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2007 — 14 September: a week is a long time in radio-therapy land

The consultant was entirely correct when he warned of tiredness, sore/red skin, and a couple of other things. But the GP has already popped round with a wodge of steroids to hammer the inflammation (which causes awful pain from time to time). Plus, we're upping the level of morphine and I wandered past the scene of yesterday's bank raid idly wondering what the police would make of the large quantity of this controlled drug I was carrying (perfectly legally,¹ I hasten to add) when I picked up yet another repeat prescription this afternoon.

Speed reading

I always knew teaching myself to read speedily would come in handy one day. I gulped down the entire chapter on palliative drug care in that thick book² of drugs that all GPs and consultants, errm, consult when checking on either side-effects or (perhaps) the level of drug company commission payments (joke) and which was left on a table in a clinic room we spent some time hanging around in this morning.

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Footnotes

¹  We've even discussed the topic of cannabis — not that anyone can prescribe this, of course, though more than one member of the medical profession suggested they would have no objection to its use... When I innocently wondered aloud where one might obtain such stuff I was asked if I had, or knew, any teenagers. You have to laugh sometimes, even when your wife is so seriously ill.
²  A bit like that trade price book for the motor industry.