TGI Friday?

It's Friday and it's nearly 4.30. I went to hospital for 9.30, joined the queue for blood letting. I then waited. Waited a bit more and finally did a bit of waiting. Was then invited in to be drained of the beautiful red life sustaining fluid known as blood. I sat in the chair (imagine an electric chair, but without the wiring. Oh and they don't strap you in. At least, I've not seen it happen) and they fastened on a little strap at the top of my arm and pulled it tight. Then they prod your arm, hunting down the most juicy looking veins. Recently, it has taken them a few goes to get all the blood they needed out of my dried up leather veins, that is, they have had to go prospecting, drilling in extra holes and looking for blood. Not fun. I mentioned this to my current vampire, I mean blood letter and she said, "yes, some of the nurses have difficulty finding good veins but we are too well trained for that. We wouldn't need to go in 3 times". She laughed, I guess amused at the nurse's lack of blood letting skills. This time I thought I was in luck, as the first blood container started to fill up, but then it sputtered to a stop. Oh no, I thought, not again. She withdrew the needle slightly, rooted around for the vein. Ow. She poked and rooted, then tried rooting and poking but to no avail. She look at bit sheepish and explained that she'd need to try again on the other arm. Well, at least two attempts is better than three. I'm happy to have one less hole poked in me. She moved the tourniquet to my other arm, poked some veins, found one that was a bit tender and jammed the spike in. I winced a little bit and she raised a professional eyebrow at the wussbag sat in the chair. The next container filled up, she unplugged it and plugged in the final one and....doh! the blood flow stopped. Stupid veins, I cursed. I didn't want a third spiking, but it was looking like one was in the mail and heading my way. She laughed awkwardly and went into root and poke mode again. Apparently, she hadn't learnt yet that when one of my veins says "no" it means "no". She did the poke and root routine a few times, to my discomfort, finally giving up, smiling unconvincingly and announcing/muttering that she had better find another vein. Whoopee! Third time better be a charm! She found another vein, with her supervisor looking over her shoulder, nodding and pointing and having the occasional vein prod too. "This looks like a good one", she stated and without so much as a "sharp scratch coming" announcement, she rammed home number three. Resulting blood flow: nada, zilch, nil. I started to giggle. I got a dark look. I carried on giggling. She rooted and prodded and thankfully, this time the root/prod method brough home the bacon. The last container filled up and I got a third bit of cotton wool and sticky tape slapped over the new hole. She quickly slipped away with the blood containers and I headed out.

Next, I had to wait around until the blood tests were completed. This takes about an hour. Not sure if it really takes that long or if the blood test people are in cahoots with the car parking people and get a cut of the extra hours car park fee. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but those blood testers all drive Jags and wear hefty Rolexes, so who knows.
When hanging around, waiting in hospital, there are loads of fun things to do. You can see how many people there are that look worse that you do. That can be fun. You can see if you can find the oldest edition of Home and Garden magazine in the pile available to read or just simply sit and make random grunts and squeals and see how many people you can get to move away.
After an hour or grunting and squealing, a nurse ambled by and whispered a list of mispronounced names. Thankfully, mine is quite hard to mispronounced (although she did try, bless her). I followed her, to another queue and was shortly invited in. There I was given some more tablet, but thankfully told that I don't need to keep injecting myself with Fragmin. Yay!

I forgot to mention that I was in hospital on Wednesday too. Tuesday night I was feeling unwell (again) and my temperature was high (38). I theory I should have gone in to A&E that night but being a belligerent git and having not long escaped from hospital and feeling not too bad, I decided I'd go in the morning, unless I got worse. Typically, my wife was away on a course and my little one decided to try and fall out of bed in the night and to wake up later after having a nightmare and be a bit freaked out and crazy. Basically, I didn't sleep too well. Anyhoo, my temp wasn't too bad and I was alriht dropping the kids off to school and child minder. I then zoomed over to the ma-in-laws and she dropped me at hospital. There, I, guess what, that's right, had a blood test (which took two people and three attempts) and then got to loiter and wait around for an hour, see a doctor, get a prescription for some GCSF (as my neutrophil count was below 1) pre-filled injections (so I can do it myself), wait 40 minutes at pharmacy whilst they took the box out of the fridge (or whatever they do) and then got home in the afternoon.

Anyway, Wednesday aside, back to today. As I had been coughing (and still am) they sent me for a chest xray (all clear, no problems), saw my bone marrow was lobbing out lots of immature neutophils, so my counts should be going up and was allowed to stop those injections too. Hooray, no injections for a week or so. I've also noticed that my blood clot symptoms have almost gone. My arm is no longer swollen, my hand doesn't look like a boxing glove and the veins on my chest and neck have subsided a fair bit (although they are still a bit prominent). All good signs.

