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.

Chemo #3

Chemo #3 went down okay. It took a lot less time than before. The Rituximab took 2 hours to go in and the actual chemo was about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, it was really busy at the day unit, so I didn't get to see my usual consultant and had to see a stand in doctor. I went through to see him but he had his face glued to my notes and other than the few words he spoke when he made brief eye contact he spent the rest of the time mainly scribling away in silence. Kind of rubbish. He asked a few bland questions, misanswered a few of mine (i.e. gave me answers that I had to query until he answered them properly or I gave up), also he seemed to have had a major, successful, personality bypass operation. He made me think of a very dull version of John Major!

(a pic of John oozing his usual charismatic presence)

I had to nick name this consultant character, Doctor Charisma. This name got back to my normal consultant who was suitably amused. We then had a quick chat about some discoveries regarding statins and Rituximab (don't ask, I'm just interested in all the technicalities and new discoveries) and then I was good to go home.

During my time there, I spoke to a couple of other fellow Lymphoma friday participants and eaves dropped on another. The main thing was that I was a lot better off that some of the others there. One guy, a 37 year old bloke, had Lymphoma in his bone marrow and pretty much everywhere, another was recently diagnosed, with a delay of several weeks due to a bit of a botch up by an ENT consultant and had Lymphoma in his abdomen, neck and all over. Not nice.

I confirmation from Doc Charisma, that the nodes in my neck are now gone (oh yes! Be seeing you, losers!) and that the discharge notes from my time at Hotel Torbay (the Torbay hospital I ended up in over easter), confirmed that my chest mass had shrunk from 10cm to 5cm, which has me a very happy chappie.

Dr. C did not mention my scan at the end of cycle 3 and I forgot to ask (my head was a bit buzzy with pre-meds though), so I've emailled my normal consultant "The Moule-meister" (he is called Dr. Moule and is very good) and hopefully he can cofirm the details.

A & E Tour 2008

For the Easter bank hols we decided to get away from it all a bit and shoot off to Devon. No problem there. The kids were excited about going to the seaside and so was I. We got there okay (3 hour drive, but traffic was ok) and our hotel was alright (appart from being really cold). We went out for some dinner to a restaurant called the Pier Point, which is on the sea front.
It was a nice evening and my son Harry was reasonably well behaved and was happy to crash out in his buggy for the walk back to the hotel. All good.

Now, Saturday, I started to feel rough again. I hadn't been feeling 100% anyway, but thought I was on top of things. After lunch, I needed to go back to the room and crash. I felt my temperature rising and my head was banging. A bit less than ideal. I didn't get up again until Sunday. Sam took the kids out and then nipped for a quick drink in the bar while I slept on. I woke up several times and just felt bad. In the morning I gave in and rang the unit back home and they told me to go straight to hospital as I could be suffering from Neutropenic Sepsis. Lovely. My wife drove me over to Torbay hospital A&E, where we queued up for a surprisingly short time (the queue beating power of being a chemo patient). We then were sat in a little examination room for a while until a doctor came along, asked the same old question, stuck a line in my arm and then shot off again. After a while, I suggested that Sam and the kids carried on with what we were originally going to do today, which was go to "The Living Coast". Looking at the picture below, you can see the netting above it. One reason its good fun for the kids is that they have penguins and other birds running around amongst you as you walk around, which is quite amusing.

Anyway, they left and I was meant to ring them as soon as I was leaving, so I could catch up with them if possible. It wasn't until the next doctor arrived and informed me that they wanted me to have IV anti-biotics and to stay in under observation for a couple of days, that I realised my holiday may have come to an abrupt end. I rang Sam and told her the news, she couldn't believe it and I think she realised that I hadn't just been whinging about headaches and things for attention!

Next, I received two different anti-biotics by IV. These were described as being Demesdos strength, by the doctor, which was a comfort!

Then I played the waiting game, interrupted only by several different people popping their head round the door to tell me someone would be taking me to the ward soon.

Instead, I ended up getting a chest x-ray first. The radiologist (quite a jolly chap) informed me that I have "long lungs" and if I have any x-rays in future, letting the radiologists know will make their day (not sure if I believe him, but I'll remember).

Finally, someone came to get me. I was taken to the ward by wheelchair, as for some reason you're not allowed to walk by yourself. Seemed a bit bizarre, but hey, chaffeur driven is cool.

I had my own room, in the Turner ward. It was quite nice, as wards go and the nurses were all friendly. In fact as soon as I got there, I was brought lots of food (always good).

My stay was pretty uneventful. I got anti-biotics and blood tests and then on monday they released me back into the wild (wahoo!). On the plus side, I saw from my discharge notes that the x-ray showed a mass of 5cm, whereas the original mass was nearer 10cm, so that looked pretty good to me. I'll see what my consultant dude says about that on Friday (chemo cycle #3, blimey, doesn't time fly)