September | 2020 | rapidcyclistwordpresscom

Towards Zero*

Posted on September 30, 2020 by waternymph88

Have a very disturbed night. Fall asleep about eight o’clock. Wake up at ten o’clock and eleven o’clock. At two o’clock I realise I’ve drenched whole self and sheets in sweat. Have a shower and nurse changes my bed.

Fall back asleep till four thirty am. Then wake up. Do my #astrotarotchallenge. Eventually it is breakfast time cabs enjoy my porridge, coffee ☕️ banana 🍌 and honey 🍯.

Exchange my sweaty sleepwear for a bag of clean sleepwear which Mum has packed up for me. Also give Mum some Astrology books – am not in the right mindset for studying.

Work hard at Pilates and it’s good to see my teacher and friends. Talk to my psychiatrist who is pleased with me.

Watch Rafa win his first set and then it’s time for my sleep. Meditate first.

Wake up. Watch the end of Rafa’s victory. Go for Chest X-Ray.

Now Sascha Zverev is losing to Pierre Hugues-Herbert. Herbert won the first set, Sascha won the next two but Herbert now 4-3 up in the fourth.

Hoping that temperature doesn’t spike and that sleep better tonight. Have cancelled audiobook recording on Friday as can’t see self being well enough to do that in a couple of days.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*1944. By Agatha Christie. The last Superintendent Battle novel.

Sleeping Murder*

Posted on September 29, 2020 by waternymph88

Don’t sleep that well. Wake up at midnight and then again at 2.30am. Fall back asleep till four am when do my #astrotarotchallenge.

Then do a Celtic Cross Tarot Reading for my sound engineer. Hope he likes it.

Work hard at Pilates and it’s good to see my teacher and chums.

Finish reading The Swimming Pool 🏊🏻‍♀️ by Louise Candlish. Recommend it. It’s a gripping historical thriller.

Meditate and have short sleep. I’m So Exhausted but body doesn’t seem to want to sleep.

Hurry up temperature 🤒 – just want to get you over with!

Watching Heather Watson who’s Playing Sophia Ferro.

Right I’m going to have another lie down.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

*1976. By Agatha Christie. The last Miss Marple book.

The Swimming Pool*

Posted on September 28, 2020 by waternymph88

Wake up at six o’clock this morning: it’s freezing. Then unpack a repack tiny suitcase 🧳.

Go for a walk with Mum around the block. The house martins have now left on their long flights to Africa.

We see some beautiful gardens though:

It’s Barre 🩰 from 10.45am Have to leave before stretching so will be in time for blood tests at the hospital. We can’t do chemo until we see the test results.

Have a cheese sandwich 🥪 at the hospital. The nurse takes some blood out of my port.

Read my new book whilst am waiting for chemo to start. It’s a psychological thriller: so gripping that I don’t notice the passage of time.

All of a sudden its 2.15pm and I’m finished. Mum collects me and drives me straight to the hospital 🏥. After the rigmarole of getting inside, I sit and continue reading my book.

Finally a nurse takes me up to my room. Unpacking my clothes; books and tarot decks, I feel happy. I’ve made it inside the hospital before I’m Ill with the dreaded chemo temperature.

Watch Rafa’s match which he wins in straight sets. My oncologist visits. He’s just left after his Second Visit in a day. It’s 7.53pm and must now read book.

Happy Monday everyone !

*2016. By Louise Candlish. Psychological Thriller.

Guitars, Music And Murder

Posted on September 26, 2020 by waternymph88

Wake up at six o’clock after eight hours of sleep. Do my #astrotarotchallenge:

At seven o’clock Mum dispenses my morphine and puts the ointment in my two infected eyes 👀.

At eight o’clock realise that my Zoom link hasn’t come through for today’s Astrology Conference. Spend forty minutes on the phone to Karen at Astrology HQ. My hotmail which for some reason I used to sign up for the Conference isn’t working, we discover. She emails my iCloud account and I’m in just in time: with just twenty minutes to spare.

