We’re going to need a bigger boat

Okay – so all things considered, March didn’t exactly go according to plan.

The PICC line (yes, I’m still banging on about that) knocked me for six. And then I got sick. And then I realised that instead of four more visits to the chemotherapy suite I was going to have to get my head around another twelve. And then AS IF THAT WASN’T QUITE ENOUGH ALREADY THANK YOU VERY MUCH the first dose of the new chemotherapy went and knocked the stuffing right out of me.

By this time last week I was well and truly fed up with the whole blimmin’ thing. I’d been experiencing pretty spectacular post Taxol chemo pain in my bones and muscles for four days straight and it was starting to take it’s toll. I had a thumping headache, I couldn’t sleep for all the steroids, could barely think straight through the chemo fog, and although I was trying my best to keep my pecker up,  to be quite honest with you, no matter what I did, my pecker was just not for upping. I tried everything, including watching Inside the Potato Waffle Factory which I had been saving for this very kind of doomy gloomy emergency and even that didn’t snap me out of it….

It was dire straits here in WeeGee Land, man.

Actual. Dire. Staits.

And then things changed….

I’ve long since subscribed to the notion that things have a habit of turning up at the right time, or perhaps, put another way, that things have a habit of working out in the end. Over the years I’ve come to an understanding with myself that when the chips (or waffles) are down – which they are going to be from time to time – I just have to find a way to sit it out because eventually something new will turn up: a new way to feel, or a new thing to think about, or a whole new direction to go in. Or this amazing picture drawn and indeed signed by Richard Osman (AKA my Pointless Friend) and used as an actual question on an actual episode of my actual favourite quiz show, Pointless.

How cool is that?

The backstory is worth filling in here.

First up, I have a long standing borderline obsession with Pointless for all kinds of reasons but mostly because I’m competitive when it comes to quiz shows and I’m quite good at Pointless. I once scored THREE POINTLESS ANSWERS in a ‘studio albums by REM’ Pointless Final question and it remains, to this day, one of my proudest achievements in life.

Secondly, the picture filled my heart with such gladness when I saw it on the telly box – it made me properly laugh out loud, not least because the phrase ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat’ is oft used here in WeeGee Land when things are in the process of going tits up. And I especially loved that the little man went with the calm and gentle refrain of ‘oh no’ in the face of such awful impending watery/sharky/bitey/fuckitty one-armed doom.

Finally, Mr Awesome Thing Number Five made it happen just to cheer me up. I didn’t ask him to source me a copy of the funny Jaws picture from Pointless, he just remembered how much it had amused me. It turns out he wrote to the Pointless team while we were holed up in A&E that day, which makes it just so super sweet. Yet again, I am reminded that, when it came to choosing my people, I did a pretty good job…..

It’s goodbye from me

So yeah, March wasn’t quite the month I wanted it to be but it had it’s moments. And it’s April now anyway and I’ve every confidence things will be on the up and up all the way from here on in…. The tree at the front of our new house sprung into blossom what seems like overnight and that feels like a good thing. A good sign, you know, or if not a sign, just something pretty to look at for the next few weeks. And that’ll do me.

I suppose the moral of the story is that it doesn’t take much to cheer a WeeGee up. Or maybe that a little gesture can go an awful long way. That picture ABSOLUTELY made my day and it didn’t cost anything but time and effort on the part of the Mr and the people he wrote to. Perhaps what I’m really trying to say is that people, in general, are generally nice…..

I’ll play you out with a song, as usual. Well. Sorta.

Love you lots like Jelly Tots,

WeeGee