Before my cancer I was always the warm one, while Gillian wore extra jumpers to try to stay warm. Even so, her hands were often cold. I would compound the misery by wandering around the house in only short sleeves. The cold weather and cancer have changed all that.
We first noticed that I felt colder than normal when I started turning up the thermostat for the central heating. A couple of hours later I would feel cold again. On my way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I saw that someone had turned down the thermostat. I, as a reasonable human being, turned back up again. After a few days it seemed that neither of us would cede victory to the other, so we negotiated a treaty.
Gillian found me a pair of warm, stretchy woollen gloves to keep my hands warm. I started wearing two pairs of socks and a thick jumper, and we found a compromise setting for the thermostat.
The gloves weren’t a perfect solution, however, so Gillian found a luxurious pair of cashmere fingerless mittens that allowed me to work at my laptop.
What a good job it was that we compromised on the temperature in the house! The snow prevented the oil company from delivering a top up to our domestic heating oil, our main source of heating in the house. We did order the top-up in plenty of time, but the extra cold weather meant we used up the oil faster than ever. We turned off radiators in half the rooms in the house, bought a couple of electric convection heaters, and retreated to a couple of the most comfortable rooms. We survived. Just. When the oil was eventually delivered I calculated that we had about 10 or 20 litres left in the tank. We were practically running on fumes. Thank heavens we struck our treaty when we did.
Now the weather is warmer and we have oil in the tank, I’m feeling a lot warmer too. I’ve returned the skiing socks to the drawer, although I’ve kept the mittens and the jumper. Life is definitely getting better.
NOTE: this post was written at the hospital on my iPod using the WordPress 2.1 app, a surprisingly pleasant experience.
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Hi Chris,
I hope things are going well for you today back in hospital. I hope also that it gets a bit warmer soon, these dreary days will surely soon be over.
Robert
Things are going great. The chemo is now finished, and I’m working through the first post-chemo saline drip. Twelve hours altogether, and I get out again tomorrow morning.
I’m sure the weather will get nicer, even if it won’t be much warmer. But the snowdrops have started, and the magnolia’s buds are getting furry, so the garden is definitely getting prettier.