Attend three lectures between nine o’clock and midday. The first is the brilliant Wendy Stacey talking about The Clash Of The Titans: the Saturn 🪐 Pluto conjunction that happened in January and the Saturn 🪐 Jupiter conjunction that is coming in December. It’s a fascinating lecture: bringing in the Reformation; 1846/8 when the Communist Manifesto was released and Chiron at three degrees of Aries ♈️ in 1968 and the Prague Spring. In 1856 we have Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War when everyone must wash their hands with Neptune at sixteen degrees Pisces ♓️ and now with Neptune at sixteen degrees of Pisces ♓️ we are again instructed to wash our hands.

The next lecturer is Nicholas Campion talking about Doing Mundane Astrology The Modern Way which covers Plato, Jean Bodin, Johannes Kepler and Charles Harvey. Kepler predicted the Defenestration of Prague using Astrology. In 2001 we had 9/11 when air travel was halted with Saturn 🪐 at fourteen degrees of Gemini ♊️. In the 2020 Saturn 🪐 Pluto conjunction air travel stopped due to Covid. In March 2019 the UK was meant to leave the EU during Saturn 🪐 Pluto conjunction with the moon 🌒. Andre Barbault predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communism using Astrology.

The final talk of the morning is Traditional Tools For Challenging Aspects by Kelly Surtees. Challenging placements are a planet’s sign, sect, house, aspect and relationship to the sun 🌞. Technically difficult would be: a Mars day/ Saturn 🪐 night chart. A planet in detriment or fall conjunction, square, opposite an outer planet. Maltreatments: visible planets only – more extreme experiences. Applying to Venus, Mercury, sun 🌞 or Jupiter making a conjunction, square, opposite Mars or Saturn 🪐 within three degrees or thirteen degrees for the moon 🌒. Planets in sixth or twelfth house. Kelly is a counsellor as well as an Astrologer and counsels her clients about difficult aspects in their charts.

What a fascinating morning. I’m so lucky to be studying Astrology.

At twelve fifteen we rush to Watford for my first audiobook recording session. Show you all the instruments there: 🎸 🥁

I’m word perfect and we make it through six chapters. My lovely engineer thinks we can push even harder next time as I don’t make mistakes. He loves the book. I’m so happy: will finish the book in four sessions I hope. He also wants a Celtic Cross Tarot Reading.

Dad picks me up. At home I meditate and sleep. Wake up for supper.

Now am writing this at nine o’clock and Fluffball is lying under my bed 🛌, sleeping.

Busy day tomorrow too: Astrology Conference from nine o’clock till six twenty.

Happy Saturday everyone!

*2020. By Jeff and Carole Chandler. A Huston Grant thriller, Book 1.

Sparrowhawk*

Posted on September 25, 2020 by waternymph88

An amazing thing has happened. My oncologist calls to see how I am. I tell him I am distressed by my recent stay at Watford General Hospital 🏥. I ask him if I can go to my nice Private Hospital Spire in Bushey on Monday, straight after chemotherapy: before I develop my temperature 🤒 that tends to occur on Tuesday or Wednesday. He agrees to ask them.

Dad asks the insurance company. They say it’s fine.

Later, the palliative care nurse from Elstree Cancer Centre calls. Spire have agreed that as long as I have yet another Covid test today, I can be admitted on Monday and stay there whilst waiting for temperature 🤒 and then it will develop whilst I’m already in hospital.

I’m so relieved and so proud of myself for sticking up for myself. I’ve already packed my little suitcase 🧳 for hospital 🏥. I’m looking forward to the yummy food; the pantry button; the nurses’ button and watching the start of the French Open 🎾 in hospital.

My parents will receive some respite from caring for me. Brother is here now and they can even go out for dinner. This is such a good outcome.

We have takeaway 🥡 curry 🍛 brought by brother last night. He’s here now. So parents will be able to spend some time with him.

