I woke this morning with my tongue and jaw in rebellion. Stiff, uncooperative, its been a chore most of the day to speak, to swallow, to clear my mouth, to swipe my teeth. That very distinctive metallic sensation (not quite a taste, remember?) is back and it is affecting what I try to eat. Lunch was meaningless. Two cookies were almost as tasty as sawdust. A glass of milk felt right. The glass of chardonnay that I just tried was putrid. My neck motion feels restricted, though I can see in the mirror that it is not.

Up early this morning to head off to the Cross for my appointments with the chemo team. At 0900 I had blood drawn at the lab. Now that is a depressing place first thing on a Monday morning… busy, very busy with patients in all phases of their therapies. I was actually a bit embarrassed to be taking up a place in line, and a chair while dealing with the questionnaire ’cause I don’t feel sick, and definitely not as sick and weak as so many of them obviously did. There wasn’t a lot of joy there this morning, though a couple of escorts were trying pretty hard. A brisk walk back to the Area C desk to turn in my clipboard of answered questions, and then off to the Sunshine Cafe for a cup of coffee and a rice crisp square.

Mondays must the day for the local Mennonite ladies to volunteer…

I headed back for my 1000 with Dr. Koski and her nurse, and was surprised that it wasn’t Nicola from the first visit. Instead, the nurse is an aggressively positive Jean. To give you an example, we were talking about issues relating to the healing of the skin grafts, and I moaned a bit about the scar on the right side of my neck not looking as neat and tidy as the rest. She pulled herself up to her full 4′ 8″ and forcefully announced that they were ‘life lines’, and went off to find the doctor.

Dr. Koski arrived in her usual swirl of energy, plopped down in her chair and dove right into the conversation. We now have an idea of where and when we get to poison the cancer cells. Friday of this week we start. (I made a joke about ruining my weekend and Jean gave me a ‘giving up one weekend so the rest of your weekends will be joyful’ response when she mentioned it before the doctor came in. Like I said, aggressively positive.) She ran through the litany of the questionnaire and settled on the c. Diff. I told her that my system was functioning very well, in fact slightly better than before the surgery. She was pleased. Several minutes later, on my way out of the Cross, I was not quite so pleased. Whether its stress, or a delayed hang over from the weekend, my digestive tract betrayed me. Its been an odd afternoon since…

By the way, I just poured out that chardonnay and opened a fresh sauvignon blanc. It, too, tastes like crap. This does not bode well.

With the rest of my day, I went to physio, went to the Westin to sort out that bloody parking ticket, tried to take a nap (can’t sleep!) fiddled with my website and worked on this blog. I called Krista, the yoga woman and am waiting for a call back.