Ms Fo regrets, she's unable to post today.

Day 45
 

General status update: postponed until tomorrow - don't worry, the Chemo Demons are all just FECKin' fine..

 

It was an exceptionally trying and very, very long day in the chemo ward today, as the administration of FEC3 encountered some unexpected problems, which took many hours to resolve. I can’t write a proper post tonight after all that, as I’m physically and mentally exhausted, and FEC 3 is now beginning to make itself felt.  

So I’m going to lie down on the sofa now with today’s good – in fact wonderful – surprise, which was in a parcel waiting for me when I got home: the V&A’s incredibly beautiful book of tiaras, courtesy of my lovely friend Henri, aka @titianred, Harrogate’s leading femme fatale and the woman who taught me how to jump up and down in the jewellery galleries at the V&A in order to make all the dangling gems inside the glass cases tremble and sparkle. I need to choose my Desert Island Tiara as a matter of some urgency, obvs, and what better time to do it than right now? 

Thank you, Henri xx

The other lovely thing waiting for me when I got home was my regular email from my friend Dor, back in the north Aegean, who sends me photos every day taken in and around Ayvalik (where she still lives, and I lived until recently) in order for me to have beautiful images for my mind to focus on when my body is experiencing horrible things. Thank you, Dor, the photos help more than I can say xx. I will share a few of them with the rest of you now:

 View over the Ayvalik archipelago

                                                                 photography: Dorothy Humphries

 

 

 

The waterfront in the centre of Ayvalik

 

                                         photography: Dorothy Humphries 

 

 

fishing nets on the Ayvalik waterfront 

 

                                          photography: Dorothy Humphries 

 

 

 

 

sokak kediler - street cats - in Ayvalik

 

                                           photography: Dorothy Humphries

 

 

 

Boundless thanks also to R, who held my hand and hugged me and looked after me throughout a monumentally awful day in the chemo ward, and even managed to crack some jokes as well, despite having to give a major public lecture at a City institution this evening, which was a completely immoveable feast, and to which he delayed going until the last possible moment.

 

R, I love you – you know that already, I’ve said it a thousand times, but it bears repeating, especially in the form of this song:

 

 

 

 ps (10.21pm) Have just received an email from Virgin Giving to inform me that with the latest donation for my 'Sponsor My Chemo' drive, the money rasied for The Haven has just crossed the £1000 line - thanks so much to everyone who has sponsored me, and especially to the person who signed herself CJ,  a fellow cancer sufferer and chemo patient who has been reading the blog, is about to have her 6th dose of chemo, and whose donation sent the total to over £1,000. May your last dose of FEC be a lap of honour, CJ, as you move forward beyond into the sunlit uplands of a post-chemo existence.

That's a brilliant way to end a truly horrible day.