Monday, November 23, 2009

Yuck yuck spew spew

It is a truth universally acknowledged that certain shades of limelight can wreck a girl's complexion. I'll send $20 cold hard cash (NZD) to the first of you who can name the authors and titles of the books from whence the opening sentence first appeared. The literazzi among you will immediately know that two phrases have been stitched together. Hurry now. If you resort to google, I will have no way of knowing, and will honour my part of the bargain. But you will have to live with your cheating self for the rest of your life.


Finding new ways of saying the same old thing is challenging, and there aren't that many new things to say. Every self-help book has familiar themes, all crime thrillers employ the same devices to ratchet up the tension and despite an exhaustive research project I have been unable to find a description of the effects of chemotherapy that significantly differs from this one:


yuck, yuck, spew, spew, chunder, chunder, queasy, queasy, pukey taste, pukey taste, hot flush, hot flush, lie down, nausea, nausea, nausea, nausea, wouldn't a great big vomit feel good?


Lloyd Morrison, Infratil's founder is back from 9 months in Seattle getting blasted with chemo and describes it as 'a struggle to get to the end of the day, let alone think.' He's bound to be getting a nastier dose of poison than me, on a more relentless roster, but he's telling fibs about the thinking. It turns out that he's about to revolutionize the health and education sector, shake up the economy and spend his last years making a material contribution.


Me, I've been thinking about mental preparedness. Does knowing something potentially nasty is on the horizon make it easier or worse to deal with? Does it make the moments leading into the event better or worse? Would you rather know or not know what's in store?

I like knowing. Always have. But I'm beginning to appreciate the joys of willful ignorance. The subtle change of pace that comes from having each day unfold. The blissful state of having not a clue who will win the $20.

1 comment:

jen jen said...

Yay..Pride & Predjudice, Jane Austen, but no clue as to the second. Love reading your blog Sach you are a very clever and entertaining writer. Can't wait to read the blogg that says you have the final all clear and have kicked cancer's butt.xx