EP0057-201 Phase 2A Trial - Cycle 1, Day 15, second infusion day - 27 October 2021

 And here we are again. Slowly habituating but the periodicity of this trial quite hard to get used to. Cycles are 4 weeks with two infusions per cycle and days are labelled from 1-28 - Day 1 is an infusion day but in reality you have to come in for bloods and Covid swab on Day -2 and for clinic on Day -1 so the official timeline doesn't count true against the actual one. And the trial requires all sorts at nearly all times during the first cycle.

The last two weeks have seen the supercold blow through - sore throat, feeling kicked in the back, hot and dry wakeful nights, streaming from one nostril, streaming from both nostrils, snotty cough, and out the other side. Just in time to allow a couple of hours of energy expenditure at the allotment before it was time for ... Covid jab to the left (ouch) and flu jab to the right (painless),  followed by general poleaxing again. Not as bad as after the second jab but achey legs and sofa time with the sore Covid arm a sleep intruder. 

Flashback - although not feeling great due to having the cold, nausea from the EP0057 seemed quite limited. No ondansetron required, only three out of the five day's worth of domperidone and missed out the last dose of dexamethasone. Suspect I'll be able to reduce that further this time round, if similar. That'll be good as they do leave one yearning for the return of a robust digestion.

Have had a couple of firsts this session. First first - I was approached by one of the complementary therapists. Pre-Covid I visited them for a massage and an  aromatherapy session I think but I've never met one on daycare. Anyway, I signed up for a reflexology feet fiddle which yielded a warped perspective of ballooning calves and tiny tentacle toes. Water balloons...

This was half done when my hospital hot lunch came - the second first - and the reflexology lady retreated so I could eat it. That rather good mushroom soup, even if it comes from powder is much better than shop cuppa soup, and salmon with potatoes, peas/kale and hollandaise sauce. Very nice. And enjoying The Salt Path very much, despite imagining Raynor and Moth behind me, virtual eating as I sip and slurp and munch, scraping the plate clean, before they slip away to climb the hill out of town to a  vertiginous camping spot.

But I was left with oily feet swathed in a towel. When the call to pee came, which didn't take long on all the pre-hydration and pre-meds and soup, I had to towel them off then degrease them with the hand wipe from lunch to guard against going arse-over-tit on the woozy looway.

Just ate a really, really nice apple. It came from the 'Cox' tree that my old allotment neighbour gave me soon after I first started there. I think he or a friend had grafted it. It's never been really robust but seems to be gathering strength although if I had known then what I  know now, I would have planted it in a different spot. It's got a good crop this year albeit with the usual bycatch of worms. This apple was evenly round, slightly wider than it was tall, with no visible holes, no frass coming out of the star end, a rough striped scarlet over green with overlaying russet lines. Crisp to the bite, juicy and tartly sweet with that flavour depth even a young Cox has, greeny white and slightly frothing inside - no invertebrates! Should have taken a picture. Maybe I can follow up with a pic of the tree tomorrow.

Cox is one of the few apple varieties that originated from a tree grown from a pip (hence Cox's Orange Pippin). It's so good to eat that it's been graft propagated ever since, and attempts to improve on its resilience by purposeful crossings have resulted in further famous varieties. Another which has stood the test of time, taste and commercial growing  and which grew from a pip through the recombinant chances of sexual reproduction is Bramley's Seedling. Bramleys are triploid - three sets of chromosomes instead of two - which makes them grow strongly, fruit heavily and reliably, and resist some disease - but also has implications for how they pollinate/are pollinated. 🍎🍏

The reflexology lady never did return. I expect my socks to bear grease marks when I take them off. 

It's been a longer day than expected. I had wrongly thought that the four-hour observation period wasn't required this time. The hospital lunch helped to bulk out the packed snacks I had brought with me, but I have still run out of munchies with two hours to go. There's a very small peanut butter sandwich left but I am not going to touch it. I was tapping and scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar this morning, when it parted company with the top and sides. I should have just discarded the whole lot but Waste Not Want Not and it looked as if the whole disc of glass had come away very cleanly. And I was running late. I'd forgotten all about it while the first three tiny snack sandwiches were going down without remark, but the fourth one reported with a scrape of grit against tooth and had to be rejected pronto - not a pretty sight but I'm pretty well tucked away and don't think anyone saw. 

Coming up to the last hour now. I'm not absolutely the last one here, but I think we're counting patients on the fingers of one hand and staff are restocking cannula trolleys and herding up the drip stands. melissa has just arrived to take my last BP etc...