Thursday

Feeling better and better. I'm not really drinking enough because everything tastes disgusting, but I am eating better. Better quality - big salad tonight - manage good amounts all the time, but week 1 after chemo involves more sweets, because I need to get rid of that horrible taste in my mouth.

Today's 3BT:

1 As I was coming home over the bridge I saw an older couple hand in hand, in beige and cream: him in  beige top and cream trousers, her in a cream top and beige skirt. They looked so hilariously well coordinated.

2 At the Stretchacott turn there is a reddy-goldy-peachy snapdragon growing out of the wall all by itself.

3 S and F playing shoot and save football in the garden - the agony and the ecstasy - totally over the top goal celebrations and collapsing in despair, and both of them knowing it and finding it so funny.

The other thing about 3BT is that I find myself more conscious of beautiful moments through the day - I clock them and file them away for later.

Took F into the health centre with me today. Hilary did my dressing. I gave her a plant - a chilli or perhaps a pepper. I planted in a bit of a chemo haze and have no idea what anything is. I don't suppose it matters too much. F had to go and do a poo and came back in to have his bottom checked. It all feels very chaotic, but she doesn't seem to mind. Then took him to nursery. He said he didn't want to go, and I thought he would be fine when he got there, but apparently he had moments of sadness all day. I went into town and shopped for a dress for the wedding, but everything looks horrible. I think I like the dress I bought, though I have nothing to go with it, so I will look a bit undercoordinated, but there you go. 

I think I am coming to a philosophy of life. That sounds very grand, and I don't mean it to, but there are a few strands coming together that seem to be linked. I have been struggling with the idea of "battling with cancer". You hear it everywhere, and I feel uncomfortable with it. God knows I would love to battle with cancer, but how? What does it actually entail? If there was something positive that I could do and had faith in, I would do it. What I feel is something like Tony Blair said about the war on terror - and I can't believe that I am quoting him on that, but I think it was him who talked about the importance of continuing every day life as a protest against terrorism that would try to disrupt and destroy that. So I am trying to live my everyday life as well as possible as a protest  against the cancer that would disrupt and destroy it.

So what are my strands?

The big things don't happen very often, so you have to have regard to the small things and really appreciate them. 

It is worth paying attention to the small things, because they accumulate.

That's from the 3BT thing.

The giving challenge? Well, the more I think about what I give, the more I notice what I receive.

So it's something about the fact that life is OK if you look for the bits that are good. It's not very original, I know, but there you go.