Nothing. Existed. Take #2: the 'this time it's for real' edition

Today I slept. And slept and slept and slept and slept and slept.

That is all. Well, almost all. Obviously I was awake long enough to type this. But I am going back to bed right ... now.

I feel like crap. Sod being brave!

Nothing. Existed.

If things go on as they are, pretty soon I shall have no choice but to head every entry this way. All I want to do is sleep, and that is pretty much all I do do.

And speaking of nausea, food is getting to be a real problem. Judy has very kindly supplied me with all sorts of snacks - rice crackers and so on - but I don't remember when I last had an actual meal. Just the idea of most food, including many of my erstwhile staples, makes me feel sick.

Anyway, 'nothing' is actually not entirely true of today: Rebecca from work came over, bringing my personal stuff out of my desk, and also a belated and quite unexpected birthday pressie, which was lovely. Lovely to see her, too, and to have someone to talk to other than Judy, who must be getting awfully tired of my company (such as it is, on the rare occasions I'm awake), but it was exhausting; she only stayed for an hour or so, and I was flagging badly by the end of it.

What I need is people to come and fill up my house but not actually need entertaining - so that I always have someone around, but don't have to run around after them (fat chance of doing any running), or think of topics of conversation. Let the record show that this is not an invitation to squatters!

One week (and counting)

One week where absolutely no progress has been made whatsoever.

To say that I was unprepared for today's xkcd comic - http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/lanes.png - is like saying that, oh, I don't know, I can't think of a clever analogy. I was unprepared, and it upset me quite a lot - true though it may be, and much as I sympathise with the writers. I said as much on the LJ feed page, and got a ton of sympathetic comments, which left me feeling uncomfortably guilty of cancer-jacking, although it is also uncomfortably true that I am pitifully grateful for hugs, even from absolute strangers.

In more prosaic news: the decluttering continued, this time with a first pass through my jewellery boxes. They will need a second, and more ruthless, sweep at some time in the future. While I was at it, I put some plain silver studs in, just to keep my earring holes from closing over. I was going to put in sleepers, but found them too fiddly.

This led me to think of a conversation I had with my brother the other day about my mother, and how she would almost certainly have found a way to make my having cancer my own fault. Possible reasons for this include, but are not limited to:

Dyeing my hair

Wearing earrings

Wearing nail varnish

Using perfume

- but I reckon the kicker would've been 'having a tattoo'. Of course, my mother never knew about this, but if she had've done, that would have been conclusive and final.

Judy was home today, and took me out for a short drive this afternoon, through the back roads to Buckingham (stop at Tesco to use the loo and buy Solpadeine - a thrill a minute, our life), then back via the usual route. That's the first time I've been out of the house since Monday, and I did appreciate it ... but it's also true that I spent most of it feeling faintly sick, and that it wiped me out for the rest of the afternoon.

However, 'sick' and 'exhausted' are the norm these days, so I had better get used to them and quit whingeing. Ah, except to you, Sekrit Diary - my only friend and confidante!!

A day of three halves

I went to bed last night slightly tearful after getting an absolutely lovely e-card from long-time friend Linda (I value my long-term friends all the more for having put up with me all these years). "I've been trying to think of what to say," she said, "and then realised there was nothing I could say." Which is true enough, although that doesn't seem to stop me.

I started the day with a leisurely tidy-up of my wardrobe, only managing to throw away one dress even though it seems entirely possible that I won't ever need my work clothes again. (I have a surprising number of surprisingly smart clothes for work; alas, all my workplaces for the past 20 years or so have been 'smart casual', accent on the 'casual'. Indeed, when Elsevier told me it had a dress-down Friday, I was seriously at a loss to think how they would manage it.) Then I uploaded the last few of my old Quantum Leap fics to AAOOO. That leaves only some unfinished stuff and some drabbles - quite a lot of drabbles - not posted there. Since my website is one of the things that has fallen victim to the current need for economy, AAOOO is my last, best hope for posterity, and I may post the drabbles; some of my drabbles are better than any of my longer fiction. Although I suppose that's not saying much.

Still nothing from the hospital today, and in the end I phoned the contact number they gave me last week. It didn't get off to an auspicious start - the first two times the number was engaged, and the third time I got through to someone who clearly had no idea what I was talking about. (I was in tears by this time. I have tried not to be too weepy and wussy, but there comes a point ...) Anyway: she put me on to the nurse I spoke to briefly last week. She didn't know what was going on either, but at least she went away to check and then called me back.

As far as I can tell, I have Schrodinger's Cancer. (I may already have made that joke, I can't be bothered to check.) The lung team don't think I belong to them; they passed me on to the breast team, who don't want me either. The next candidate is the gynaecological team. They don't have their meeting until Monday afternoon, so I won't hear anything until Tuesday. I hope they do decide to keep me, I really don't want them looking any lower.