Can’t eat much of my supper and feel cold which are sure signs that temperature 🤒 has gone up again. It’s 36.8 degrees last night. Getting into bed, I read my book till about ten twenty and then meditate and sleep.

Wake up early this morning. Do my #astrotarotchallenge. Cuddle Fluffball who’s on his chair in the playroom.

We all have breakfast together.

Dad and brother have taken the Mercedes to be fixed. At eleven o’clock it’s my Covid test.

Mum sees the sparrowhawk having a sink of water. I just miss her which is frustrating. Have already developed thrush from my one day of antibiotics in hospital 🏥 so will need to purchase treatment for that.

Speak to Maria this morning. It’s good to talk to her.

Oh, I’m so happy and relieved about my success re the hospital.

Happy Friday everyone!

*2018. By Delilah S. Dawson. Teen Victorian Fairy Fight Club graphic novel, Book 1 in the Sparrowhawk series.

The Neverending Story*

Posted on September 24, 2020 by waternymph88

I can’t eat my supper which is my favourite Mushroom 🍄 Omelette.

My psychiatrist phones and is as kind, sympathetic and empathic as ever. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

I return to my omelette but can’t eat another mouthful. By now we know what this means. Mum takes my temperature: it’s 38 degrees. Back up.

Settling down in the parental bed, Mum feeds me paracetamol 💊 and then I meditate and sleep. Wake up to Fluffball biting Mum on the eyebrows because he wants breakfast at 5.30am.

“Please give me some more paracetamol and then I’ll go back to my room,” I say to Mum when she’s back from feeding the fluffy tyrant.

“OK.” Mum says. “But go back to sleep. You don’t need to take all your stuff now so…”

“Yes I do,” I say, picking up my pillows, my green calcite to lower my temperature 🤒 and my bag of meds.

Dad returns to his bed from the bed 🛌 in Fluffball’s room where he spent the night.

Back in my room I fall asleep and wake up again at six thirty when I make a coffee ☕️ and do my #astrotarotchallenge:

I drink my coffee ☕️. Outside it is raining and my Pyrex pots catch some in my bedroom but my windowsill towel is wet 💦. Wiping my windowsill, I put the wet towel in the laundry 🧺 bin.

My cold is still bad 🤧. I have two tissue boxes 📦 in my room. Blowing my nose I check WhatsApp where I’ve told my chums about last night’s raised temperature 🤒. There are messages of support. This is officially my Worst Chemotherapy Experience ™️.

Fluffball last night in above photos.

Happy Libra ♎️ season everyone.

Today I have my Macmillan nurse at nine o’clock; Personal Training at 10.30am and I need to speak to my oncologist.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*1979. By Michael Ende in German. 1983 English translation by Ralph Manheim. Fantasy novel adapted into several films.

V2*

Posted on September 23, 2020 by waternymph88

Fall asleep in hospital 🏥 at 8.30pm – I’m exhausted as missed my afternoon sleep 🛏 😴.

Nurses come round for final checks around ten thirty at night. Then I fall asleep again until six thirty five this morning.

Temperature goes down to 37.7 so that’s good but still not right. Breakfast is nice and early: bran flakes which I haven’t had for ages 🥣 and surprisingly good, strong coffee ☕️.

Go outside to call parents as no signal in room. They seem relieved that I didn’t die in the night.

Read V2 – like all Robert Harris’s books it’s wonderfully written and gripping. Am still a bit upset with him for never replying to my Instagram message. One would think he has an assistant to handle his social media who could’ve bothered to reply.

Am brave and have a shower 🚿 in the room across the corridor. There is no shower gel so just use soap 🧼. All of my two millimetre-long hairs are falling out: as I dry my head my dark brown hair is visible on the white towel.

A nurse 👩‍⚕️ brings me my morphine but only half the dose for some reason. Still, it does something.

A nurse wants to take bloods 🩸 out of my port but can’t use it. She shuffled off in search of someone with port expertise: there are few nurses here who can work it and they need to be trained in ports – so many cancer patients have them.

