Best laid plans etc - oh well I did go out 3 times but not the 4th this week. I went out on monday lunchtime and although I really enjoyed the company and the main course, I couldn't taste the prawns for starter and the profiteroles were too sweet as for the coffee, well, I might as well have been drinking dirty dish water!!!
Poor AJ came back from his party on monday night complaining of pain in his leg and was sooooo miserable. We could see he was going to be poorly. He woke up the next morning with a high temperature and so never went to school and so I lost my last childfree day for shopping!!! Poor thing - he was so cold at one point that he was shivering despite 2 layers of tops, a fleece coat and a fleece blanket. He cheered up when his temperature went up but didn't eat anything all day. I tried to get him to go to sleep inthe afternoon as above all I needd a sleep but he wouldn't settle. Eventually, he watched a dvd (what would parents do without these!!) and I had a 10 minute sleep on the bed settee downstairs.
Wednesday - AJ was a lot better but went downhill in the evening - just at the time when we had booked to see Happy Feet. Not sure what I thought of the film. There seemed to be a lot of ecological moralising in it that went on and on but some of the jokes and visual stunts wwere excellent. The CGI was amazing. The children were supposed to have been at the childminders so that I could go out for lunch but she wasn't well and neither was I and my mouth was quite sore still so in the end I never went which was sad as I would like to have caught up with them all.
Thursday - Woody had a party for most of the day and AJ and Laura just played well. My ear was beginning to hurt a lot and I kept sneezing and had episodes of odd pains in my chest and felt my breathing wasn't as good as it had been. I htought I owuld see how it went and would go to the GP tomorrow but at 5.10pm whilst cooking the children's dinner, I had a terrible coughing fit and became extremely wheezy. After 4 puffs of ventolin, I felt a bit better but the pains were still there in my chest and ear. Hubby was still at work and was going out straight from work anyway. I got into a panic which of course made my breathing worse and so phoned the gP. I got an appointment and was seen within 30 minutes. He would have seen me sooner but I wanted to get the children's dinner done first (not sure if my priority was right but you know how it goes!!). He gave me some antibiotics as my chest was wheezy still and my ear inflamed. Amazing isn't it - I can now see a doctor within 30 minutes but before I became this ill, I could wait all day to see a doctor. My surgery has always been good at seeing emergencies but I thought being ill and seeing a doctor within 30 minutes must be almost a record.
Friday - definately feeling better and even my mouth apart from one ulcer is improving.
I had a brilliant letter from one of my friends who i did my nurse training with and who i shared a house with in 1984. The pictures of us all were so funny as were her comments. I'll have to see whether she can email some to me so that you can have a laugh at my 1980's fashion sense!! I was really touched by that letter so thank you.
The children played really well together and were brilliant until about 1.30 when all hell was let loose and there was a lot of shouting and arguing and tantrums. OK so I also joined inwhich did not help and by the time the twins godmother came over with her daughter at 2pm I was in floods of tears. A good cup of tea helped and she set about helping me hoover and clean so that when hubby's friends came over in the evening there was somewhere to sit. Hubby arrived in the middle of her hoovering and we were trying to move the settee. He just went upstairs and had a bath!! Aren't men amazing!!!
It was lovely friday night as our friends who had been traveling in South America for the last 5 months had arrived back and came over with some other friends. I think we were all pretty tired for various reasons. I've never known such a small amount of alcohol to be drunk!!
Saturday - hubby was working and Woody spent 2 hours at the co-op packing bags for the cubs. They had raised £630 in 4 hours!! Laura and AJ spent the morning playing with playdough. I was amazed that it was still soft and that they still wnated to play with it. It kept AJ amused all day and apart from very playdoughed trousers, the floor escaped damage!!
Poor Laura went down witht the same bug that AJ had earlier in the week so she was in a bit of a state this evening. We felt guilty going out but she was OK. We went to hubby's family christmas meal. It was very delicious and as my taste buds are returning so is my appetite so I really enjoyed it. Hopefully, I didn't appear too antisocial as my chest got irritated by the cats and my infection so each time I laughed I could feel my chest spasm so it was easier to try not to laugh - not an easy task as there was a lot of good natured family banter.
I also had a card and short note from my best friend at school so hopefully we can meet up - we've not seen each other for about 20 years. That's a scary amount of time to just fly by!!
Now of course, I can't sleep as I'm full and I've had coffee. Oh well, at least it gives me a chance to catch up with this blog.
Happy Christmas to you all.

