She makes the sign of a teaspoon, he makes the sign of a wave. The poor boy changes clothes and puts on after-shave, to compensate for his ordinary shoes
Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes – Paul Simon
Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes – Paul Simon
Time and tide… and toe nails
It sounds grand to say I had a stem cell transplant. But some transplant – what with them being my own cells. What I really had was a gargantuan dose of chemo and the stem cells merely saved my life. Melphalan (a nitrogen mustard, not dissimilar to mustard gas) is truly awesome stuff. We know it successfully bleached my bone marrow. It also frazzled all my hair follicles (on my head and everywhere else). It didn’t do much for my digestive tract either. And I think it left a damaged layer in my skin – which would account for the period of itching and flaking I went through a month or so ago. It even left an amazing tide mark in my nails – which has grown out of most of my nails by now, but is still quite visible as a gnarly line across my big toes. I guess the line represents the nail growth which was disrupted by the chemo. I wonder if there are similar tide marks through every tissue in my body? My organs? My bones? My brain? I rather fear there might be!
It would be so difficult to keep accosting people in conversation and saying “look at what it’s done to my toes!” But on Dial M, I can simply upload, and voila! By the time you realise you didn’t want to see, it’s too late. The power of a blog.