Out of Synch

My wife was visiting from Paris over the weekend but she needed to get back today for some work commitments later in the week. Her Eurostar ticket was for around lunchtime, so she needed to be in London sometime around noon. That gave us the option of dropping her off on my way to the treatment or waiting until afterwards.

The station in Milton Keynes is reasonably close to the treatment centre so it’s no trouble making the short detour. However, any delays to my treatment would cause potential problems in catching a decent train to London for my wife arrive in good time at Euston. Dropping her off before, on the other hand, meant modifying the tried-and-tested schedule of water intake and driving to the treatment centre.

We decided the best option was to remove the risk of train delays by going to the station on the way to the treatment centre. That meant leaving around 15 minutes earlier than usual, about an hour before my appointment.

We were ready to leave at 9am as planned and I had been for a final pee and drunk about 1/2 a pint of water just before we set off. As usual, I had a couple of small bottles of water with me in the car and I sipped from one of them during the journey until I first sensed a new urge to pee. That occurred at about the same point on the journey but of course this was in reality 15 minutes earlier than normal. However, the urge didn’t build up too much and I was still OK when I dropped my wife at the station about 25 minutes before my appointment.

As I was approaching the centre I realised I wouldn’t be able to hold on so I started to drink the rest of the water from the bottles. I reckoned that by going for a pee as soon as I arrived but still topping up with water, my bladder would be full enough again by 10am when my treatment was scheduled.

It wasn’t to be. I was in the waiting room and changed by 10am but although I had been drinking since arrival – on top of finished the bottles in the car – I still wasn’t ready.

Luckily, the patient who was due in after me was ushered through to the waiting room and he was ready to go in. After a brief discussion with one of the radiographers we decided it would be best if he went ahead of me on the basis that I would be able to hold on until he came out.

In the end it worked out quite well, even though I was out of synch all morning.

Day 28

Tiredness: 0/10

Side Effects: stable