MamaFo throws a spanner in the works

Day 76 Intermezzo: Another romantic interlude

General status update

Hair: slumbering, safely wrapped in snood

Nausea demon: hanging on in there – I find it quite astonishing that I still feel nauseous, despite being on four different anti-emetic drugs. I seem to have inherited the stomach of a feeble Victorian invalid, perhaps Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was very fond of sofas too, come to think of it.

Chemo Muse: Fuelled by the steroids, she positively GLOWS. Keeping me at it.

Chemo Brian: tucked up on the sofa under a warm throw, with Chemo Rat Brian’s little head poking out out next to him. They are now inseparable.

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Fatigue/weakness: that won’t kick in until about day 5. They made me go back to the hospital yesterday for an injection of something called Pegfilgrastim, which will encourage my bone marrow to produce more white blood cells, in the hope of avoiding another infection, and neutropenia, this chemo cycle. Worryingly, according to the notes that accompany the drug ‘Pegfilgrastim is a protein produced by biotechnology in bacteria called E.coli’ E.coli?? I guess I just have to trust my oncologist. Oh – have just noticed that included amongst the very common side effects of this drug, apart from joint pain (which I don’t have, so far) is …nausea. No wonder the Nausea Demon has been smirking to himself, he’s got some added back-up.

Anxiety level (1-10): It’s only day 3 of this chemo cycle, and I’m still on the steroids. The truly bad times don’t start until day 5.

State of mind: A bit down-hearted after another rather extreme experience at the hospital on Thursday. Still, taking comfort in the fact that there are only 2 more FECs to go.

Previously on Chemo Nights: After ‘meeting’ in cyberspace during a discussion about procrastination  with a mutual friend on Twitter, R and I have developed a close on-line relationship during the autumn of 2010, bonding over bonding over our mutual love of the London Review of Books , amongst other things. Our brains just match each other, and we quite like each other's photos, too. There are many obstacles that stand between us in terms of our personal circumstances, not least that I live in an old camel barn, converted into a library, on the north Aegean coast of Turkey, and he lives 2,000 miles away in West London. R is very keen for us to meet in person, and his approach to the obstacles in our way is much that of an Olympic 400m hurdler on the starting blocks, impatient for the gun to be fired so he can go for gold. I am considerably more cautious, having read much about  the low success rate of converting on-line relationships into real life ones. Eventually, however, I am persuaded that we should at least give it a try, and book a plane ticket back to London during the last week of March, 2011.

Now read on…..

My mother, MamaFo, who is 81 and lives in a fortified redoubt in the foothills of the Tramuntana  Mountains in Mallorca, where over the last 30 years she has cultivated a spectacularly beautiful Mediterranean garden (including a small but fruitful wacky baccy plantation  - for her personal use only, obvs - which is planted and harvested strictly according to the waxing and waning of the moon), gave up travelling a couple of years ago, on the following grounds:

1) She objects very strongly to the neo-fascist security staff at Heathrow airport who, last time she flew, managed to give her serious grief even though she was in a wheel-chair (Old lady in wheelchair! Obviously smuggling explosives! Needs to be body–searched!);

2) She objects very strongly to not being allowed to smoke between the time of entering the terminal at Palma airport and exiting the terminal at Heathrow, a gap of at least 5 hours between cigarettes, which is liable to lead to spontaneous combustion; and

3) She has done enough travelling for one life time – now is the time for her to sit on her terrace with a cup of coffee, a glass of Soberano, and a packet of Benson and Hedges, gazing at the ever-changing play of light on the Tramuntana mountains, watching the eagles swooping and gliding on the air-currents,  and occasionally barking instructions to my stepfather (somewhat younger than her – this is the way of my people) as he labours in the gardens on the terraced hillside below.

Nowadays, then, if we wish to see MamaFo, we have to get on a plane and go to Mallorca. This being the current state of affairs, I assumed, inasmuch as I thought about it at all, that my mother, whose 80^th  birthday was coming up on April 4^th, 2011, wouldn’t be holding a party; she had celebrated her 70^th in the UK with some style, but repeating such an event was now out of the question.

Remember the aged uncle in the Forsyte Saga (I think it might have been James) whose mantra was ‘nobody ever tells me anything?’ That’s my role in the Fo family. It was sometime in February, and plans were already well underway for Mama Fo’s 80^th Birthday Weekend Extravaganza in Mallorca, before anyone bothered to inform me that my presence was going to be required in the Tramuntana Mountains in the same week that I was planning to meet R for the first time in London.

I simply couldn’t believe it.

I had booked to come to London for 3 weeks, arriving on Sunday 27^th of March, and MamaFo’s birthday weekend was beginning the following Friday. A plane ticket had been booked for me, and I was to present myself at Gatwick Airport on the Friday morning to travel with various family members to Mallorca for 4 days, returning the following Monday. There was to be a gala lunch on the Saturday at the Tramuntana Mountains Golf Club, whose greens are grazed by a small herd of goats, followed by a smaller lunch, for family only, at a restaurant down by the sea on the Sunday (MamaFo prefers to lunch rather than dine, these days). We were all to be accommodated in a historic finca, now converted to boutique agroturismo, just down the hill from Casa Fo.

It was to be a grand gathering of the clan, a celebration of the extended family, and of 80 years of MamaFo adding to the world’s rich tapestry in her own inimitable way.  Everyone was thrilled and excited about it.

Everyone except for me, that is..

I was already a complete basket case about going to meet R, and the only person who knew what I was planning was my closest friend in Ayvalik. No one in my family had any idea that my first trip to London in several years was about anything other than catching up with family and friends and stocking up on marmalade.  Now I was going to have to fly 2,000 miles to London, stay for 4 days, and then fly 1,000 miles back to Mallorca for the party.  The entire family was in a frenzy of excitement about this event, and I just couldn’t believe my bad luck, especially as I was expected to write a speech for the occasion, being the family orator.

This is a Message from God, I thought darkly, telling me that meeting R is going to be  a complete fiasco.  As the days counted down towards March 27^th, and my head became more and more frazzled trying to think about two things at once, and people started commenting on my curious lack of enthusiasm for the coming festivities chez MamaFo, my mood began to darken about my secret assignation with R … should I just call the whole thing off?