poems and parties and belated injections

This is the last photo my old camera ever took. Felt should put it up in sentimental tribute, as it is oddly pretty....awww the poor little thing tried so hard in its final few minutes! (Remember its watery death on the day of chemo #3?) The new camera (a Canon Ixus 85 IS) is now here - with a new WATERPROOF case - and has been put to good use this weekend at Romeela's and JennyCescaSana's birthday parties, which were both lovely evenings. Happy Birthday to you four!!

But first I went to Alnwick. (Or rather, made Georgina drive me to Alnwick...) Barter Books, if you haven't been, is the best second-hand bookshop in the North East, if not the country. It's in the old Alnwick railway station and they have a toy train going round on a track on top of all the bookshelves! And they have poems down all the aisles! Here is my favourite poem in the place:

(click to make larger and read the whole thing)

I took 2 bags of books mother had cleared out and got £13 credit for some of them (the rest will go to Oxfam). Then used that to buy some more books...including Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters as part of my self-improvement plan: Read More Poetry.

In the afternoon Gaita came and made me a delicious lasagna di verdure with aubergine, courgette, red and yellow pepper, onion, spinach, carrot - and cheesy Bechamel mmmmm. In fact was more of a rainbow lasagna than di verdure... Good stuff. (I ended up attacking the remnants with a spoon when I arrived back a bit tipsy from the birthday party - was just irresistable.) Here are some party photos...

Kissing Janet Planet.
Felt this was a good hair photo - look how much is still left! Though you can see a lot of my scalp...hmmm.

sepia experimentation with one of the birthday girls - Jenny

and with chief lasagne-maker (Gaita)

a slightly tiddled DELTA huggy photo with Becci and Ed - note am only one not pouting...

Indeed, yesterday was so hectic that I only realised at 1am that I'd forgotten to do my Neupogen injection - 12 hours late! OOOOOOOOOOOPS... I really do fail at this organisation-of-life malarkey. Did it when I remembered and will try to stay up till 1ish tonight too to jab myself. Hopefully it shouldn't matter too much what time it's at, as long as my count is high enough for chemo #6 tomorrow. And hopefully this will be the last time I have to remember to do the injections - if this is indeed my last chemo. OH dear lord please let it be the last one!!!

I was just thinking how much my life has changed since March - I have gone from a busybusytiredtired medical student to someone with a LOT of free time and party weekends in Newcastle every fortnight (and yes chemo when the weekend's over but shh shh). It's also very strange how quickly you get used to change: I've become accustomed to the travelling, the needles and the enforced chilling-out, and yet it seems like only yesterday I was going "OMG what if I have lymphoma???" and crying by myself in panic, using up nearly a whole loo roll with soggy paper tears. The idea of chemo and of taking a year out was just unthinkable because I had no idea what it would be like. But I'm here and I feel normal, still. Thank god we humans are so adaptable...

At the same time it seems a very long time since I did any medicine. I feel very out of the loop. Don't get me wrong: I really appreciate this opportunity to take a step back and take time for myself, but the flip side is a lot of boredom sometimes - and the slow decay of your history-taking skills. Then again, you can be SO BORED as a medical student on the ward... so I suppose we should make the most of whatever we have, because you never know what tomorrow brings... hubba hubba!! (no idea why "hubba hubba" but felt was getting too serious for a moment there.)

And now I shall FINALLY tidy my Newcastle room as it's been yonks. Been inspired by Mary Queen of Charity Shops to take some decent stuff to Oxfam, along with the books, so here goes the big clear-out!