'Tired!! Tired 's not a word used in my vocabulary. Bodily fatigue is nothing to the cause that I belong.'
This was one of my Nan favourite's expressions and was apparently her lines in a play at work. She had no recollection of what the context was and we've never found out either. Do you think I'd have any luck googling it??!!
In recent weeks, that expression has summed up my world. I either seem to be shopping or asleep. I can only manage about an hour at a time in a shopping centre and then I come home and go back to bed. Thank goodness for internet food shopping and the help I get from family and friends. My mum has been here a lot recently and it has made a difference to the house. My friend today hoovered and cleaned my kitchen floor and did the ironing at such a blistering pace that it made me realise how slow and lacking in energy I am. As all of you that know me, know - I am not normally a slow or lazy person but at present I'm operating at about 2% of normal and that is on a good day!! I can not believe what my life has come to - sleeping and sitting sewing and knitting. Ok - so those who knew me in the 1980's will remember me for always having knitting on the go but recently I'd never had the time so in some ways it's lovely to have the time but I now feel pressurised to finish all these things I've half completed. Never was good at the 'starter-finisher' thing. I must finish a cross-stitch for Woody and then complete the icebergs that the cross-stitched penguins have been perched on for the last 10 years. I suppose I could claim that global warming just melted the icebergs in the intervening years - can I get away with that do you suppose.
No more strange parcels and the fairy light problem has been solved by hubby buying new LED lights so now the hall is lit up by blue lights and the lounge with red and the new penguin lights. My smiley balloon is still inflated but it is doing a grimace now instead of a smile but it still does the trick. We finally opened the box of sweets tonight and found amongst other goodies, the updated version of spacedust. I thought it had been banned. The children loved it and kept giggling at the sensation and the noise it made in their mouth. It was a really funny moment!!
This last week has been full of Nativity and School plays. AJ was a narrator but did mumble when I watched but was apparently better on the day I wasn't there. The twins year did a take on Cinderella. 2 of the boys did dress up as the Ugly Sisters. They were excellent and even managed to dance in high heels although I think they both need lessons in how to sit on the floor with a dress on!!
I've also seem to have spent a lot of time wrapping up presents for teachers, admin staff and the nursing staff. I decided to make a hamper for the oncology staff as the week before I kept seeing the nurses coming out with boxes of chocolates so wanted to do something different. It was fun buying things for this and Laura really enjoyed decorating the box with her godmother. The box was covered with gold crepe paper and she decorated it with feathers and a big notice saying thank you to the staff. It looked really good.
The good news this week at oncology was - I've got an extra week off before my 6th cycle of vinorelbine. Hurray!!! They put this down to me needing the week as I'm anaemic and have very few white blood cells but really I think they were looking for people to move as they need to get 5 days of clinics in 3 days after christmas. It suits me - my family are down so that clears the day for me and hopefully, will give my immune system some time to recover. My mouth is so sore all the time now but not ulcerated and has been for the last 3 weeks. I'm using nystatin as it seems to be helping me and preventing the ulcers. I had a very strange experience at the GP surgery when trying to get more nystatin. (it is a treatment for oral thrush and even very young babies can have it). I needed more and asked for a repeat prescription but was told by the receptionist that it wasn't on my list so could not have it. I couldn't believe that I'd been in 2 weeks before and asked for morphine and was given it without question but couldn't get nystatin. Morphine could kill me and anybody else who feels like downing the bottle but nystatin wouldn't really harm you at all. Perhaps, they were trying to tell me something!! I asked her to try as it seemed a waste of an appointment to see a doctor and did get it!!
Because my mouth is sore and I've lost my appetite, I've lost about 10kg since the summer. I know I needed to lose weight but this is now getting quite a lot to lose and my clothes don't fit anymore. I'm in a dilemma whether to get more clothes or see if I continue to lose or regain it in January.
This week though I don't think I will be losing more weight. I've been out today for lunch and will again on wednesday. Then we're eating with friends on friday night as some mutual friends are back from their 5 month journey through South America. Hopefully, they have not bought back samples of guinea pig and locusts for us to try. Then saturday night, it's hubby's family christmas meal and then it's Christmas Day, Boxing Day and then my family descend and then New Year. Is it really possible to have so many social events centering around food in such a short space of time when I've lost my appetite and taste buds?
As Zebedee said - Time for bed!!! (now)

