Emerald Eye

I had my first radiotherapy treatment today  at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.  Parking is a nightmare there so I drove to the marina where I can park for free and then caught the bus to the hospital.  It's a great service that runs every 10 minutes or so and it takes the stress out of trying to find a parking space.

The treatment went ok and is painless, although they've said that my skin will start to get affected and I need to moisturise the area twice daily.  It will probably change colour and I have to watch out for blistering, but other than that the only other side effect is tiredness.  They've said that these side effects build up over the course of the treatment so I'll just make sure I get plenty of rest.  

I had one funny experience today - I arrived early and as it was a lovely sunny day, I sat on a bench outside the hospital.  A man and woman walked up to the entrance and stopped in front of me and the woman appeared to be looking at something above my head. I assumed she was reading a notice, her handbag was practically resting on my leg so I uncrossed them, and then she said 'you have such beautiful hair'!  I looked up at her and saw that she hadn't been reading anything, she'd been looking at my hair wig.  I thanked her, explained that it was a wig and as we were chatting I walked into the unit with her.  The poor lady only appeared to have one eye,  the other seemed permanently closed, and she lifted her scarf up to show me that she had a tracheotomy fitted.  She was also heading to the radiotherapy unit and from what she said, she's had quite a few problems.

When I was finished, I headed back to the marina and decided to go for a stroll along the waterfront - It was lovely and sheltered so it felt quite warm.  When I got to the end of the marina where the fishing boats were I saw two cormorants preening themselves so I stopped to take some photos.  I waited ages in the hope that they'd start basking in the sun but unfortunately they didn't.  So after taking over 90 shots, I decided to call it a day and walked back to the car - I guess they probably started fanning their wings as I walked off.  

As this will be my daily routine now for the next 4 weeks, you might see quite a lot of marina blips and I've put a selection of others from today in my extras.