Cat poo

Here I am at home recovering from my first cold since the stem cell transplant. Last week I travelled up to Liverpool to attend my father in law's funeral and caught a cold. I returned home on Monday and have spent the last few days lying around and eating toast in between bouts of coughing. Nick is at a conference and I am home alone. I can't believe how weak and tired I am after a week of inactivity apart from walking 50 yards from train to taxi. I decided that a shower would liven me up and ventured into the bathroom only to find that Rupert had pooed in the bath. Rupert does this as a protest when he doesn't think his litter is pristine enough. It looked alright to me and anyway I am not supposed to change litter or nappies with my compromised immune system.

I removed the poo from the bath - there was rather a lot of it but fortunately it was quite dry (made me wonder how long it had been there) and flushed it down the toilet. There was no way of getting around this - I needed to change the cat litter. We use a brand of litter that comes in its own bag that you just open up and place in the tray. That way you never have to touch it and the tray does not get all mushy. I cleaned the bath, rinsed and dried the tray. During this whole process I was naked as I had stripped off and put my stale night clothes and dressing gown into the washing machine. As I picked up the pack of litter it split and the litter poured out onto the bedroom floor boards.

Our Dyson vacuum cleaner was sitting behind me. I have not touched it since I was diagnosed with leukaemia 14 months ago and it now sits where Monika, our lovely cleaner, left it last week. I have had this cleaner for about 10 years but when I picked it up I could not remember where the plug was kept. This was quite a strange experience and made me wonder what was happening to my cognitive functions. It got worse when I decided that the cleaner needed emptying and after managing to get off the thing that holds the dirt realised that I could not remember how to get it back on again!

Ok now all done and I am showered and preparing to dress. The last couple of weeks have taken their toll with the sudden and sad death of Nick's dad and my ensuing respiratory tract infection. I am reminded that I am in complete remission and that I am alive.