I keep slipping more and more with my blog posting. I guess I'm just a bad person.
Well, I've been back into work this week. It's both good and weird. Good in that it feels like life is returning to normal and weird in that I'm not stuck on my own with no one to talk to appart from my stupid cat (sorry animal lovers, but he is stupid. I also caught him peeing on the furniture in the lounge, which didn't help his reputation [got him kicked out in fact])

Yesterday, I had to go in for a blood test at Wexham Park hospital. As usual there was a massive queue but as my test is for chemo related stuff I get fast tracked. Go fast track. So, I go in, hand over my blood form and a couple of minutes later I get called in. As I walk to the blood letters lair, I can feel the eyes of all the people who have been waiting hours burning pure hatred towards me.
It was a different vampiric blood letter today. A young lad, who was trying to talk in a very professional manner (must have just finished his training). He spiked me with the needle and all was good, as blood started coming out, but as seems to be happening more and more often, it just stopped (anyone know why?). A few years ago I got into fencing (with the sword, not the big wooden things that surround gardens). The blood letter reminded me of a fencing drill. With the needle still under the skin he did a classic disengage, thrust and parry. The blood started running again (thankfully. The thrusts were a tad unpleasant). It then stopped again and he withdrew most of the needle, shifted it a bit and then thrust it back in and in and in, I thought it was going to emerge popping out near my shoulder. I thought of gagging but the blood started flowing again and he finished filling up the little blood pots. I bid them fairwell and exited, ignoring the boos from the other people still waiting.
Being a bit of an idiot, I agreed to meet my mate Adam for a couple of beers. I felt really tired, my ankles had swollen (it's a good look) and my legs and back were giving me some grief (not sure why). I walked in and was ready to give up, when the pub came into view. I forgot to mention, I hadnt eaten all day because my tum was playing up too (any part of me still working normally?), so thought I'd better eat something. A few nutritious chips put out that fire! I struggled through 2 pints. I had previously built up a pretty sturdy drinking reputation and alcohol tolerance over the previous 20 years and now I was reduced to this. Oh woe is me!

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!

This week

A quick summary of the week:

Monday - Bank holiday. Got dragged shopping with the wife. Mostly involved me trying to stop our son destroying shop fittings, whilst my wife slid away as deep into the shop and out of sight as possible.

Tuesday - Went to work. I was really tired, but it was good to catch up with people and I went out with my team for lunch, which was good.

Wednesday - Blood letting, I mean, blood test day. I went to the local hospital, got spiked. I now have a huge bruise on my arm, all the different hues of purple and blue. When they take blood, after they tell you to apply pressure to the spot they took it from. If you apply enough pressure or for long enough, you get a bruise. Looks like I was way off.

Thursday (today) - Didn't feel too great this morning, so doing some work from home.

Friday - This is chemo day number 6. Will mean that there are only 2 left after this one. I can't wait to be finished. This chemo cycle thing is really tedious. I know what I've got to look forward to and it's a drag. I know there will be a week of feeling pretty rubbish. Also, it seems to be taking longer each cycle to feel normal(ish) again. Stupid cycles.

The plan tonight was to go and see Indiana Jones. Well not see him personally, rather go and see the new film. I'll see if I feel up to it. Should be fine, just need to be feeling well for tomorrow, so they can make me toxic! Blimey, I'm a whinging git, arn't I!

Leather Vein

Yesterday I went in for my pre-chemo blood test (next chemo is tomorrow, whoo! :S )
I joined the queue of happy (not really) prospective blood lettees, and after a few minutes wait, was invited into the blood letting room, where I sat in the chair that looks like it used to be used for prisoner lethal injection executions.
It was the same blood-letter (I think they prefer the title phlebologist) that I had at the end of my last cycle. He was very polite and quite smiley (makes a change. The smiley bit that is). He found a vein on my left arm and stuck in his needle. Surprisingly it didn't particularly hurt (good work!), but then no blood came out. He smiled apologetically and said sorry several times as he repeatedly partially withdrew the needle and then prodded it back in again. Again, strangely, despite his constant string of apologys, it wasn't painful. He said that this must be a popular vein and that there was scar tissue and the chemo probably hasn't helped matters. Finally, he made the killing thrust and with a triumphant grin was able to extract enough blood from the leather vein to fill his little tubes. Note to self, steer future blood letters, sorry phlebologists, away from the leather vein!

Pia-pia-piano

It's been a little while since I last posted and it's back to blood test time again.

This week, I've been into work, which is quite weird after being stuck at home. Good to see everyone and good to feel like a normal person again!

