So, here I am with six weeks of the seven nearly done. Tomorrow, Friday, is the last for this week. Then, six more trips to the far side of Brighton; six more greetings for the team of radiologists; six more goodbyes. And the rest? Rest, I think. Yes, sleep and being able to get up in the morning feeling refreshed. Maybe my brain will hurry up, the right words come out first time. “Follow what your body tells you,” they said. In contrast with the worst possibilities detailed in the cancer centre’s introductory green pamphlet, it’s only creeping tiredness that marks this out as my course of radiotherapy. And I’m grateful. Other people I’ve seen have told their stories of fatigue, discomfort, hourly awakenings through endless nights. I’m grateful. Yesterday was my birthday. Faced with a couple of business sessions over the weekend, I took a day off to conserve some energy. In Brighton I bought a couple of pairs of shoes that fit my broad feet. Bought some CDs: Emma Johnson for my wife, Jimi Hendrix and Radio Tarifa for me. For family reasons there’s a huge hole in my knowledge of popular music in the 1970s and 80s. Only Hendrix’s bouffant hair was familiar before I listened to the first CD. By evening, the summer warmth and light breeze granted the wife and me dinner alfresco in the walled garden of a Sussex pub a few miles from where youngest son and new daughter-in-law married a month before. A great evening and a refreshing day of energy conservation.
1 July, 2005
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