I wonder when “moving the needle” started creeping into our discourse? I would have said some time last year. Wiktionary, however, has a quote from the august Time magazine, dating from 2002.

I had a blood test in late January before seeing Phillip Parente earlier this week. The results of the latter appointment: the PSA is still undetectable. So I was glad not to have moved that needle. Everything else is good, and Dr P commented also on how well I was looking. After every other specialist appointment, all being well, I get a new another Zolodex implant. This had been scheduled in half an hour after seeing Dr P, so I duly walked up the hill and presented at the Epworth Eastern oncology ward.

The cheery nurse (they all are) checked with a colleague that I was to get the right stuff, and with me that I was the correct body. Then, having prepped the site, the needle was wielded and the new dose swiftly implanted. I thought of quoting from the Scottish play

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly

but didn’t want to attract any bad luck to the enterprise! But I do find, with this particular procedure, the sooner, the better. Because the Zolodex is about the size of a rice grain, a decent size needle is needed to shove it in. The nurse confirmed that this was “pretty much” the biggest syringe they had. I joked that, should they run short, they could go and borrow one from a horse vet. She agreed — they are doubtless used to patients’ black humour. The implants are put in each time on the alternate side of the abdomen. Strangely, I find an implant put into the right hand side less bruising than one on the left. I had an impressive bruise from the last one, which took quite a while to fade. I must ask next time whether implanting it into muscle is more difficult than into fat. (I hope I have a bit more of the former after three months of exercise classes, due to finish this week.)

Each time I am to see Dr P, I get a bit of testing anxiety. I usually sleep fairly well the night before, figuring that I have done what I can to maintain myself in a well state. This time, following the appointment, I had a very poor night’s sleep. Fortunately I didn’t have exercise class to get to, so could just plod around, go and get some groceries, do a bit of feeding and pruning in the courtyard, and other anodyne activities.

I also spent much of the day reading A life of my own, by Claire Tomalin (the link in the title points to my local library record). This had been recommended by a friend who is also writing a memoir. (He and I are a kind of mutual admiration society). I liked it a lot too — it is certainly very readable, and I finished it in a day. Her resilience in the face of the dreadful things that happened to her is impressive, and she writes about them in an unadorned and straightforward way. For me, however, there was an indefinable something missing from it. She is candid, but not really self-disclosing. Maybe there is a British reserve in her temperament and upbringing that inhibited her from really exploring the darkest places. There is a lot about what she did, and she was very busy, researching and  writing biographies, being literary editor of several major newspapers, and looking after her family. Work was possibly her therapy, and she obviously had too much going on to drop her bundle, even if she had felt like it. I am glad to have read it — books that don’t quite hit the mark are often more instructive than the ten out of ten ones — those books that are like discovering a new planet.