New Surgeon

Very nice. Good looking. Speaks English, although we didn't. Recommends I read Douglas Kennedy. (Since I was reading Janet Flanner's Paris Was Yesterday, a collection of pieces from The New Yorker about Paris 1925-1939, do I assume Kennedy is "literary"?)

Can't operate until my "symptoms" have gone. I knew that. Apologised for me having to go all that way for nothing, but said he needs to see the patient. That's all right with me. The journey gets shorter with repetition.

AND WE DIDN'T GET LOST! GPS rules!

Tomorrow, chemo. Blood tests turned out all right.

Fun Day at the Hospital

No, really.

My first roommate of the day was a woman who has been undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer for eight years . She has had 6 operations. She had all those things removed that I talked about a couple of weeks ago: bladder, intestine, anus, etc. But she doesn't have pouches. Her primary care is at a specialist research clinic in Lyon and she says the excision is temporary and then they put something back. I do believe I read something on the internet about that, but didn't understand it.

I almost fell out of bed when she told me she was 70. She looks 50. And, like me, she says she doesn't get colds or otherwise sick. (One of the nurses mentioned this phenomenon to me a few months ago.) "In fact," she says, channelling me, "if it weren't for the cancer, I'd be really healthy."

What more encouragement could I ask for?

I picked up my blood results on the way to the hospital. Good thing, because they were faxed to the wrong number. Anyway, I have platelets. Lots of platelets. More platelets than I've had since last summer.