Golden Delicious

Last week Major had his third chemotherapy, an old hand already. Each treatment begins with an overnight stay in hospital where he is flushed with water and hooked up to treatment. Once released back into the community he manages the art of being connected to his ball and chain as if he'd been born with them attached, threading them through the sleeves of clothes and finding the perfect position for sleep to avoid entanglement and princess/pea discomfort. He cling-films his arm to keep the line's entry wound at his inner elbow dry in the shower.

The first round passes without so much as the loosening of a hair on his head or the slightest ripple of nausea, but his hearing becomes hyper-sensitive; I'm often accused of shouting, and phantom engines idle outside which only he hears. I think maybe I should get tested, but friends and visitors are also told to sshhh.

We take evening walks along the beach at Pett Level with the ball in his pocket and his arm bandaged so as not to scare fellow paddlers; he's invented a story about the slip of a saw during DIY to answer anyone who asks.

By the third day the lymph-node lump in his neck has diminished by half and at the end of the treatment, day 5, it disappears altogether and the weird grey tissue in his mouth has miraculously turned a healthy pink. What a trick! £1000 for each ball of yummy Cisplatin and 5FU, care of the NHS. Thank you.

For the second round, two weeks after the end of the first, Major's blood count (white cells I assume) is very low, borderline for receiving chemo, but it is decided that treatment should go ahead.

He cannot face a thing to eat by the second day other than Weetabix which have become an important presence in our lives. I realise how much our interaction is centred on food: "Mmmm, have you tasted Mhairi's spinach/Roger's strawberries/Eric's little carrots?", "These sausages are not a patch on Mr Seppings'", "God, this lamb is stunning!", " smell this amazing garam masala I just made", "soup for lunch?", "do you know what I suddenly fancy?", "you HAVE to taste this perfect Ringden cox" and on and on, meal time or not, until Major, eyes closed, says "Please..." in a small voice which tells me that he is, in fact, not well. We cancel a dinner date with neighbours. Funnily enough, the nausea does not effect his thirst and there is always a glass of red wine within reach.

He passes the remaining few days wrapped in blankets, though it is August, watching Lovejoy, who, like the Weetabix, has become an unexpected daily fixture - possibly the most alarming development of the cancer journey to date.

Last week was the third and penultimate treatment. Major is completely blasé about the whole routine now and seeks out novice chemo-ees on the ward to take under his wing. He eats the hospital food, has bought new glasses so that he can read the piss-jug numbers, even sleeps through the bleeping of the chemo batteries, and casually accepts the news that he will have a blood transfusion. I think he's joking when he mentions it, but apparently this time there is definitely too little of whatever it is in his blood that's needed. He is flushed and chemo-ed briefly, flushed again, and spends the whole of the next day with the golden orb dripping into his left arm and three bags of someone else's wholesome blood dripping into the right. Then he drives himself home.

The foreign blood works wonders and though several Weetabix are still consumed each day, so are more substantial meals, and Major sails through the week on good form.