Raining cats and nurses

Today's nurse is new. New enough to ask if I am Turkish. Everyone in this village knows I am sick and I am "turist".

She hurts more than the others. H reckons it is because I am getting better and now the pain of the injections becomes relevant. But after the evening injection I know it's personal. She's digging for bone, breaking off the tip of each needle, leaving it embedded in my flesh.

There are many cats on the way streets after the rain. It's all that comforts me. Druggy, who is the only cat who doesn't move when I approach him, is hanging about, as is a tabby who teases an old custard Labrador.

On the way to the evening injection, I want to bottle how good I feel. Not because I feel particularly good, after all I can barely shuffle up Goreme Caddessi, but because I don't want to feel lousy after the injections. I treat myself to a UK paper which is full of stories of Kylie with breast cancer. I think of the people I know who have gone through chemotherapy and how exhausting it must be to battle against the pain of a therapy you can't see. My injection haze fades.

Conversation with H:

"Where have you been? The dog, he needs a good role model and you're not around for him. I think you need to spend time with him. Last night, I was in his kennel and I found pornography. Naked cats. You need to talk to him."

We giggle inside the "Merc" on the way out to the doctors.