I also asked about having the pleural effusion drained, which the doctor last week mentioned. They didn't know anything about that, either. *sigh* It does feel as though it needs doing again, so I hope someone, somewhere can get their act together.

I know that the NHS is overworked and understaffed, and I know that I'm just one of many patients, and only a priority in my own tiny mind. But still, it does seem a bit bad to me to tell someone that they're (at least potentially) seriously ill and then leave them hanging for a week with no word.

And then something strange - wonderful, but very strange - happened. Judy came into my study to say that our friend Anne had asked if I'd checked my PayPal account. Well, no, I hadn't, why should I? Was there some sort of hoax or scam going round? When I did check, it turned out that Anne had sent me £300 - ! "A little something to help tide you over."

I am speechless in the face of such generosity. I wish I wasn't; I'm sure I didn't thank her adequately. But, my god, if anyone asks me to nominate a candidate for sainthood, I know who my first choice will be.

Good news, bad news, no news

An uneventful day today; I'd been hoping to hear from the hospital - apparently they have a consultants' meeting every Wednesday - but nothing came through from them. Maybe tomorrow. I hope so. I'd like to feel there was some progress being made.

In practical terms, I did a tiny bit of decluttering (maybe 20 minutes), which resulted in my sleeping the sleep of the let's-not-say-dead (at least two hours), and flipped through my files for assorted pensions and things, none of them worth as much as a can of baked beans, to make sure that they were all assigned to Judy in case of ... well, in case. Morbid, but these things have to be considered. After that, back to bed again, and that was pretty much the whole day.

My brother sent me a spoon. Literally, a spoon. Well: every little helps.

In which the upper lip becomes briefly unstiffened

A non-eventful day today; I was mostly just really, desperately tired, although I managed a little bit of vacuuming and to put my desk back - it's been pulled out from the wall for several weeks while I tried (in vain) to get rid of a ShadowCat souvenir.

Unfortunately, the combination of tiredness, frustration at looking for financial advice and/or support groups and getting nowhere (is the Macmillan site deliberately confusing? Is it all a cruel hoax?!), and the unexpected arrival of a large Lush gift package from Penny had the result of making me very weepy for a while - enough to beg for sympathy on my Facebook page. Shameful, really, the more so as I got some - far more than I deserve. I shall attempt to return to my normal stoicism as soon as possible.

One hopeful sign, or at least, I hope it is - a letter from the probate people asking me to approve Tim's expenses. Does this mean Mother's estate is finally anywhere near being wound up? Because getting her money through, even though I know it won't be much, could only be helpful at this point.

What a miserable creature I seem to have become, whining about tiredness and poverty as though there were not millions worse off. Apparently illness does not bring out the best in me.

Good thing this blog's private, is all I can say.

Week one, day one. Unless it's week two.

Today I have mostly been cancelling things. Again, or still, depending on how you look at it.

First of all I had a doctor's appointment, made last week, pre-cancer (well, pre-my knowing about it, anyway), originally with the aim of finding out what was going on. As it turned out, I got to tell her what was going on, and in return she got to fill me out a medical certificate. Fair exchange, I guess. What she wasn't able to do was give me any practical advice on financial help or support groups which, in an ideal world, you'd think would be the sort of thing a medical practice would know about. She did, however, confirm that the company can't make me redundant while I'm off sick - although I bet that won't stop them trying.

Then I walked into Bicester, a proud achievement in itself, went into the NatWest bank, and cancelled just about every direct debit and standing order in sight. I feel especially guilty about the Cats Protection League and the WWF, but hey. When I get better, I'll send them some extra, okay?

I walked back home from Bicester, too, an even prouder achievement. Of course, by the time I got home I was fit for nothing but to crawl into bed, but what else is new?

In non-cancer news, I watched the film version of The Little White Horse that I had for my birthday. It wasn't utterly horrible, although it departed from the text in any number of directions and seldom for the better, but I think I would have taken it more seriously if the Black Men hadn't all been wearing guyliner. On the upside, Tim Curry was not riding around with a big, black cock on his shoulder ...

Surely there must've been someone in the wardrobe department who could've designed a riding habit, though? And I do hope that the black lion was CGI. I've never stopped being angry at The Beastmaster for painting a tiger black (the question 'how?!' also springs to mind), as a result of which the poor creature died.

A charity bag which has just come through the door appears to tell me that 'one in three people die'. I like those odds, but feel they may be being just a trifle optimistic.

