The Rant!

I love a good rant me, is it that deep down being British we all like a little moan? Not a full on mega meltdown but an occasional rant which lets us all get things off our chests. I really like the comedian Rhod Gilbert. Now there’s a man who can rant. If you haven’t seen ‘The Man with the Flaming Battenburg Tattoo’ then you definitely need to treat yourself and watch it. It’s about how he uses a anger management diary to cope with his rants at lifes irritations. I would love Rhod to rant about cancer on behalf of us all. More on this later but first, Steve!

Yesterday morning Steve has to go into work and leave me. He is okay because he knows Richard is coming. Drugs administered, we are enjoying a coffee together before he sets off. Steve likes his food and good company. His days in the office are planned around lunchtime treats with fellow colleagues. An escape which he needs and looks forward too. There is however one problem with the office and that’s the cafe! So off he starts with his rant on why did the owner even bother to conduct a feedback survey if nothing ever changes? On a trading estate the owner has a captive audience but instead of driving business in, the manager has mastered the art of driving customs away with the lacklustre food and service. Steve and Graham had arranged to meet for breakfast, this sent Steve into one of his rants. Why do people feel the need to take a great drink, coffee and then ruin it, water it down and add flavours to it until it doesn’t resemble coffee anymore? Why do people have to do that long ordering process? By this he means the people he stands behind whilst they list their demands for a item that only costs £2.50! Your not ordering from the bloody Ritz! “Can I have a large semi skinny soya milk latte with half chocolate sprinkles and a shot of gingerbread syrup please?” All this whilst Steve stands with his tray of food getting ever colder in the vain hope that eventually this perfect drink of ‘not coffee’ arrives so that he can just pay and get on with his day! “Why order a coffee if you clearly don’t like the taste of coffee, just order warm milk and gingerbread syrup!” I listen to him ranting and I love it, he uses the everyday niggles of life to vent off some of that anger and he makes me laugh in the process just listening to him. I can see him in that queue saying to himself could you just get out of my way with your stupid non coffee-like drink and piss off. Gotta love a rant hey!

Back to Rhod, the anger management sketches are beautifully done and I won’t spoil it for you but he does this piece about writing to Imperial Leather. As one day he accidentally uses the wrong shower gel at the wrong times of the day, like it really matters as Rhod believes it’s all the same stuff in these bottles. Anyway he writes to them to complain and the reply from them is that they don’t believe that his insomnia is caused by the invigorating shower gel, nor is falling asleep at work was caused by the relaxing range they offer. They also added that they believe he expects too much from the comforting range during the loss of a grand parent, it’s just inspired and guaranteed a laugh out loud. Treat yourself and watch it, funny as. Steve, Rebecca and I went to The New Theatre, Oxford to see it live and it was so good we also had to buy the DVD.

Rita also has a rant. She loves my blog as she feels closer to me and what’s going on everyday. She only see’s my new posts when she see’s that Steve has shared it. A small part of her message and rant was “I’m fecking complaining, how come I missed the post ‘One day at a Time’? In fact I might just raise a grievance” She says fecking as she’s Irish. Her local church has had to order a bulk job lot of candles as since I have had cancer she nearly burns the place down every Sunday, God love her.

I don’t rant, I used to rant quite a bit I think, but not now. I actually don’t feel anger or get angry. Is that odd? I have no idea. I get sad and it hurts me so much that I’ve hurt the people that I love. That I turned our world upside down, like I’ve put life in the food processor and hit the frappe button. I wish I could help with everyone’s emotions/feeling and fears but I can’t and nor can anyone going through this.

Today I sat in the chemo gazebo and joined in with the one minute silence in respect of the lives lost in Tunisia one week ago. I’m also not going to rant about that. My heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones in this horrific killing spree. My mom, Nicky, Keith and Beth all have been on holiday this year in Sousse. Yet again you think that bad shit will not happen to you, the stuff we read in the news, just seems so unbelievable that it could never never happen to our family or someone we know, but sadly it does. I like you have to look to our world leaders to decide the correct course of action. One of the reasons my husband got into politics as a due to a very wise saying ‘for evil to succeed it takes a good man to do nothing,’ So we all just have to put our faith in those who represent us. Failing that I think a cup of tea between the mothers from all sides could sort out all of these troubles, it may take a piece of M&S Victoria sponge cake too but don’t all men fear their angry moms? Girl power again I think, that’s two nil in my book on the battle of the sexes 🙂

Anyway back to ranting. So I think I need a chemo/cancer scale of shitness. So what should this scale include? Trips to the loo, actual sickness, overall tiredness, emotional feelings and of course fags actually smoked. So if they are all out of 10 (10 being the worst)  and then I divide the total by the five categories then I have an average and when asked I can say “today has been a 5 or a 6” perfect solution.

At the bottom of each post now the scale needs to appear so this is my first attempt for yesterday:

• Loo = 7 (as in how many times I had to go)
• Sickness = 2 (not actually been sick but felt sick)
• Tiredness = 8
• Emotional feelings = 6 (only cried 3 times yesterday, good hey)
• Fags smoked = 10 (always will be too many so I may take this one out)

That’s a 6.6 on the shitness scale! Job done. I have also decided that if any condoms get used out of the 8 (unopened box still in the treats cupboard) then depending on the quality of the experience and of course the overall artistic interpretation, I may just deduct a point or two off the total score.

Feel good Factors – Enough of ranting hey.

My wonderful daughter has brought me a lap tray. She spent hours choosing photos to go in it with me. She set the sizes, printed them, cut them to size and put them in for me, whilst I lay there knackered saying “you do it” as I had no energy. I have received the Macmillan nurses pack today for her and the family to look through. So I’ll let you know how that goes. I also went to the doctors and got my form for free prescriptions to send off and spoke to the Doctor about my worries of how my family are coping. I have now been officially referred as a cancer suffer. I never thought that would happen, well bad stuff doesn’t happen to us does it, just others!

Everyday Rebecca tries something new to help me. Flowers, cooking books, laptop tray, a can of pop to name just a few of the wonderful things she does for me and yesterday she brought me an ice cream to cool me down. Now I could almost eat it but my whole face went numb so Molly had it and she loved it. Thank you Rebecca for being so so so wonderful and thoughtful.

After yesterday’s post and update on Karen. I received private messages for her, she has been named my chemo bud by one of you (very American) so Thank you from Karen to you all as she appreciates your support and good wishes. She texted me today, she is still doing well and more importantly still at home and not in hospital :-). Big hugs and love to you, chemo bud xxx