Friday 22nd June

Friday 22^nd June

What a day! Where to start! I woke up with those precious seconds when you are not fully conscious thinking ‘what day is it, what’s happening…….oh, Chemo I’d forgotten’.

Hubby dropped me off just after 9am, first on the ward- ordered cooked breakfast from B (the oncology nurse!!) he told me he’d get right on it- sat in the ‘prime’ chair to get maximum attention and best viewing seat in the house!! Start as you mean to go on I say……

Son no 2 first visitor after finishing his night shift, unfortunately he was also best placed to hear my conversation with my ‘next door neighbour’ and nurse B who advised me on ‘taking it easy’!! I

I was ‘shocked ‘ to see not only gentleman next to me but also the ‘silver surfer’ opposite who were both using ipads, extremely competently I hasten to add, and both internet connection!!

I had my usual dose of steroids, anti- sickness and piriton one after the other – administered by a new nurse A, only been over a week from the UK. Second visitor FB, lovely to see her but by then piriton working so in ‘sleepy mode’ (some may say my usual permanent state)!

Exciting news (well for me anyway)- KB my oncology nurse has put me forward to ‘blog’ on the new Charity website ‘Friends of Oncology Unit Jersey’ due to launch in 3 weeks!!! It has to be quite different from this site but in a similar vein. Anyway I said I’d give it my best shot , and if they don’t like or I’m not up to scratch they can ‘dismiss’ me !!

I had my lunch and things were going swimmingly well, I thought I maybe out by 3ish today, but then disaster struck. The bag split slightly and the extremely toxic chemo leaked out on the floor, son no 1 was with me at the time and offered to ‘lick’ the spill up (stupid boy), to which nurse HD said he would die!!!! Action stations and ‘spillage’ pack was applied accordingly. An apologetic call to Pharmacy to ask for new set of ‘drugs’ to be made up especially (only trained people can do this and pharmacist was on the wards) so an inevitable delay , but I was very grateful as it would have meant going back in on Monday.

Shortly after the calamity son no 3 arrived with surrogate son TN and then MP (son no 1’s friend), so we had a little ‘boy’ party to the astonishment of staff and patients (trying to work out which if any belonged to me!!)

In between all this palaver I saw Dr Hima, we knew my red blood cells count (haemoglobin) was low on Monday; It’s gone up slightly from 8 to 8.6, so more liver/spinach/eggs and red wine (Dr Jill’s orders!)  Not necessarily in that order!!

My white cell count is fine, (3.3, dropped from 6.2 on Mondays reading) but still having the ‘stab in stomach’ injection tomorrow night(thanks hubby)that should sort it out. Strangely I think my clotting factor is the highest it’s been on 307 no idea what it ‘should be’!

Now the good news is my CT scan shows no change from the previous scan, both slightly enlarged lymph nodes in stomach and armpit have remained the same- this coupled with the fact my CA 125 ‘cancer/tumour’ marker has dropped again from 19 three weeks ago to 9- (yes 9) ‘seems’ to indicate that nothing untoward is going on this body – by the glands not shrinking they (hopefully) were not ‘BAD’ ones – we can only assume that anyway. So am quietly pleased if a tad exhausted by the emotional upheaval of the day- we left hospital at 4.45 (hubby came for last couple of hours). Came straight home and went to bed and slept for few hours- now wide awake and awaiting the onslaught of burning itchy face, painful/ restless legs etc etc!!

We travelled out en mass as a family to visit a home in St Mary to view the mum of a new puppy we hope to acquire by late August- she is beautiful……more of that later!!

Hubby off on the Lieutenant Governors walk from St Catherine’s to Ronez tomorrow, I may be up in time to drop him down the road but sadly don’t think I’m fit enough to walk it this weekend- never mind- wishing them all GOOD LUCK and GOOD WEATHER !!

“A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet. “My dog’s cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?” Let’s have a look at him” says the vet. So he picks him up and examines his eyes. Finally he says, “I’m going to have to put him down”. “Why?” says the man. ”Because he’s cross-eyed?  “No, because he’s really heavy”                                   Tommy Cooper