boot Room, where the traumatised Hank was lying on his dog-bed, being consoled by Nick, while the MC was off phoning the vet. 

 

 

Nick was talking softly to Hank, unaware that he was being overheard.

‘It’s been a funny kind of start to Boxing Day for you, Hankie Boy, hasn’t it - buggered by the MC already, and it’s not even 12 o’clock yet?’