Adieu, adieu, to you, and you, and you

On reflection, not a good choice of title, it sounds more morbid than I had meant it to. It's okay! I'm still here! Although rather wishing I wasn't, to be honest, today has been a bit of a washout - all I've done is sleep. I'm still sleepy, if it comes to that.

I spent some time yesterday evening and this morning cancelling, or trying to cancel, every unnecessary expense I could find. Games club membership? Gone. Website? It'll have to go, I don't believe anyone's been there for years anyway, and most of my far-from-immortal prose is on LJ and/or AAOOO. AOL? It's terrifying to see the amount of money I've casually wasted; so far as I can tell, for the past six years or so I've been paying AOL £20 a month for a dial-up service we haven't used since god gave us broadband. Standing order for the National Lottery? Worst investment ever - and impossible to cancel online, too, it doesn't recognise my details. Tomorrow, or as soon as I can manage it, I'll go into Bicester and get the bank to stop all my outgoing payments; I hope that'll sort it.

I've been feeling a bit weepy, too, and trying not to let it show. It is de rigeur these days for cancer patients, or anyone else for that matter, to face up to their problems with Courage and Cheer. I don't actually feel particularly courageous or cheerful. I would like a good cry, and for someone else to make it all go away. But, as that won't happen, Courage and Cheer it is.

Fuckit.

It's still early days, of course. At the moment what I have is Schrodinger's Cancer; it might or might not be anywhere or any type at all, we won't know until the consultants open the box (or take the money. Whatever). Indeed, I have a suspicion that I don't actually have cancer at all but am, in fact, pregnant with some kind of hideous alien intruder. Consider: I'm tired all the time, faintly nauseated all the time, and have surprise cravings for weird food. What do you think? Cancer? Or alien changeling?

I suppose they're pretty much one and the same, when you come right down to it.

If I'm not sorry for myself, who the hell will be?

Hello, Blogger account. Long time no see. As I've made the mistake of linking almost every other account I have on the internet - except my abortive Tumblr, the point of which I never did quite figure (see also Google+), I'm going to use you to keep a diary of stuff that I don't really want to share with the world. There are, or used to be, one or two people who followed this account, but if they're still out there ... well, please indulge me.

So: today I shall be checking out a monumental mason and putting in an order for a headstone that reads I BLOODY TOLD YOU I WAS ILL.

To backtrack: okay, I've been vaguely poorly for most of my life - fatigue, headaches, all sorts of whiny middle-class shite. End of last year: a cold that wouldn't quit. Beginning of this year: severe breathing difficulties. My theory? Crap on the lungs left over from aforesaid cold. And, it turned out, some while later (first convince GP to take one seriously, then a parade of X-rays, blood tests, more X-rays, hospital appointments, CT scans, more CT scans ... I may have missed a few steps), I was right about the crap on the lungs. It's called 'pleural effusion', and had to be drained off (painful and icky, but I will forever treasure having had one nurse in the room whose only job was to hold my hand), and we all hoped that was the last of it.

... it wasn't the last of it. Yesterday I went back to the hospital for a discussion with the consultant, and he confirmed what we really, secretly knew all along. Yes, in the immortal words of Samantha in Sex in the City, I have fucking cancer.

Well. Arse.

At present we (that's the royal 'we'; I don't know why I do that) are waiting for the results of yet more tests to see if they'll show where the cancer's coming from. Could be boobs. Could be ovaries. Could be ladybits. Knowing my luck, it will probably be my bum. Oh, romantic wasting diseases of my youthful fantasies, where are you now?

Upside: problem diagnosed. Hospital will treat. Possibly cure. If not cure, then at least I won't end up like my mother, 90 years old and with no interest in life but Countdown and sitting all day in her armchair occasionally pooing herself. (I don't rule out the pooing self, mind you, but I hope that will come at a much later date.)

Downside: well, a few people will be upset. I had to tell my brother and sister - I considered not telling them, but Judy said they ought to know - and a few other people I've known for a long time. It's going to be awfully rough on Judy, who already went through all this shit with her own mother. (On the other hand, Judy did say, in a tiny voice, was it okay to be glad we didn't learn this last Friday, because it would've rather taken the shine off her doctorate. I laughed.) And I'm worried about money, more than anything. I haven't been able to work for the past month, so I'm already on statutory sick pay. That won't even pay the food bills. What about the money I pay into the household account, to name but the most important?

Amusing: the look on the consultant's face when I mentioned work. Is this woman nuts? I tell her she has cancer, and all she's worried about is losing her job. Yes, well, we all have to eat, fella.

So the next thing I have to do, after this weekend, is go and talk to the bank and see if they have any suggestions. But, again, upside: they have to be nice to me, I have cancer!!

Oh, yeah, I'm going to wring that one so dry you'll be able to hear it squeak.