Icky

First up: I’ve added a ‘follow me’ link so you don’t have to sign into Google. I’ll email everyone to let them know when a new post is posted.  

I’ve decided to get back into coding this summer partly to test whether I’m affected by cancer brain: the impact of Chemo on my attention and concentration, both in physiological and psychological terms.

The joy of writing a blog is that when I reread this in years to come I alone will get all the jokes. This is in stark contrast to getting back into coding, where I’ll effectively have to hack the code of my younger self. ‘Why the F*&% did I code it like that!’ is my typical response.

WARNING! 

Today’s post is about nausea and will probably contain carrots!

Nausea i.e. vomiting, throwing a Huey Green, or doing pavement pizza etc. That should start the thread going on facebook?

It ‘ain’t gonna be pretty, colourful, but not pretty.

Good news: I’m off the three per day anti-nausea tablets as I’m no longer feeling icky. This is almost annoying as I’d just come up with (pun intended) an icky scale or nausea ranging from 1-5. or Icky, Tricky, Dicky, Nicky and Sicky. (I know, pure genius!)

Alastair Icky Scale:

Icky: Something between ‘ooops I’ve eaten something bad’ to travel sickness. It’s about the level of sensation that comes with walking on dry land after being on a cross channel ferry. Importantly, it doesn't stop me doing anything.

I was feeling icky last week so Fliss and I diverted ourselves by watching the second Harry Potter film Chamber of Secrets. There’s nothing more cinematically immersive, as watching a scene in a film while already feeling the corresponding feelings the director wishes to convey e.g. My ickiness while Ron Weasly is throwing up live slugs will be etched into my psyche forever!

Tricky: This is a little more than icky and needs a little self care such as drinking water, but mainly it’s okay as long as you carry on and keep calm. There is a certain objectivity that comes where you self-monitor your body. ‘Is it going to be a burp or something more?’ 'To errr burp is human, to forgive is divine.'

Dicky: Action required. You have to stop what you’re doing and self-care such as fresh air, exercise etc. It’s still copeable with but distracting. 

Nicky: Gather resources! By the way it’s Nicky as in the ‘nick of time’ and nothing to do with family and friends of a similar name! Nicky shouts ‘Where’s the orange bucket/ toilet/ corner of the garden’, ‘Have you taken your emergency high strength nausea pill?’ ‘Will this damage my Uber rating?’ 

Sicky: As in retch for the sky! Within this lies much detail as we all know there are different types of retching an example of which would be: Furballing - A cough with expectations of manifestation. Like a magician on stage tapping his top hat once, twice and ‘oh look there’s a rabbit! But in this case the rabbit has been run over by a truck!

You may expect me to jump to Monty Python’s Mr Creosote at this point but I’ll just slide a little extra wafer in first.

Expelliarmus: The unexpected explosion. 

Picture the evening return journey from a school trip to France for our Young Enterprise group. We’d had an amazing day selling stuff at a trade fair in Calais and were travelling back to school in the twilight. Think of Grange Hill but without the sausage on a fork and by the way: our Kent Comprehensive never had sausages that succulent! 

We were in the old school mini bus’. This one was so old it had two bench seats running the length of the van so everyone faced each other, just like every WW2 film where soldiers get out of a truck, just scale it down... then paint it blue including the uniforms). 

I’m in the middle, pinned in by others left and right which was useful as there were no seatbelts. Two fat kids were placed just behind the front seats to act as airbags in case of a collision. Airbags hadn't been invented then, so we just had to innovate! I realise in today’s P.C. world I wouldn’t use the term ‘fat kids’, but I want to give a flavour of the early eighties lexicon and they weren’t being shamed, just repurposed, working to their talents. 

We were nearly home, and there was the usual banter of kids, the farty rumble of the underpowered van engine and the clink clink of the teachers duty free bottles. 

It happened somewhere between Shadoxhurst and Plurenden Farm, which was close enough for me to get out and walk home if necessary, when a combination of the lingering motion sickness, excessive consumption of booze and duty free chocolate, plus a few exhaust fumes coming up through the rust holes in the floor,  sent one kid (I can’t remember who) from Icky to Expelliamus with nothing in between!  

Unfortunately I was sitting directly opposite! 

In a second, I went from kid in school uniform to harlequin clown. My inner world went into slow motion. An age later, perhaps two seconds, everyone noticed the smell. Instantly a van full of happy, cheerful, jolly children turned into bullfrogs billowing their throats on a Spring evening.

‘Sir? I live just up here can I get out pleeeeeaaaasssseee?’ I was offering an excuse to open the doors (tick) and get rid of most of the offending source of the stench i.e. my clothes (double tick). So I was duly abandoned on the road side and the incident was never spoken of again, Until now! I imagine much mirth was had in the staff room at my expense. 

These days a child would never be abandoned on a country B road after dark, but back then there was more chance of a peado being on the school staff than lurking in the woods, and therefore the risk was actually reduced. (I jest but at least one of my form teachers was sentenced).

I can't leave my blog there! But I'm just about to have beautiful white toast with bitter orange marmalade and fresh coffee so no Mr Creosote.

After seven days and half a stone lost, I think my appetite Has returned :)