Barry Manilow - Did anybody else watch the Royal Variety Show and think there is now a huge similarity between him and Julian Clary. it's the new fixed features that did it. Has he had a facelift or was it just bad makeup. Laura and I watched that part of the show and she thought it was very funny especially his backing women who looked as if they were about to pop out of their dresses!!
since last week, I've just been soooo tired, I've hardly done anything and then what I do do I either do it badly or forget I've done it or lose it. At present, I've lost my cards written to local friends. I've posted the others but if I've forgotten you - I'm really sorry but I thought I did do a card for you.
Strange parcels have been arriving lately - the best was a large box of sweets that is sitting under the tree waiting to be eaten but we are determined to sit it out till christmas day or maybe christmas eve. The oddest was what looked like a turkey but turned out to be a differential for the morris minor. The postman and I couldn't work out what it was. That just reminds me - the postman was supposed to have dlivered that lost parcel from last week but he didn't and now he is nowhere in sight!!
Tescos have written me a very poor apology letter but have said if I phone them before I go, they will reserve me a space!! Not sure how that will work and do I have the balls to phone and ask!! Think I will write to head office now as they did not address the main issue of why they extended the parent and child places and not the disabled ones.
The house is now decorated and the tree looks lovely but why did hubby take all the plugs off the fairy lights last year!!

IPOD - well at least I've found it. It was in my bag of clothes hangers!! Well, you try doing 100 things at once before a chemo morning.
Over the weekend, I managed to find out how to find the names for these anonymous tracks. Hooray, perhaps I still have a few brain cells left then.

Paranoia sets in - or am I just unlucky!! I'm beginning to get paranoid that the world is against me and after today, I feel justified!!!!Got woken up at 3am by son saying he is feeling sick and he looks awful. Did eventually, manage to get him and me back to sleep. Woke up at 7am and realised that son is quite poorly with high temperature and then find out from his twin sister that about a third of the school are off with tummy bug - great - just what you need before christmas and on chemo!!Phoned mother-in-law and she wanted me to do 40 min round trip to drop son up there before I went to 9.30am chemo. Couldn't do that as had to get other kids off to school and there are 2 of them retired and no commitments. Eventually, she agreed to come here. Poor boy couldn't really walk so wasn't going to take him out of house!! Realised I'd run out of calpol so had to ask neighbour to buy some for me.Got to chemo. Saw Dr after an hour and found he'd ordered my chemo so thought great that should speed things up today. Found out my neutrophils were 1 and WBC 3 but they still wanted me to have it!! :( Great with all these bugs about!!.Went into treatment room at 11.45 so thought 'great, will be out by 1pm' and she even managed to get a blue cannula in so whooppee. Had the vinorelbine and then the herceptin and then waited for the zometa. Told - pharmacy being slow with this today. Waited until 2.30pm when found out I needed another blood test because path lab or whatever hadn't done my creatinine level. So had to wait till 3.45 before I could have the zometa. I'd had so much saline by that time that I needed the loo and as the drip was precariously balanced in my right hand and my lymphoedema makes my things difficult with my left, this lady's husband who I'd never met before had to push the drip stand into the loo for me cos the loo is so small it is almost impossible to get in. Fancy getting to the stage where you need a male stranger however lovely he is to help you to the loo!! As my hubby had got home by this time, I went into the post office collection point to get my parcel and after 15 min wait found it wasn't there!!Got home and got confused message from my hubby that his mum had collected my prescription only to open the large box to find the calpol so he had to go out to get it for me.Now I can't find my Ipod - ever felt you should have stayed in bed!!Hope tomorrow gets better!!Kate

