Reactions

One big question was how I would react to the first round of chemo. There is a wide range of potential side effects and I am experiencing a modest selection of them: mouth ulcers - a nuisance - insomnia - a damned nuisance - and fatigue - the main effect. This is different from tiredness. Tiredness can be dealt with by sleeping. Fatigue is having a low energy level and will only stop when the treatment does.

There is effectively a civil war going on inside me at the cellular level. Whilst the drugs are targeting B cells, some red blood cells become collateral damage. Red blood cells carry oxygen around the body and the oxygen provides energy, so fewer red blood cells means less energy. In addition, a lot of the energy that is available is being used up by the protagonists in the civil war, particularly the bad guys, so there is not a lot left for me to use in the ways we all usually do without thinking about it.

My experience of fatigue is erratic and unpredictable. A few days ago I could hardly get up and did not leave the house all day. The next day I walked to the shops and carried a shopping bag home in the morning and went for a one hour bike ride in the afternoon without getting out of breath. There doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that energy levels do generally fall as the day goes on. It won't surprise any of you to learn that the one thing I consistently seem to have enough energy for is talking, including Zoom/Teams calls.

Aware that my condition would leave me with reduced energy but time to kill, I considered starting a project to provide some level of distraction. I thought of listening to the whole of Wagner's Ring, but could not whip up much enthusiasm for that. Wagner was a noisy old bugger and I suspected I'd spend most of the time wondering why I wasn't listening to Mozart instead. Then there's the obvious literary challenge - War and Peace. However, I did not feel emotionally capable of reading a novel with a storyline based on a great Russian military triumph. Then providence pointed me in the direction of a different work of literature which I have long neglected and is now demanding my attention.

Given that our London lease came to an end in the spring, we moved out in the first week in May to a rental property in Marlow, just west of London. The move happened to coincide with my trips to hospital to get some diagnostics done, which left Kam to do the heavy organisational lifting and our burly removal team to do the heavy physical lifting. It also left a lot of boxes lying around in the wrong place, but some friends sorted that out for us and some other friends put up some of the IKEA units that inevitably arrived shortly afterwards. So we are now in some sort of order. Marlow is a delightful town and a good base for house hunting.

Looking at local properties on Rightmove, I chanced across a country pile called The Mount, which is situated on the edge of the nearby village of Cookham Dean and is 'in need of some refurbishment'. If you have something well over £3.5m burning a hole in your pocket, you might be able to pick it up - don't forget the stamp duty (ouch!) - and if you have another few million burning a hole in your other pocket you might be able to turn it into a habitable residence. Out of curiosity I read through the particulars and was struck by the estate agent's comment that it was the childhood home of Kenneth Grahame, author of my favourite childhood book, The Wind in the Willows. A bit of googling revealed that the Thames, its intimate feeder streams and the countryside around Marlow were the inspiration for Grahame's riverbank. I had no idea. The Wild Wood, where mole got lost, was based on a real one called Quarry Wood, which is just over the river. So I have a text, an author and a local landscape to explore.

The picture at the top was taken just a few minutes from here. Strolling along the bank, some words came into my mind. You all know the tune:

And did those paws in ancient time

Pad along banks of willow green?

And were the Water Rat and Mole

On Marlow's pleasant pastures seen?

The answer is almost certainly 'yes'. So now I have a project to keep me from vegetating.

And just to keep life interesting, I noticed this morning when combing my hair that a small clump stuck to the comb. Just a small one, but a clump nevertheless. A portent of things to come.