F is for firsts

So the first chemo experience has been good so far. Arrived at 9.15 and it's now 18.15 and time has flown by!! First of all, got hooked up to IV thingy and had loads of saline pumped in to make me go to the toilet, where I collected my wee in a solid silver bucket....yes, they select quality of the vessel based on the patient!! Anyway, had all the saline, then one chemo, more rinsing and 2nd chemo (4 hours!). Food: well, it was a trip down a memory lane that you wished you hadn't chosen to take! Lunch was ok, edible chicken soup with couple of crackers with cheese. Nothing ground breaking but no heinous crimes against cuisine either (not like yesterday and the Dutch vegetable soup, which you would assume was vegetarian, but actually contains meatballs!). However, dinner was another story, ...and generation! First of all, it was served at 17.00!!! What are we- living back in post-war Britain?! Secondly, it was horrible in its blandness and lack of any redeeming factors! After seeing MasterChef in the last couple of days, the judges' unimpressed faces are fresh in my mind; I can see Monica looking incredulously at the plate and actually being quite angry about it!! I didn't feel anger, just vague amusement and disappointment because I was actually hungry! Luckily, I came we'll prepared with snacks so I didn't starve...I asked Ed to bring me some contraband (i.e. food with flavour from this decade!) I'm still sussing out the chemo-ward etiquette. There are 4 of us in here, and obviously we've all said hello etc. and exchanged a few awkward jokes/comments when our IV alarm goes off. However, when I made an attempt to draw someone in to comment on dinner, I was not given much back.....is there an omniscient, Godfather figure in charge of catering who everyone is afraid of offending?!!! In that way, I feel like the rookie, the energetic (i say this in the loosest sense of the word of course!!) young puppy who goes round trying to make friends while the more experienced patients look on disdainfully, thinking 'she'll learn'.