Still, I have my own room this time which is far better than being in one room with nine other women.

The doctor 👨‍⚕️ comes round at ten o’clock and says I can go home. I take the gripper out of the port myself and ask my nurse to unlock the cupboard where they store my medication: which is certainly a step up from Harefield where they just couldn’t manage to lock up my meds.

Call Dad and he picks me up.

Home: I go for a walk round the block. Then do a Tarot Reading for a new customer:

After lunch I do her free Oracle Reading:

Then do my #astrotarotchallenge post:

Dad brings the two copies of my book In Bloom home from the printer 🖨.

One is for me and one for my sound engineer on Saturday. Am so excited!

Meditate and sleep.

It’s raining so Fluffball’s in now at 5.34pm.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*2020. By Robert Harris. Set in 1944 it tells the story of the V2 🚀 missile and follows both one of its designers Rudi Graf and the woman determined to stop them: Kay Caton-Walsh – a WAAF Officer.

Fahrenheit 451*

Posted on September 22, 2020 by waternymph88

Wake up at 3.41am. Think “Fuck this,” and return to sleep. Wake up again at 6.15am.

Do my Astro Tarot Challenge:

Then do a Celtic Cross Tarot Reading with Free Oracle Reading for an old school friend:

She is really pleased with her Readings which is great.

Do Pilates but feel Very Cold: have my purple furry blanket on top of me. The class seems to take a very long time and I’m wobbly.

“Mum,” I say, knocking on her bathroom door.

“What is it sweetie,” Mum says, opening the door.

“I think I’ve got a temperature and…”

“Well, let’s see shall we?” Mum says, sitting down on the bed next to me, putting the thermometer 🌡 in my mouth. She takes it out, scrunches up her eyes. “Thirty nine point five,” she says, which is higher than last time and a day earlier.

So, I’m at A & E at Watford General where I’ve been for more than three hours. A nurse is trying and failing to take blood from my port. I’m just going to post this now and have a little rest.

Amongst all this temperature excitement I almost forgot: now have the infection in my left eye too.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

*1953. By Ray Bradbury. Dystopian novel.

No Cure For Murder♉️*

Posted on September 21, 2020 by waternymph88

Achievements Of The Day:

Wake up yesterday and #astrotarotchallenge post.
Talk to Fluffball:
Go for a walk with Mum in Shenley where we see a farm machinery 🚜
And meet a gorgeous Malamute called Logan:
My cousins visit, first time I’ve seen them in seven months! It is good to see them at last:
We sit in the garden and admire it: they’ve missed Spring and Summer but so many plants are flourishing now:
Salvias, zinnias, begonias.
My cousins leave and I forage for food.
Meditate and sleep.
Wake up and dress.
It’s my First Astroloy seminar before the conference next weekend.
We look at yesterday’s chart. Mars is about to square Saturn 🪐. A surprisingly large number of those of us on the course are Mars in Aries ♈️ like me. Mars is about to go retrograde in a week for two months. Then it’s time to think about you’ve forgotten about relight your patterns von a relationship and friendships.
The Mars square Saturn . Saturn will impose a break, caution and authenticity on fiery Mars 🔥. Mars is in Aries ♈️ in the Tenth House: a place of accomplishment Mars
Mars has the energy of collaboration. More of this soon.
Pop into my crystal dealer’s Live Rainbow 🌈 Sun 🌞and purchase a mere two items. I’m so frugal.
Wake up this morning and do my #astrotarotchallenge.
Go for a shuffle around the block with Mum.
We see Mum’s chum’s acers. They’re anazing – show you:
Return home for class and work hard at Barre then rush to hospital 🏥 for chemo:
First flush port with saline. Then anti-sickness fluid. And extra anti nausea pill 💊 due to nausea.
Then chemo drug.
Dad picks me up and we pick up my Codeine which is ready.
Come home, sleep and wake up. Sit in am the garden with a mini double chocolate and caramel Magnum.