A little more progress

A bright, sunny autumn afternoon. After an early start to the day (lazing around in bed beyond 7.30 in the morning isn’t encouraged in this place!), I went through the normal morning performance of giving up a blood sample and having all the checks done to ensure the nurses that I really was still alive. Then I got myself washed and groomed ready for my outing.

Irene arrived a little early and kindly drove me down to the hospital. It’s only about 10 minutes from here. Then I had to wait a while in the cancer polyclinic. The waiting room was packed. It’s only really when you become a cancer victim yourself that you realise how many people suffer from the dread disease. Anyway, as a private patient, I didn’t have to wait long before being received by a lady doctor who wanted to make sure that the status quo was properly understood and documented.

She said that she would coordinate everything with the visceral surgery department and phone me later today with fixed dates for the next cycle of chemotherapy and the PET CT. The chemo will be sometime this week. For that, I will have to check in to the hospital for an overnight stay and come back here to Susenberg the next day. That’s fine. At least things are now moving nicely.

Back at my temporary “home from home”, the electrician turned up and connected me to the clinic’s broadband system, so I am now able to send and receive e-mails and surf the Internet at a reasonable speed. No sooner was he finished than I was summoned downstairs for an electrocardiogram. So yep – things are progressing and I am still hopeful of the second operation taking place within the next two to three weeks.

I’ve never really been what you might call a “big eater”, but since my ability to eat or drink anything has been interrupted, I find myself imagining all the marvellous things I’ll be eating once my ability returns. I’ve even been “designing” club sandwiches, one of them consisting of ham, processed cheese slices, mayonnaise, lettuce, cucumber, tomato slices and a couple of slices of hard-boiled egg, all encased in fresh, white bread.... My mouth waters at the very thought of it...!!! Silly, I know, but it’s all about positive anticipation, so I don’t apologise for it.

On the whole, I’m comfortable, positive, optimistic and upbeat at the moment.