Chips (crisps) and chemo

Now, most of you will know that I am a little short of the grey matter in the head sometimes. I have even been nicknamed "die malletjie" (the mad one) by some lovely friends. Anyway, when the oncologist was telling me about chemo, I said: "can I have mine in a separate room 'cos I'm a sympathy puker. If someone pukes, I have to puke with them" and he said, "but where are you going to see people puking?" Well, when we watch movies, people having chemo seem to puke all the time so i just imagined this room full of puke buckets and everyone retching. He found this rather funny. Anyway, my first chemo arrived and I was accompanied by Vojta and Alex. I could only have one friend there so Vojta (with great relief) dashed off. I got chatting to a young person next to me and the first thing he told me was that I would lose my pubes within a few weeks! Eish or Yaw/Joj (as the saffas would say)!!! What? A brazilian/back-sack-and-crack all done intravenously? He also told me that he used to love red wine but doesn't really enjoy it anymore. Moi? The red wine connoisseur, not drinking red wine? Anyway, he proved to be a comforting source of inspiration (?) throughout the slow dripping of the chemo. A visit from Adam (my best friend) was also much appreciated. I went to the loo and was scared to come out in case Alex was hiding behind the door to freak me out! He wasn't, so me peeping out behind the door attached to a drip was a little embarrassing.

Now for the chips/crisps: I decided that I felt ill and was going to puke. I didn't want to tell Alex cos like me, he is a sympathy puker. I asked Alex to call the nurse over. I told the nurse: "I think I'm going to puke, can I have another bag-full of anti-sickness". He looked at me and said "No you're not!" and turned around and left. This called for self-medication so I reached for a bag of salt-'n'vinegar crisps, my favourite, and started munching on them (having had some prawn crackers earlier)!!! The strong flavour made me forget about wanting to be sick and I just continued munching stuff for the rest of the chemo. There is a lady who comes round with a trolly of goodies and it's all free...chockies, crisps, sandwiches and coffee that will take the hair off your loolahs faster than chemo would!!! Alex insisted on trying it despite our vast source of information to our right attached to his bag of poison.

For those who don't know about chemo, basically, you sit in a room with loads of people in similar or worse health than you, they stick a cannula ("sharp scratch" my arse!) into you, fill you with anti-sickness, then "flush" you out with saline (as they do this a few times you spend the entire night peeing), then put your first bag of poison in, followed by more "flushing" then more poison. Depending on your treatment (the type of chemo), you could be there all morning or all day.

I went home with Alex wondering if I should use this as an opportunitity to legitimately puke on the tube (unlike the time I did it after too much red wine thanks to a certain Peter Sapsied!!). Got home, ate some soup, tried to sleep, couldn't cos I had to pee, took my meds, dinner, felt fine and thought they'd given me a placebo as I didn't feel any of the side-effects. Then came Saturday evening...involuntary and intractible hiccoughs (hiccups for the uninitiated) and the yuckiest feeling you could imagine...

Let the games begin....until next time, have fun!
Goose