T + 7. Cooking with Jamie Nutkins (read T + 6 first)

26/02/2013


Hb:     8.5    (-0.9)
Wbc:  0.16  (-0.18)
Ntl:    0.14   (-0.17)
Plt:    7.0      (-1.0)

Weight: 79.8 kg


I'd like to start today's entry by thanking so many of you for taking an interest in the Chemo/BMT/ Recovery charabanc. The number of page views since 11/02 now stands staggeringly at nearly 2200 and as previously mentioned this blog was first intended to save me having to txt friends, rellies and assorted spawn over and over with the same updates and maybe to leave some useful pointers to those awaiting treatment. Instead it's become another thing entirely - and very therapeutic for me. One favour I'd like to ask is for feedback, there's some of this stuff, that even as I'm typing it, I'm thinking is this offensive - have I overstepped? and the Jamie Oliver bit was a case in point, I decided to run that by my wife and sister before I hit publish. So please do leave comments - even if it's only to ask for my original Adidas Starsky and Hutch trainers if I snuff it.

So just give me a minute here to climb out of my own arse and we'll get back to business.

My blood levels sure done tanked yesterday, even the haemoglobin has finally taken a hit - stuff is at the kind of level now where going to my sons nursery to collect him tonight from amongst all the smiley faced little petri dishes there would be about as good for me as licking a toilet seat in the Black Hole of Calcutta. Very high risk of infection due to low WBC and neutrophils and also risk of a bleed due to low platelets - fortunately risk in here is minimised.

Sorry to have to bring you this news queue people, but my mouth, throat and trachea(?) are pretty fucking painful now due to mucusitis. I was trying to avoid asking for the OraMorph painkiller too frequently, but have been assured they won't think I'm a junkie if I do and to ask for as much as I need to feel comfortable - I was on 2.5ml which was good for about an hour at a time and it's being upped to 5ml. Last night was a real bugger and I don't want to put up with that again so it's away with the rufty tufty and I shall in future be clucking for my next  fix along with the best of 'em.

Another rather weird aspect of mucusitis is the temporary destruction of the sense of taste as demonstrated to me by my choice of dress when I got up this morning;


Mucusitis - the side effects. And no it's not actually me  - fuckers.
 

Now my barnet was never my crowning joy - not for me a middle age/later life of distinguished grey flecked glory a la William Shatner (I know). I went from a mullet to a crop in about 1993 and have sported one ever since, with diminishing returns across the years as 'Widows Peak' became 'The Barnet Isthmus' - still just about connected to the mainland, to the current reduced circumstances of 'Hair Island' which is just about strung onto the rest of it by a manky old rope bridge. Snagglepuss Frankie calls it the tufted duck - which I rather like.

I know it's inevitable that chemo was going to make it fall out but I still had one hell of a shock when I spotted my scalp gleaming at me from the territory to the south of Hair Island, formerly thickly planted. If I leave things to progress normally it's going to go Terry Nutkins on me so it'll have to come off and Jeannette has agreed to bring the clippers in with her on the next visit. Mind you it's almost worth hanging on for that extra few days for the transformation to complete.

Imagine it -  the eye searing majesty of a fully formed Jamie Nutkins I could take the show on the road, touring the provinces knocking up Pacific Fusion and Modern Cuisine in the back of a caravan,- concocted from voles and badgers and crested grebes and shit, -  tongue lolling out happily- oh hang on I'm in an isolation ward. Anyway fairly soon I'll get some pics done of the spam when it happens - maybe with sidies left on for laughs.

One last Jamie Oliver story and I'm done - honest. I wonder how close to suicide he came the first time he tried to top up his phone by chatting to the robot lady at Orange. I just spent 8 or 10 sausage tongued minutes trying to get £20 on my moby in the end I had to pull my lower lip down with my thumb and forefinger to do something that sounded like English.

Hey ho - my Oromorph has just arrived it's time for Hendrix on the headphones again.

(edit 04/03/2013) Hello there - don't be one of the 66 people who has read this entry without reading Karma's a Bitch because a) a good 50% of what you've just read here will make no sense  and b) it means one of the pieces I'm proudest of languishes unloved at the bottom of the viewings chart like an unloved step kid. So go ahead and scroll back you young rascal and we'll hear no more about it. <ruffling your hair in an inappropriate swimming teacher manner> Nick x