Tesco - My nearest Tesco is built on the side of a slight hill so all the car parking is at different levels. It is a huge store but only has 20 disabled parking slots (first right up the hill and at the beginning of the level bit) and about 30 parent parking slots. They recently redid the car park and added more parent slots but no more disabled slots. Now, I've explained that you go up the hill and the disabled slots are first right so you can imagine what that does to the queue trying to get to the further up slots as all these usually old dears block the entrance and seem totally unable to negotiate their cars into the extra wide spaces. They always seem to be hitting each other so am not keen on parking there but there again I can never park there either cos there's no space!! There is a lso a dire shortage of small shopping trolleys. A weeks ago I complained that I could not park anywhere on the level and that there were no little trolleys and again 8 days ago. Both times, I did not receive a reply. This morning, there was all sorts of arguments between these wrinklies and the disabled spaces and the queue didn't move for ages while they sorted themselves out but I did manage to nip into a normal space on the flat so partial success!! I then thought I would try to get to speak to the duty manager. I waited about 10 minutes to speak to her - all the customer assistants had disapeeared, there were no seats so ended up perching on the desk like some sort of gnome who'd lost its fishing rod. Eventually, the duty manager came and took all my details and couldn't explain why they'd extended the parent spaces but not the disabled ones nor why there is a shortage of little trolleys. I hate having to ask each time at the desk if someone would get me a little trolley if there are none at the top. The assistants always look down their nose at me when I ask because I think they think I'm just lazy not ill. I do want to boycott Tescos but they are cheaper and their internet shopping service is good (apart from today where the server appears to have crashed and I need to amend my order for tomorrow - help).
If I do not get a reply, soon I'll start a one woman protest outside. It makes me feel that Tescos have a policy of trying to encourage parents to shop there as they feel they would have more spending power than a disabled person or am I just cynical?
PS - I used the toilets upstairs today there and was impressed by how clean they all looked rather than the ones downstairs which always seem to smell unpleasant. the reason why these were so clean became apparent - there was no toilet roll and no hand soap so had to complain again!! honest - I'm not always whinging but there comes a point when I've had enough and that point was reached htis morning.

Can now add Comments - I've just switched from a blogger account to a beta blogger account!! No, that does not mean anything to me either but what it does mean is that I've found comments from a long time ago. Sorry - don't know why I never found them before - told you I struggled with some aspects of technology - I have now moderated them and published them. So, if you were feeling discouraged that your comments weren't appearing, please take heart, this new system lets me know you have commented and I will publish them!!! Please don't let me down - and is this the same anonymous or a different one who is commenting? Perhaps, you'll have to come up with a new moniker so I know if it's the same person or not!!!!! It's not that I've suddenly become demanding .................
Kate

Getting to grips with technology - I bought the Ipod and have managed to download about 120 songs so far which seems quite an achievment for me but what I don't understand is why the songs from 3 of the CDs are only coming up as 'track 1' or 'track 2' etc. It happened to George Michael's 'Older' which I put down to being , well, 'older' but why has 'Teh Da' the newest one from the Scissors Sisters done this but not the first Scissors Sister CD and the same with Razorlight. Now, if I want to listen to them, I have to scroll in all sorts of odd ways to find the bit which just says 'track 1' and then I have a surprise cos it could be George, Ana or Johnny singing to me. Any ideas? Perhaps I should just try again and see what happens!!
By the way, I did let Woody have some of HIS favourites on MY Ipod - so now have some tracks from Pop Party, Busted and McFly on it!! Soft mother!!
As a family, we're improving with the videoing - poor Laura seems to struggle sometimes and it can make you feel sea sick watching but is improving. Now have to learn how to get it off the tape and onto CD format. Think we'll just ask our techie friends.

Moaning does have benefits - I moaned because I was in pain and wanted some attention and hey presto - pressies arrived!! Now feel a bit of an attention seeker but have got beyond caring about that. Well, if at this stage in my life, I can't be an attention seeker, when would I get the opportunity!! What did I get? - well the previously mentioned bunch of flowers from hubby, a bunch of roses from another breast cancer friend who I met for coffee on friday, and a huge box of choccies from work and a 'smiley' helium filled balloon which popped out the box and made me laugh (from someone I met at the breast cancer forum) so now feel very happy that people care for me that much but guilty that I needed to mention the fact I needed some extra attention!!
Now must make note to myself to remember other people when they are having a tough time too as it really does make a difference.