The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.
The everyday problem of finding out the right balance between having deep enough knowledge of a few things and a broad enough general knowledge of things only known superficially. Because this world is so immense one always has to make sacrifices in one direction or the other - or, indeed, in both.
Quand je suis arrivé à l'hôpital il y a deux semaines, j'ai pesé 50kg. Lundi dernier ça a été 49.5kg ; et pendant les quatre jours là j'ai probablement perdu davantage.
Mais depuis que je suis rentré chez moi, je mange un peu plus chaque jour, et je me sens un peux meilleur chaque jour. Par conséquent, je fais aussi bien un peu plus de « travail » chaque jour.
Et ce n'est que le lundi prochain quand je devrais retourner pour la troisième séance de chimiothérapie.
So tomorrow I'll check in the hospital and on Wednesday get my first dose of chemotherapy (some different agent than four years ago). Given that last Wednesday meant my last shift, since which I've been on sick leave, and as far as I can tell my body recovered only infinitesimally during those few days, I wonder whether any possible future progress won't be put on hold, even reversed, by the chemo.
Ah well. Nothing for it but to wait and see.
The day began well, with the night's falling of snow continuing. The first snow of the season, and there was enough of it to settle where not driven on by cars. The city looked definitely better for it.
But I travelled through it to my oncology appointment where they confirmed I had cancer again - the same type as the last time round, only now it had attacked the oesophagus rather than the hypopharynx. And the tumour is already larger. So I'm in for chemotherapy, starting the next week.
The silver lining is that I don't have to go to work any longer, so at least I can eventually begin to fight my emaciation. (Not sure how the therapy'd affect that struggle though.)
Later in the day I found out that it was the anniversary of the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, who died eight years younger than I am now; that the Covid-related deaths in the UK had surpassed 60,000, and those in Sweden 7,000.
So the uplifting of mood that the snow brought didn't last long. But I still haven't succumbed to despair. While there's life there's hope.
