trice I can't imagine DH caring for me for more than a day without starting to get grumpy and certainly would never do any ablutions for pets or humans! As well as manflu he suffers from some weakness in his oesophagus that means any sort of human or animal poo or sick causes melodramatic fits of gipping which rise in volume until some mug takes pity. He may have changed a nappy once or twice but never without a great deal of fuss and suffering. So I am well impressed with rat cleaning, which actually I wouldn't do either , phobic about their tails.....
Glad you are relieved to be finally embarked on chemo. How are your bumps and bruises from the fall?
topsy poor mr Topsy . Hope he feels better soon but that would have been me too, except I also start throwing the kindle when he starts snoring. I wasn't around last night but rereading you are only a mystery to doctors because they don't know about power of Sauron. [Grin] Also with you not feeling great of late and mr Topsy's bugs , hardly surprising if node inflamed.
figgy I hope all goes well with Dh, my surgeon quoted that surgery to highlight what a breeze a mastectomy was 
because no muscle involved so must be daunting . It must help a little to have been through similar process of coming to terms with it all yourself, there has to be some use for this sodding experience.
Sparkle I think there are various milestones in terms of improving your odds. We were quoted a year as on as well, they improve rapidly at first before levelling off until at 5 years you are less likely to die of breast cancer than the average woman which is a jolly good statistic. Very early on when I came to terms with it all I decided that deep inside instinctively I knew I was going to be around to my mid 60s based on nothing but woo, now I am in my mid Fifties that is looking really not good enough 
malt there is such a need for this pre OP thing to be a prolonged traumatic experience that they didn't do one 12 years ago, sounds like they have dreamt up a bureaucratic exercise and you will be kept waiting at their convenience whilst they tick all the boxes.
gigs Hope it goes well with big gigs teacher. I always found it good to convey that I was not remotely an alpha mother as this seemed to kick in less defensive, more human approach but also that when we returned from HK headmistress very alarmingly embraced me , thus causing alpha mums to go into full on paranoia, how come she is more in with Head than us, and probably an assumption I was bribing her....... And they would have to up the Christmas pressie to two crates of champagne.....[ grin]
Absolutely terrible nights sleep, sorry I didn't come on here malt but thought light from screen might increase wakefulness. How can you be cold and sweaty at same time? Aim definitely taking a sleeping pill tonight as refuse to be zombie at Chelsea. Also it is good for the ego that average age of members is 103 and so you feel very young, so don't want to be feeling 103.....