Day 30:
General status update
Hair: Possibly getting a little complacent. This is a big mistake.
As soon as Hair and I stop expecting the imminent arrival of the Alopecia
demon, then said Alopecia demon will come abseiling in through the windows.
This I know deep in my bones.
Nausea demon: Just gone out to an unspecified destination looking very spiffy, and trailing clouds of aftershave. Hmmm.
Chemo Muse: Has made it clear that she expects me to stop slacking now the
first week of the cycle is over, and I’m feeling a little better. There is a
great deal remaining to be done; there are still 70 odd days to go until the
final dose of FEC, are there not, and a lot of ground still to be covered? This
may well be the last time I’m allowed to get away with featuring
dogs-in-snoods, certainly for this chemo cycle.
Chemo Brian: Having a bit of a nap after having been on duty rather a lot
over the last week.
Fatigue/weakness: improving
Eyes: Just as the nausea and fatigue are beginning to abate, in the
last couple of hours I have started to suffer from some visual disturbances, neon
electric zig-zaggy coloured lines at the edge of my vision, like dancing heart
monitors; I have absolutely no idea whether this has anything to do with the
chemo or not, but it’s becoming a little distracting. Perhaps I’m about to have
a stroke – maybe the Lord Jesus has decided I’ve suffered enough, is taking
pity on me, and is about to sweep me up into his arms… (cue gospel choir). Or
perhaps I just need to clean my spectacles.
Sleep, lack of: n/a
Anxiety level (1-10): Was ratcheting down a bit,
until the neon lights starting dancing around in my head.
State of mind: After yesterday’s emotional tsunami, have been washed up
barefoot on the edge of the Lake of Placidity, where I am sitting with my toes in the water, listening
to the still, small voice of calm.
Rise in use of
religious imagery: unprecedented, and a little
alarming. Tune in tomorrow to see if I have metamorphosed into a full-blown singing,
dancing Pentecostalist; if tomorrow’s blog post is written in tongues, you may
safely assume that this is the case.
After a week of fairly unrelieved grimness, it’s time
for something a little more cheerful on the blog, so this might be a good time
to return to snoods in general and dogs-in-snoods-that-resemble-famous-actors
in particular.
To recap: the evening after last week’s chemo session
I was wearing a snood, because my hair was covered in the goo they put on
before the cold cap, and you’re not allowed to wash it off for 48 hours
afterwards. Serendipity led R - who claimed that Nik Kershaw was famous for
wearing snoods in the 1980s, and was trying to find a photo to prove it – to a
rather specialist site featuring pictures of dogs in snoods, some of which I
promptly appropriated for the blog.
A trifle off my face due to the entirely welcome phenomenon
of the post-chemo high (one of the chemo drugs makes you ‘light-headed’, but
the effect on me seems way stronger
than that, and long may it continue) I looked at this photograph of a dog in a
snood and immediately detected a strong resemblance to a well-known British
actor.
I then challenged blog readers to identify the actor I
was thinking of, and submit suggestions, thinking that the resemblance was so
strong that someone would be sure to guess it. The nominations got a bit
confusing, and with Chemo Brian in residence I’m not entirely sure I’m up to
the task of unravelling it all, but here goes.
The nominations submitted on the blog, or via twitter
or email, for Actor Most Resembling Dog In Snood were as follows:
1. Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi
2. Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose
4, Adrien Brody in The Pianist
Keen observers will note that 3 and 4 bear no
resemblance to the photo whatsoever. This is because the people who nominated them
wilfully ignored the competition rules, and nominated people who resembled the
arguably rather prettier but entirely random dog whose photo was at the top of
the blog, for decorative purposes only:
And I have to say, Adrien Brody, that is the dog for
you..
Meanwhile, nobody guessed the actor I had first
thought of which was David Jason:
I thought anybody
looking at that photo would immediately think David Jason, but then I had just
been injected with – literally – weapons grade pharmaceuticals…
OK, I do have to admit that Alec Guinness and Sean
Connery also have ‘the look’, but I would argue they lack the essential
cuddliness of David Jason, and that little dog is cuddly. I will leave readers to
come to their own conclusions on this matter, and finish by presenting to you
the outstandingly good results of 2 snood photo-shoots carried out in the wake
of the first snood post last week.
First I bring you the Whippet Diva, courtesy of
@BelgianWaffling, rocking the whole Grace Kelly look:
And with that, I will bid you goodnight...
P.S. Thank you all so much for all the comments on the
blog, tweets and emails I received last night today after yesterday’s post - I
was very cheered, and very moved by this wave of support, and today has been a
much, much better day psychologically, as well as physically xx
