My hair is growing back. I’m not exactly tripping over it yet but it is definitely on its way. Martin reckoned there was one strand that must have been an inch long. He calls me “Tufty” now! Prior to this he was wandering round saying “My precious” and imitating Golem in Lord of the Rings!! Well, humour is essential in these situations! In the light you can see lots of little strands of hair sticking up. So Olivia was right after all. My hair is growing “up” again! It will be interesting to see how it grows back. I’ve heard lots of stories of people with straight hair whose hair comes back curly. At that rate mine will be Afro!
I’m feeling fine now but I do seem to have dips in my energy levels. My surgeon, Mr Carpenter, summed it up the other day. He said: “You may look like you haven’t had anything done to you but you’ve been through a lot. Give yourself time.” So I am. Some days though I wonder whether I’m feeling tired because I’m doing less. There is a point at which your whole body and mind just slows down. Still, it’s only three and a half weeks since I had the operation and I had 16 weeks of chemotherapy before that so, I’m doing well considering!
On Thursday I met Franny for coffee at the Docklands Museum. I thought she could use the opportunity to talk to the museum about stocking her Step Outside guides. There was good news and bad news. The good news was that the book buyer was in for a meeting and made time to come down and see us. The bad news was that he was the same person who buys for the Museum of London and he had already turned Franny down. Despite her ever more confident sales pitch, boosted by the fact that lots of people love the guides and several museum shops are already stocking them, he was not going to be persuaded. “Never mind Franny”, I told her, “someone turned the Beatles down too!”
On Friday, Martin was still next to me in bed at 9am. He had, it seemed, decided to have another day off with me. He hasn’t said much recently but I know he is still worrying about me all the time. We decided to take mum and dad out for lunch, and mum sounded delighted at the idea. But the best laid plans were nearly scuppered. I’d noticed that a small area of skin around my scar was looking red and a tiny bit of scar looked open. I phoned the hospital and they told me to phone my surgeon’s secretary. At about 12 noon the hospital phoned me back to say that Mr Carpenter was in surgery but would see me when he came out. Could I get to the London Clinic for about 2.15?
I didn’t want to put mum and dad off, so we went in the taxi to pick them up and take them for a little outing to Harley Street! The four of us piled up to the fifth floor of the London Clinic, where I was treated like returning royalty. We had to sit and wait until Mr Carpenter finished in surgery but were brought tea, coffee and biscuits while we waited. Fifteen minutes later Mr C arrived and took me into an examination room. He wasn’t worried by the redness. It was inflamed but not infected, he said. Nonetheless he prescribed some antibiotics as a precaution. He also drained some more fluid from the lump under my arm, which was a relief.
By the time we left Harley Street it was 2.45. We didn’t want to get caught up in Friday rush hour traffic so decided to head back to Redbridge, where mum and dad live, and to have a late lunch at their local Beefeater, the Red House. It might not be Martin or my favourite type of place but I have to admit the food and service was good and, with the special daytime menu, it was very reasonably priced too. Mum and dad are not hard to please. They’d enjoyed their taxi ride “up west”! They’d enjoyed coming back through Islington, Dalston and Hackney and hence down “memory lane” and they’d enjoyed spending time with me.
We dropped them home and drove back to Limehouse, where we parked the cab and went straight to the Grapes to meet Sue and Tommy. They’d kindly offered to come over to see us as we haven’t been down to Ramsgate at the weekend for a few weeks and weren’t going this weekend either. We spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting and left at around 7.30.
Saturday was partially sunny but breezy. We managed to sit in the garden for a while. It was lovely while the sun was out but chilly when it went behind the clouds. Still, it was good to be out there again. After a walk to Lidl to shop for dinner and a light lunch we popped round to friend Jill’s to talk about going down to her cottage in Padstow in a couple of weeks for a break. We then took her down to the Grapes for a little while.
Sunday was yet another lazy day. Again we managed some time in the garden. We both had a little siesta mid afternoon and I was feeling quite tired when we got up. Fortunately, we decided to walk down to Canary Wharf to go to Waitrose. The walk did me a lot of good and proved that it’s important to keep moving and active.
I’m definitely starting to miss the gym. There are quite a few Pilates-type exercises that I have no problem doing even now. But my problem at the moment is motivation. For the next few weeks I will need to navigate my way through a middle path between doing too much and not doing enough.
