No big changes today.  Sleep was nowhere on the horizon last night so I took another sleeping pill. While I did get a few hours in it was nothing like the oblivion of the night before . I shall probably give it a miss tonight.
 
Rice Water. Well to some it may be strangely comforting. to me it tastes like gruel. I had a little for breakfast - perhaps 20 spoons full and that went well enough though I had to stop suddenly when the nausea set in.  Then the same again for lunch. I've learned over the past weeks that to have any chance of keeping food inside me I need to eat in small amounts and pause often. In this case a few spoons and then pause for a minute. Few spoons, pause for a minute.  After the first little bit my stomach started its usual growl and twitch, so I stopped.  Then after a little while the feeling changed and I realised that perhaps it wasn't the nausea setting in again.  This could almost be that other thing. What do you call it?   Hunger?  
 
Think of my stomach as a tiny baby kitten.  For the past weeks, since chemo, feeding has been like trying to give kitty medicine in a syringe. It's hissing, spitting, claws are out, head's twisting, jaws clamped shut. It does not want that stuff inside and is using the strength of every sinew in it's body to keep it out. Sometimes you can trick it - but mostly kitty wins.
 
Then today, just for a moment my stomach changed. Have you ever fed a feral cat, or a really hungry domestic one?  They have an ability to make the most incredibly fearsome growls and threats while simultaneously guarding their food and trying to inhale it as fast as possible.  I think what I got was a moment of that. Suddenly I was getting real primitive signals: Sniff? !! Food? I remember that! More! More of that! Now!!!  
 
Maybe. At least I've had a dozen or two spoons at lunch and all remains quiet in the nether regions.  I'm not going to push it - just be happy with a little progress. 
 
Tomorrow the docs plan to reduce my steroids and immunosuppressants and we'll see whether the rashes and diarrhoea come rushing back. that's the next pig step to getting me out of here....