Over 300 people have been killed in Sri Lanka this past weekend. It’s beyond comprehensible. And then I just read that a Danish billionaire lost 3 of his 4 children in the attack. I am sure hundreds of families suffered equally devastating loss. But the fact that a)he is a billionaire and b) THREE out of four (!!!) makes me realise how fragile, unfair, unpredictable life is and how we can never protect ourselves from it no matter how much money, fame, prestige we have. And I am so very sad for these poor parents (and the surviving sibling) who could never have anticipated such loss. And sad for the others, whose stories we will probably never learn. Strength to all, but I have no idea from where.
We’ve had a bit of loadshedding lately (this, if you are not from South Africa, is a friendly euphemism for having no power due to our power supplier being unable to meet required capacity). There are a lot of downsides to loadshedding if you are unprepared for it (no lights, no cooked food, no hot water, no Internet), but there is a positive too: you get given a block of time (2 hours in my case) during which you really cannot do very much at all. So you might as well read, guilt free. So that is what I did!
Some of the books I have read recently, that I would recommend:
I am very late in writing this, but I do think it needs to be documented. My fourth session of chemo was postponed due to the shingles, and I only received it on 27/28 March (instead of on March 7/8). By that time my shingles had disappeared, I was/am on a preventative dosage of antivirals and my white blood cell had recovered well enough to tolerate the further poisoning of my body.
I was, of course, extremely apprehensive about this round. My sessions were not fun up to this point, and I had been in considerable discomfort in the recent past and was in no mood for more. My doctor agreed, and motivated that I be admitted overnight to hospital for the infusion so that the rituximab could be administered extra slowly. Luckily my medical aid agreed (so grateful for this great Discovery plan that I am on!) and I was booked in at about 4pm that day.
