The day after the end of treatment

A slight improvement in the night in that I slept through until about 05:30 before the coughing fits started. I finally got up around 08:00 when i had just had a enough of sitting on the couch crying and coughing every 5 minutes.

I can remember not that long ago, maybe a few days ago, writing how it was the worst morning yet. Well, unfortunately, today topped any other before it. This was officially my worst morning since surgery. The pain, the coughing and retching, the crying, the pain and the shivers just would not stop. I just kept trying to get food down me, past the throat barrier and without throwing it back up, and get through the waves of pain. My throat is just absolutely on fire. It feels as though a hole has been burned in to the back of my mouth on the roof of my mouth and food now gets stuck up there on the way to the throat. The throat itself is just a pit of burning fire. The inside of my cheeks now have spots on them which make it very difficult for me to open my mouth more than halfway. My tongue has spots on both the left and right sides which make all food burn. Basically I am an absolute mess.

However I had a goal and an objective for today: No matter what I was going to show up at the End of the Year Market at Jessica's school. I felt that it was time that I saw everybody, even if it was only quickly, and to see how the market went.

When Alexandra got home from school, at about 12:30, I finished up in the kitchen, put some clothes on and off we went. It was a very strange feeling walking in to the school. I normally go every now and then and it's been a long time.

It was a strange, and almost surreal, experience seeing all the parents I know. Everybody was very polite and nice and everyone said I looked better than they thought I would. I can only fear whatever it is they thought I would look like. I put on a smiling and happy face and, although I couldn't really talk, I was able to say hello to just about everybody. There are some people out there, and they know who they are, who it was a real pleasure to see again. People who have made their support felt through kind messages, cards, offers of help and just positive thoughts. It was a very good and supportive feeling to actually see them in person. Hugs are always nice as well {g}.

I couldn't stay long as I got tired pretty quickly. I walked around with a tiny bottle of water to keep my mouth lubricated which worked pretty well. Finally I drove home with Desney and Alex, put myself to bed, and slept the rest of the afternoon.

Unfortunately waking up after my nap was almost as painful as waking up after a night's sleep. The pain and coughing fits were just this side of bearable and just seems to last forever.

Desney made a lovely dinner of pasta with chicken and mushroom cream sauce. I was actually able to taste it and it went down quite well. I couldn't actually eat a lot of it as it was quite painful. But worst of all I remember how well this went with one of our nice Chablis Premier Crus. There's just a wonderful combination of the mineral aspects of the Chablis with the earthy mushrooms and the buttery aspects of the Chablis and the cream sauce with that nice bit of acidity after that a Chablis can have biting nicely with the onion in the cream sauce. Although it tasted good it was slightly disappointing and more than slightly frustrating.

Jessica went off for her first night of babysitting. We couldn't ask for a better situation however as she was babysitting for a couple who literally live around the corner. Jess ate early and left amidst the screams of her parents, with as much as I could scream, to get her out of the house as she was late for her first night ever babysitting and more importantly her first night working for this couple.

Desney went to be relatively early (22:30) and I stayed up and didn't watch television. It was just basically on in the background. I was up when Jessica got home (00:30) and finally got to sleep around 01:00...