Last Saturday was the small matter of my favourite uncle�OK my ONLY uncle�s 80th birthday party. As he was born on February 29th, he�s really only 20 in terms of actual birthdays but either he�s not aging very well or we need to count the years when he didn�t get a �proper� birthday too.
His evil girlfriend had decorated the venue with a big photo wall with some really lovely photos of my uncle and my auntie, who died in 1974 but was his one true love (and the reason why he has never married any of the girlfriends he�s had in the intervening 30-odd years) and all sorts of other photos from his life, his theatrical career, his sons and all sorts of other interesting stuff. Needless to say, there were pretty much NO photos of our side of the family and plenty of pictures of him with HER family, even though he�s not even bloody well related to them. Oh, hang on, there was a picture of me � not one of the ones where my uncle and I acted together (in The Devils , or Insignificance , or A Small Family Business? )
Or maybe when he directed me in Far From the Madding Crowd? No. It was a picture from MY FIRST WEDDING. A picture taken from about 300 yards away, of a whole line of people. My uncle isn�t in the photo at all, but Evil Girlfriend�s son is.
They�d gone with some kind of patriotic Red White and Blue theme and decorated the place with giant draped union flags and St George crosses and stuff (prompting my cousin to say �It looks like the bloody BeeEnPee headquarters in here�). Some people had dressed accordingly but some hadn�t been told there was a theme (my dad, Evil Girlfriend�s daughter in law, my cousins). Despite being a licensed premises, the bar wasn�t open. We were told we didn�t have to bring anything, but there was no beer � only wine (which L and I don�t drink) and soft drinks. There was no ice and the drinks were all on a table, getting nice and warm. They lit the 80 candles on uncle�s red white and blue cake and we all sang Happy Birthday. Uncle decided that would be a good time to give a little speech, which he did. Actually it was quite a long speech. It would also have been a good time to BLOW OUT the 80 candles on the cake which, by the end of the quite long speech, were threatening to set light to the numerous draped flags and burn the bloody place down.
The long and short of it is that it was a grim evening. It really was. L and I went to the workies for last orders and then went home and tried to salvage something of the evening by making each other laugh. I won. Look!
That snorting noise is L, laughing.
Off to the jolly old oncologist today for the results of last weeks MRI scan. The skanky boob tumour has now shrunk to 10mm x 4mm (from 50mm x 45mm), which is great news especially as I still have two chemo sessions to go which might make it shrink even more. They have fixed me an appointment for next week with the surgeon, who will talk to me about whether or not I will need any kind of reconstruction done after the slicing-and-dicing. I�d thought that they said they�d do reconstruction at the same time as the surgery, but it turns out they�d only usually do that if I was having a mastectomy, as there wouldn�t be any need for radiotherapy after the surgery.
As I�ll only be having what remains of the lump taken away, I�d have to have the radiotherapy after surgery but before reconstruction as they don�t want to do radiotherapy on the implant, too. The oncologist seemed to think I might not need any reconstruction anyway but I need to discuss it with the surgeon first. I just want to look �normal� and to be able to wear ALL the clothes in my wardrobe, thanks very much. And I still maintain that Im too young (and too much of a strumpet) to be covering up my cleavage altogether just yet.
I also spoke to the oncologist about how ill I was after the last round of chemo. Ive got my next session on Thursday and have been dreading it in a 'pretty much ready to cry already, thanks' kind of way, until my mother phoned me a couple of days ago to tell me about 'some sort of virus thingy' that she's had over the last three or four days which seems to have mimicked pretty much exactly the chemo side effects I had last week. This, and having sailed through the other chemo sessions without too much trauma leads me to think I might have just been unwell with some kind of unknown lurgy, rather than hideously afflicted by Docetaxel's hellish tortures. Particularly as I had been fine between the day I actually had the chemo (Thurs) and the Sunday afternoon. The oncologist seemed to think I might be right but did say that, until Ive had the next session later in the week and we can see how it affects me, we wont know for sure. Keep your fingers crossed for me, dear diaryland friends.
Something weird appears to be going on with my big shiny bald head, in that funny little fluffy hairs about 8mm long have sprouted, albeit sparsely, all over my bonce � giving me the appearance of an albino kiwi fruit. This is balanced by me losing a part of one eyebrow, which makes me look permanently quizzical. My eyelashes are patchy too (hence the falsies mentioned in the youtube clip) which makes putting on mascara very tricky as I keep blobbing it on my face by mistake.
Gah.
Later
S
x
Edit: discussing lunch with Jooj
Jooj, what do you want in your sandwiches tomorrow?
Can I have lemon curd
No.
Why Not?
It has no nutritional value and does not count as one of your five a day
Are you sure? What if I paired it with something healthy? Like salad.
Mmmm, Yum Yum. Lemon curd and tomato.
We found this so funny that we both cried with laughing.
She's still not getting lemon curd.
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