They seek him here, they seek him there: The North Yorkshire Rat Apocalypse Revisited

Day 36:  

General status update 

Hair: 36 days into chemo and I haven’t yet lost any hair – whichever way you look at it, it’s AMAZING. A big thank-you to the Paxman Cold Cap Company – even if it all falls out tomorrow , you’ve made the first 5 weeks of the Chemo Nightmare a hell of a lot easier to bear. I’ve even forgiven you for making the damn thing that particularly lurid shade of neon Day-Glo PINK. 

Nausea demon: Very subdued. I’ve only had to take one lot of meds so far today, and have discontinued the third anti-emetic, Ondansetron, for the time being. He’s keeping himself busy with his OU work and his romantic adventures. So happy not to be seeing very much of him at the moment. 

Chemo Muse: She’s struggling to make herself heard in the face of the fatigue – her voice is still strong, but the chemo is making me so tired now that I can’t achieve the Stakhanovite work rate I exhibited during the giddy steroid madness of the first cycle of FEC. She’s very much looking forward to the early days of FEC3, in 9 days’ time, when I will once again be hopped up to the gills on Dexamethasone and raring to go. She did suggest, tentatively, that maybe I could ask Stan the oncologist for a bigger, longer dose of steroids next time – then we could really have some fun. I said I would think about it.

 

Chemo Brian: He’s found my not-yet-attempted ‘knit your own nativity scene’ kit by the side of the sofa, and has decided to have a go. He learnt how to knit AND weave on a commune in Vermont at some point in the 70s, apparently. Not quite sure how good he’s going to be at following the pattern, but he’s totally engrossed, and says he is perfectly capable of knitting and watching Wallace and Gromit videos at the same time. To each his own. 

Fatigue/weakness: no change – no longer quite so debilitating, but my batteries are very, very flat.  

Sleep, lack of: n/a 

Anxiety level (1-10): Sitting here watching the snow falling is very soothing. 

State of mind: It’s snowing! I love the snow! Especially as I don’t have to go anywhere just now, and can sit and look at it out of the window.

News from North Yorkshire: worrying – see below.

My sister calls, and I share with her the exciting news that today has been yet another day when I have NOT woken up with hair shed all over the pillow. We muse together on how the wondrous Cold Cap might have been invented, but after my horrifying research last week into the origins of chemotherapy, I decide not to trouble Google with that particular topic just yet.

 

It has been a while since we discussed my sister's rat problem and, mindful of the fact that if all goes well R and I will be spending the coming weekend up in north Yorkshire chez BigSisFo, I ask her if the rat thing is now completely over.

‘Ah’ says my sister, ‘funny you should mention that…’

A week ago, the MC came down to breakfast ashen-faced.

‘There were noises, last night – noises coming from the attic.’

BigSisFo was deeply engrossed in the Killer Sudoku and, initially, not overly concerned.

‘It’s an old house, darling, there are always noises.’

‘No, DARLING, the rats are back, and last night they were stomping about on the attic floor above my bedroom ceiling.’

Do not, gentle reader, worry yourself as to the reason why BigSisFo and the MC do not share sleeping quarters – it is no way a reflection on the state of their relationship (although Hank is in therapy, obvs). When you have a house big enough for your own Red Room of Pain  with so many huge bedrooms, it makes sense to confine snoring to the privacy of one’s own private domain.  I’m not saying which of them snores, but it’s not Hank.

My sister looked up, not overly thrilled to be interrupted at the very moment  the Way In to the Killer Sudoku had just manifested itself in her brain.

‘It’s probably bats, not rats. Really, I have a nose for them now – if there were any rats in this house I could smell them. You’re just being neurotic’

‘You’re good at smelling dead rats, not live ones. I’m telling you THERE ARE RATS IN THE ATTIC. I spent half of last night listening to them. Stomping. Above my ceiling. Something needs to be done immediately’.

My sister sighed. The MC gets to take clients to London’s finest restaurants on a regular basis; rat-management in north Yorkshire is her bailiwick.

‘Sweetheart, the rats were underneath the floorboards on the ground floor, and they are now ALL DEAD and disposed of.  I counted the corpses out, by the side of the Pest Control man. The rats are OVER. And even if there were any more rats, how on earth could they have got up into the attic?’

‘Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘like a rat up a drainpipe’? It exists FOR A REASON’.

‘Oh, for goodness sake… how could a rat climb up inside thirty feet of smooth plastic drainpipe? They’ve only got tiny little legs and arms, and there’s nothing for them to dig their claws into. They’d have to spread out their arms and legs and inch their way up like a mountaineer inside one of those rock chimneys. Unless you’re suggesting they’re using actual crampons.’

‘They could have climbed up the outside of the house, on the wisteria.’

BigSisFo paused at this, struck by the horrifying image of the Mutant Ninja Super Rats of north Yorkshire, swarming up her wisteria. It didn’t bear thinking about. She gave in. 

‘OK, I’ll call the council and get the Pest Control bloke out again.’

 ‘No, that’ll take too long. I don’t want to wait a week this time. Get  someone private in.’

My sister giggled at this point, unable to help herself.  ‘Ratbusters?’

The MC failed to see the funny side. ‘Whoever. Whoever will come today’.

 The Ratbuster, like the council Pest Control man before him, was a bluff north Yorkshireman deeply versed in the ways of rodents both great and small. His on the spot diagnosis was: ‘ Can’t tell at this stage if it’s mice or rats. We’ll know after we look at t’traps. Rats have to eat t’ cardboard to get at t’ food inside, mice are small enough to get in t’ little hole’.

The bad news for BigSisFo was that it is perfectly possible, and not uncommon, for rats to find their way into an attic. She was so appalled she forgot to ask how the rats got up there.

Worse, the Ratbuster has clients with a rat in the attic so hard to get rid of that he has recently visited them for the fourteenth time. Their attic floor has been covered in traps with poisoned food, and pieces of cardboard covered in some kind of superglue designed to stick to rats’ feet, thus rendering them immobile, but to no avail. The clients have even installed video-cameras up in the attic, and now have extensive footage of their rat deftly evading every obstacle put in front of him in what is now, effectively, a large poisoned assault course for rats.

‘He’s a nimble little bugger, I’ll give him that’ the Ratbuster concluded, before laying more traps outside BigSisFo’s house and leaving, with a promise to return this coming Friday to check the state of the attic and make a full diagnosis of the nature of  its new residents, whether rats, mice or ….. could it be the ghosts of the dead rats from under the floorboards, come back from the grave to torment the MC in revenge for their grisly end? 

At this stage, I don’t think we should rule anything out.

 

 

This song is a very special dedication to BigSisFo and The MC, who endure my merciless mocking with the greatest good humour, and still keep inviting me to stay… can’t wait to see you guys, and of course Hank and his Humongous Balls, at the weekend xxx