So, on to next week. I'm back in work on monday, although I have to go via the hospital and give them some blood. Hopefully they get it first go. Wednesday is another blood test and then Friday is chemo number 8, the last one! Oh, preceeded by a blood test, of course.
So, once chemo 8 is out the way, I then get to wait until I feel improved and there will be a scan. This is where the anxiety or scanxiety will kick in. These are the scans that will show that either a) I can rejoin the ranks of the healthy, once again free to mock the afflicted and laugh in the face of danger or b) nope, sorry buddy, primary treatment hasn't killed the critter dead, so it's on to the harsher stuff. Brace yourself Mildred, this may sting a little. So, even though it's a good few weeks away, I can feel the vague hintings of scanxiety a tap, tap, tapping at my door.

A less whingy post next time, I promise!

..and on the 3rd day, he got up

Well, after 3 days pretty much stuck in bed, I'm back and feeling more alive.
Looks like the effects of chemo are somewhat cumulative with me. Some people get away with it and some don't, then again, some are hit really hard, so I still think I'm pretty lucky.
I got chemo #6 on Friday and after getting the pre-meds for the Rituximab, I was dozing off and feeling a bit sicky. I'll tell you the worst thing. Around midday they bring out these snack boxes. Little cardboard packs with a sandwich, crisps, a drink, etc in. Nice idea. Sadly, I've developed an association to them and feeling sick (I'm not alone either, a few people I've talked to can't look at them without wanting to gag). So, beware. If you're getting chemo'ed, you can build a mental link to things. Urgh! Just thinking of the snack box now makes me want to hurl. Think of something else, think of something else... erm... Lost. Yeah, it was the end of the season finale last night. I hauled myself out of bed around 7pm, spent a bit of time around the kids and then watched Lost. I must admit, I liked it. A little saggy in parts but cool in others. Gradually things are being revealed, but enough is left submerged to keep me interested. Ooh, but I did like the end of episode cliff hanger. Ooh, yeah!
Anyway, back to the job at hand. Chemo 6 was a pain in the butt. So glad to only have 2 left. Can't wait to be done. Looking forward to being normal again! Assuming of course, the visitor that has been residing in my chest and round abouts has got the good sense to leave totally and never return. I'm working with the assumption that he realises he is not welcome and it's time to move on and judging by the response, that seems to be pretty reasonable. Still, waiting for the scan results after my last treatment cycle is going to feel like being one of the competitors on one of the reality shows awaiting their fate (winner or evictee) stood their during the extended pause after the host has said "and the winner is...".

A quick mention about CHOP-R (the chemo regimen I'm on). I have been asked if it is a one hit deal or whether you keep getting extras throughout the cycle. Well, a chemo cycle for CHOP, for me, goes a little something like this:
Day 1: You turn up, they plug you in and load you. Then release you back into the wild
Day 10: Go to hospital and give some blood
Day 19: Go to hospital and give more blood. Man, they like the blood
Day 21: Rinse, wash and repeat cycle.

So, there is only one day when you're dosed up, after that its recovery time. I know there are different regimes, where you go in as an in-patient or go and get loaded up for several hours and then get sent home with a chemo pump attached that continues loading you for upto 48 hours, but CHOP aint like that. I hope that helps.

Oh yeah, jumping around again. The last cycle I was given a set of 3 injections to boost my immune system. Basically they cause my bone marrow to get busy and start pumping out the good guys (white blood cells, Neutrophils specifically), to do honourable battle with any invading scum bacteria. In the words of king Leonidas of the Spartans, in the 300, "Neutrophils, prepare for glory!".
Anyway, it looks like this will now become a regular occurrence for me (At least for these last 3 cycles) as my poor wussy bone marrow keeps getting totally nuked by the chemo and taking too long to generate new fighters and needs a little help. Ah, poor chicken. The plus side is that this should mean that I will avoid getting any more nasty infections they lay me up feeling like doom and gloom and also that I get to meet more of the local district nurses who have really impressed me with their friendliness, caring and passion for their work. A great bunch.

Almost forgot to mention (blimey, this post is getting a bit big), that I saw the new Indiana Jones on Thursday night. Hmmm, what to say. It was Indy, so deserves some respect just for that, but, in my opinion, it wasn't a patch on the other films. A little too much trying to fill in back story and I reached the limit of suspension of disbelief way before the group fell off 3 massive waterfalls one after another, landing completely unaffected. Yes, I know it's fantasy and I know it's Indiana Jones, but I either need long enough gaps between impossible events to forget about them or a few less in order to keep my disbelief suspended. I think I preferred Iron man.