I've been thinking about how quickly time seems to fly by. I mean, it only seems like 5 minutes ago that I made my last post, but it is over a week. On friday is chemo number 4. I'll be half way through. Hard to believe. So, in light of how quickly time passes, it got me thinking about all the things I want or wanted to do and have never got around to. One of those is learning to play a musical instrument. Something I've intended to do since I was in my teens and "never found the time to do". So, I've started taking piano lessons. I've had 2 so far and am enjoying it. I wondered, if the teacher is only used to teaching kids, then when I get a note right, I might get a gold star and a lollipop. Sadly, not the case.

Blood test

I went into the local hospital to have a needle stuck in my arm and some of my precious life blood sucked out and stuck into a little bottle. Sounds quite nice when I put it like that. Basically, I have to have 2 blood tests each chemo cycle. One is a week after and the next is two days before. The idea is that they can check my white blood levels (and other blood stuff going on). So far, chemo has nuked my white cells and last chemo session they had to do another blood test on the day to see if I was okay to be squirted full of poison again.
Its kind of weird. You wander into the hospital, grab a numbered ticket and wait till you're called, then you go into a little room and sit in what looks like a chair designed for executions. A band is wrapped around your arm and when you're not expecting it, a needle is jammed in and some blood taken. Sometimes they try to distract you by asking a question, sometimes they give a warning, "get ready for a sharp scratch" and other times they just carry on with a bored expression. Can't blame em being bored. The lady who took my blood today (very painlessly, in fact) had just done 46 other people that day. I guess she should be pretty good with all the practice.

This last week, my first week into the cycle, kind of sucked. Basically every day, other than today, I've felt like I was going to be sick, except known that I'm not. A bit unfair really. At least if I could have just hurled, it might have sorted it out! Anyway, today the sickness monster returned to its cave until next time. I'll miss you.

Pre-Chemo cycle #2 day

Yesterday I went in to give some blood for my pre-chemo blood test. I had a very jolly and slightly mad nurse taking blood this time. She gave me a mini lecture on the necessity of a parent to be over-protective. Kind of amusing in a weird sort of way.

Tomorrow is chemo #2. This time I'll be getting Rituximab as well. This means I need to be there early, as the first application of it can take up to 4 hours! Apparently people can react badly to it, e.g. allergic reactions etc. If this happens they'll treat the symptoms and then continue. As my consultant said, "it may take a while, but no matter what, you're getting it!". Worked for me.

I'm a bit nervous of my blood test results. Over the last week my cough has returned, although not as bad as originally, but it is getting worse day by day. Also, the itchy leg thing that I had before has also started to come back. I know I can't do anything about it and I'll find out tomorrow.

And finally... The "Killing Cancer" T-Shirt I had made arrived. The design looks like this:

Post chemo blood test

I had a good weekend. I felt pretty much my old self. My two sisters, Chris and Jane, came to visit on saturday, along with my brother in law Peter.
We had a good catch up and then went for lunch at a pub down the road. My appetite is good and my weight seems to be holding around the 14 stone point.
We had a good lunch and chat.
Chris stayed over and it was a good job too. On sunday we needed to nip to A&E as my wife was having a few problems following an operation she had had recently. My sister took the kids into town and to the park whilst we sat on the nasty plastic A&E seats, waiting (expected waiting time 3 hours, great). Luckily Sam was given priority and we didn't have to wait for too long, but it wasn't quite the sunday afternoon we had planned.
Today (Monday 25th), I needed to go in and get a blood test done. I didn't have to return to the hospital where I was getting treatment but could nip to the local hospital (5 minutes walk away). You turn up, get a number and when you're called go and have some blood taken. A bit like the supermarket's bacon counter (appart from the blood letting bit).
The nurse doing the blood letting was not in the chirpiest of moods, so I made it my mission to get her laughing. Okay, perhaps she has heard it all before, but I reckon it must be hard work for her to take blood from miserable person after miserable person (pretty much everyone waiting for their blood testing looked like they were waiting for execution). Anyway, we had a laugh with each other. She promised to use a new sharp needle with me (rather than the same old blunt one I accused her of using to save money) if I promised not to recommend her to my friends if they ever need blood taking (so she didn't get too busy).
Chris walked to the hospital with me and after we wandered back and got some lunch. She had intended to stay over and look after me, but as I was feeling so good, she decided to go and visit a friend who was in a bad way with cancer of the spine. I dropped her at the train station and later she called me to say that within an hour of getting there, he had passed away. He was in his 80s, but a really nice guy and his family were mainly out the country as it was his son's wedding that weekend. How worse could the timing be.