Day 10

A day off! No treatment today... just an excuse to lie around the house...

As always it took me forever to get going in the morning. However food went well throughout the day. I'm still tired most of the time, and there's a level of nausea that's always there and annoying, but it's all bearable. No real pain (yet).

I was able to catch up with some e-mails and such and get involved. I also checked out the blog of a friend of ours who moved back to America. He had read a disappointing wine book so I added a comment to his blog with a recommendation for a different book... hopefully he'll read the comment... I've now started checking out his blog to see what he adds regularly. I have to admit I'm finding this concept more and more intriguing.

Not much to say about my activities as apart from keeping myself clean and hydrated (at least 2 litres of water a day) I spend the rest of the time going to the toilet as a direct cause and effect reaction to the hydration point or sleeping/napping. Not really exciting or even interesting.

It was a beautiful day out today and many degrees hotter than normal for this season. Temperature records are being broken daily all around Europe and probably the world. Could this, in some way, be due to Global Warming? Nah... Of course not [tongue planted firmly in cheek].

When I go outside I have to do the opposite of what the song suggests. I try and leave my worries on my doorstep but I have to keep away from the sunny side of the street. I have to keep my neck scars/wounds away from the sun for a year (until September 2006). In addition the chemo is having slight affects on my skin which has gone from its rather attractive Italian olive tints to a much greener look of nausea... or maybe that's just the way I see myself in the mirror. If (When) my hair falls out I'll not only have to keep my neck out of the sun but my entire head. One of the simple pleasures of owning a house however is that I can sit outside, on the front bench, in our little front garden in the shade. I'm outside, out of the sun, and still in my house and on my property. Luckily I haven't installed an outdoor webcam/netcam (yet) or you'd see me sitting on the bench, reading a book, in my dressing gown.

As I spend so much time lying around I also get to spend much too much time watching television. As everyone knows good television exists. But as everyone knows it only accounts for less than 1% of all television programming. I therefore watch a lot of rubbish. It's rare that something is so ridiculous it makes me laugh as often I just change the channel. You will never find me sitting in front of The Jerry Springer Show for more than a nanosecond. However I was flicking through the hundreds of channels, thanks to cable, and stopped on one of those stupid American sensationalist "we'll prove that you'll do anything for money" shows called Fear Factor. In this show they basically put you through "events" which scare the life out of you and the winner "earns" US$50,000. They started with 6 candidates and they had to do things like being dropped, on a bungee rope, from hundreds of feet whereby they crashed through a wall and had to drop a sort of flag on a target. No problem for all of them to do that but one candidate gets eliminated. 5 candidates left. Now they put them each in a car which they drop in the river. Underwater they have to unstrap themselves, swim to the back seat and unstrap a baby doll, swim back to the front seat, roll down the window and swim out the front window to safety. No problem for all of them do that but one candidate gets eliminated. 4 candidates left (2 guys and 2 gals). This is where I both burst out laughing and eventually changed the channel. They bring them in to a restaurant (more like a diner actually) for their next challenge. The host brings out a plate and explains the challenge. Each contestant is going to have to eat two buffalo's testicles. They're cooked and the contestant can not hold their nose or spit any out. They're served without any sauce from what I can see so I can understand this being less than appetizing. However this is one of the regular winter dishes of the south of France (albeit bull's balls instead of buffalo's balls) which we've eaten for centuries. These people agree to be dropped hundreds of feet in free flight and to be dropped underwater locked inside of a car but TWO OUT OF FOUR (both gals) refuse to take the challenge of eating two buffalo's testicles and are eliminated from the competition! Ah the Americans... such gastronomic experts [rof,l].

I turned off the television and went back to my book and much greater enjoyment and entertainment...