This week has flown by. Used to being prostrate on the sofa, slobbering into cushions for 6 hours at a stretch, time takes on a strange new dimension once you're on your feet again. And I've been a busy, busy little girl this week...

Thursday was actually Wednesday but felt like Friday in the grand chemo-fied scale of things, but I...

(just started writing about Wednesday and Tesco - which I already did, didn't I?! Oh dear!)

... went to meet my friend for a coffee in a lovely country pub, and tried not a) fart loudly, or b) throw up in me chips. Luckily, neither happened, and a good time was had by all. I also - deep breath - went to mother-in-law's for more coffee, took car to garage to get battery checked, spent an hour walking around the street market (good day to leave car in garage!), and treated self to sexy little 25 litre rucksack to take to Centre Parcs with me (black with orange trim, since you ask).

Got home absolutely knackered having completely overdone it, as per, and then sent little one up for a bath, and asked big one to check her hair...

The screams were unmerciful!

Of laughter from the little one, at the screams of terror from the big one.

Okay so they were BIG lice. Well no. HUGE lice! In fact, I didn't know they got that big this far north of the equator.

Not only that but there were sooo many of them. Big one made very intelligent observations for a 15 year old, such as;

"It's got 6 legs! You can count them!"

Well done. All insects have 6 legs. Also, GCSE maths will be a doddle now you can count to 6.

"It's alive." (Followed by, "Why isn't it dead?!")

Again. Good observation. I think the fact that it was walking along the edge of the bath might have been the give away here. It was alive, I suggested, because she hadn't yet killed it.

Are you scratching yet?

Hubby went to the barber's and got his head shaved! Any that may have landed on me will have been instantly poisoned or fallen out with the masses of hair I appear to be losing at the moment!

Friday was nit free. YAY!

I went to see a new doctor at the hospice. I didn't want to go to the hospice because my aunt went there, and she died of cancer. But I wanted Reiki, and they offer it there, so I went.

"And how do you feel about having to come here?" asked the nurse in a rather condescending manner upon my arrival, "to a hospice?" (In case I wasn't sure where it was I'd had to come to...)

How do you think I feel about coming here? I thought. It's f**king wonderful. Yes. Always wanted to have to come to a hospice!

I said, "I've only come for Reiki! I'm not dying!"

She looked confused. "Our computer said... Okay. Well, let's start with your medication then-"

Lots of awkward silence. Lots of questions about meds, pain, and more meds. I mean LOTS of questions. And the entire time, there's this stomach wrenching smell of hospital, and that oh-so clinical faux living room atmosphere - EXIT signs on the door and window, fire alarms, chintz fabric covered chairs by medi-mass-produce and co.

BUT - before I make everything out to be totally horrid, I was taken through to see the doc once nurse was done with me.

And doc was wonderful! *HUGE GRINS & THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!*

She is a palliative care doc. She knows about tumours and the pain they cause, and even more importantly, she knows her drugs. She said the current tabs didn't address the types of pain I'm getting (not kidding!), and that we can't do reiki until we get the musculo-skeletal pain sorted out.

So I have a new regime. Gone are the 50 billion tablets a day, and the liquid morphine, and the hours of break through pain. Now I have a couple of slow-release pills at 8pm, and a couple in the morning, and that's that. Last night I slept right through and woke up refreshed. No waking at 1am and 3am, and 5am, and 7am for morphine. And today, even though it'll take 3 days for the meds to all kick in properly, I've walked all around town shopping with my mother, and eldest, in relative comfort.

And I get reiki soon too, once the pain has been sorted out!

Things are most definitely looking up!