Not a Quiet Week

Went to the clinic on Monday, bloods were OK for treatment to proceed on Wednesday.

Had fun this week with the chemo, I had an allergic reaction, which was quite dramatic, pains in my chest, neck, back and trouble breathing. The nurse stopped the drip and I soon recovered with oxygen but when it was restarted it had to be given at a slower rate and so the treatment took all day. Bit of a drag as it was a lovely spring day and I didn't see any of it. :-( Been fine since though. Thought I'd be OK because it was my second treatment, but apparently it can happen on any one and take different forms. I will be keeping a close eye next time.

Also this week my hair has waved goodbye. Virtually happened overnight on Wednesday/Thursday. It knotted so badly Frank had to take the scissors to it. I'm not bald yet so it's pretty messy, all thin and straggly. It'll be better when it goes completely. So now hats and wigs are the order of the day.

A spot of retail therapy was required by Friday, always a tonic.

We are off to Penzance on Monday until Friday, catching the train and staying in a B&B. Looking forward to it. Hope the weather holds out.

Have you seen Hot Fuzz yet? We enjoyed it.

Sheila x

Another Quiet Week

Nothing much to relay this week, I've had no treatment, that is due tomorrow. We've spent a lot of the week, sorting a few things out at home in preparation for the move.

I've had my right leg measured and it is now only 4.2% bigger than my left, which is really good, the main differences now only occur at the top end. Considering it was 27% at one point last year this is a huge difference (and 7.5% just before Christmas), so I'm very pleased with that.

Over the weekend my hair started to come out in noticable quantities. I'm hanging in there, but a couple more days at the current rate and it will become obvious. Still I'm well prepared with headgear so in a way it will be better when it's gone, rather than wondering each day if it will still be there and finding hairs everywhere!

As I said, round 2 is tomorrow, my bloods were OK at the clinic yesterday, so it's full steam ahead.

Oh yeah, nearly forgot, went back to the gym this morning. I did a much modified routine as I haven't been for 6 weeks and I have to be mindful of the scar, but it's a start and something to build on. It certainly paid off being fit for the Op, so I'm keen to get back up there.

Happy Birthday to Issy this week, she's 50 just incase you didn't know :-)

Speak next week
Sheila x

Bright Lights

Another week gone!

It's been a quiet week on the treatment front so we took the chance to go away. As country folk now we took the brave step of camping in Bristol, bright lights, big city, there's a song there. We escaped the snow for the most part and the van was fine, we kept the electric fire on tick over all the time and the place was cosy. In fact I found the house cold when we got back. We packed quite a lot into the 4 days really, went to the Museum, Central Library, few pubs, cafes and restaurants, shopping (here and there) and cinema. It made a nice change too.

As I said, this week has been quiet on the treatment front, the only thing I did was go to the Oncology Hospital to buy some hats and scarfs and be shown how to tie them by a volunteer group called Headstart. Really helpful.

The aches and pains I had last week had disappeared by Tuesday, the only thing holding me back at the moment is the stiffness in my right leg, which stops me walking very far. I'm seeing the lymph nurse on Wednesday and I'll ask her opinion about that.

Speak soon
Sheila x

Slipping

That's a good start, I said I would do a weekly update and it's over a week since I did one. Sorry :-) Time is flying by and of course the weather was too nice at the weekend to spend it at a computer.

This week I eventually had a CT scan on Thursday after getting Frank out of bed at 8am (unheard of these days) on Tuesday. Whoops! Actually he was very good about my mis-reading the letter, something about my age and condition, don't know what he meant :-)

On Wednesday I had my first chemo session. It took nearly 4 hours, which was expected, but tedious. Since then I have experienced some of the documented side effects, aches and pains, but I'm not as tired as I thought I would be so far. It's early days though. This regime is 6 sessions at 3 week intervals, providing the blood results hold up. After 3 sessions I will have another scan to monitor progress.

I'm continuing to recover from the Op, able to walk quite a distance now on easy terrain. Good job Posset is pretty flat. It will be a couple more weeks before I get back to light training, so walking is the next best thing at the moment. I think I forgot to mention last week that my BP has returned to normal levels so I've stopped those tablets, it must have been due to hospital.

We have a quiet week coming up, fingers crossed, so we may slope off for a couple of days and enjoy the winter sunshine.

Speak soon
Sheila x