h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

oops!

OK. morning I was due to have the petscan, I had some kind of fit/seisure. and bit my tongue quite nicely and gave myself a loverly bruise on the forehead (still there, so guess the bone is bruised). This also gave me a nice little haemoridge on the right cerebral hemosphere; which is nice, it kinda matches the haemoridge on my left cerebral hemosphere.
so, that pet scan didn't happen, and I spent a week in hospital having ten zillion needles poked into me; including one very very long needle, slid into my spine to take some cerebral spinal fluid... (ouch, the bruising even now!).
seems my sodium levels dropped really low (possibly related to the hodkins lymphoma itself).
This means I'm on restricted fluids, to try bring my sodium up limited rations

anyhow, finally, they thought I was OK enough, did the petscan for the lymphoma, punctured me with a few more needles, and sent me home <zen

scan revealed lymphoma is early stage, non agressive, and limited in spread (the lump under armpit I found, plus some tiny ones I can't palpate from surface of skin, somewhere under collar bone, on same side of body)_.

saw Onchologit Dr and he gives about 95% survival rate, which sounds pretty damn good odds to me

starting chemo next week.. there will also be radiation; so yeh.... good bye hair

see. told ya.. its just 'a drop of cancer' nothing to worry about. well... I@m not worrying.

fit/bang on head, has screwed up my memory, goeing back to before Christmas, and I'm slowely getting back my useual thinking and thought processing speed, etc

William visited me every day I was in hospital, my Dad visited and so did my Brother, so at least my Dad has finally met william Oh, and with petscan also did blood test, for HIV and hepatitus, etc, all were negative which is nice...
on restricted water intake/fluid intake, to try raise sodium levels, oh, and I just had the final cigarette from the pack that was ongoing, this morning, and I've quit smoking.
in town to do some shopping today, with william.... I think I need cake.... and steak.... and maybe a new laptop...
damn my back is sore from the lumberpuncture. maybe I should put my steel bonned corset on... that might support the muscles better, and the compression oughta stop me twisting oddly and helping every two b minutes

What a roller coaster ride of good and bad tidings

Hope you will be allowed more soon

with everything else also

I must find some new passtimes/hobbys....... not being able to drink much liquid, espeically coffee, and having quit smoking.... I need to find something else to fill my days! and it needs to be..... not overly taxing on the brain or tireing as I'm feelin a little lack energy at the moment... for some reasons...... probably due to lack of caffine actually! shall see what I can find in town to cheer myself up today.... maybe a ultrabook/laptop..... and some nice food to eat, for the next few days (thinking a nice big steak from butchers, for dinner tonight, with some little new potatos I have that need using up, and, of course, a nice big pile of bacon, to go with the eggs sitting in the fridge and... dunno.... maybe something else...)
actually, talking of food... must find some lunch in town, not eaten anything yet today, and starting to get hungry....

I had a spinal tap once. Fortunately I was under general anesthesia at the time so I only had to experience it being removed. There's not a full body shudder smiley, but that's what I get every time I remember what it felt like to have that needle removed from my spine. As unpleasant as that was makes me rather happy not to have experienced it going in.

Are you being forced to quit smoking cold turkey? Good luck with that.


I usually try to give folks some very helpful advice but it mostly concerns tapering off smoking. Here's the short version if anyone else is interested.

1) Never say "I'm *trying* to quit" as that gives you a mental option to fail.
2) The date you decide to quit is the day you quit. Don't worry about how many cigarettes you have after that date, you still quit. Don't feel that because you slipped and had a cigarette you failed at quitting and go back to smoking. Don't feel guilty, it takes time.
3) Every time you do "slip" DO think about how nasty the cigarette tastes and smells. Negative reinforcement here is very helpful.

Those are the main points.

Good luck with your treatment. I know it's going to suck for a while, but you'll get through it.

Sending you lots of gentle hugs!

Maybe you should take up knittng?

with your treatment. I'm glad that William is there for you.
DG and I are sending some healing vibrations in your direction to help. Here are some smileys which you should be able to tolerate more than actual ones!

Good grief, you're having a time of it just now.

I can't believe you're contemplating a serious use for a corset .

Deb

(I've always wanted to do that)

they didn't tell me to do 'cold turkey' on the smoking quitting, I guess I could go get patchs or wahtever if I wanted. More my descision to just do it, rather than messing about with nictoine replacement therapys. I haven't had any cravings yet, so far; I was actually quite a light smoker, anyhow.... If I get real strong cravings, I've always got the Swedish smuff stuff, snuse, to use for a nicotine replacement type thing.

Had a really quite substantial Italien in town.... more, in fact thatn I could eate... I was stuffed still am then William and I went to John Lewis, and I bought me a expresso coffee machine; seeing as how I can't drink much volume of liquid, that seems one obvious way by which I can easily ensure I don't take too much volume of liquid from coffee, made in the French Press. - I got one of the pod expresso thinggys, as I can use it, wasn't sure I could with the proper proper ones nespresso, I think the make of it... must order some pod things up, it only comes with a dozen or so

knitting... now there's an idea...

are you sure knitting is safe.... I can just imagine the trouble you could cause with some of 2legs special knitted delights

I'll just quote from the twitter feed of Fifty Shades of Gran...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'Do you know what to do with these?' I asked holding up a pair of handcuffs. 'Of course!' she said and knitted a cosy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link for the image: http://twitter.com/50ShadesGran/status/558986831220715520

at the moment I fear I lack anything like the coordination necessary for knitting...... without just sending me to A&E for treatment when I 'do myself a bizare knitting injury'

damnit. head still feeling ropey.... weather cold couldn't be bothered to cook (had a big cooked meal in town, for lunch, mind, with William), so, I ate chocolate for dinner really fancy a warm drink. but can't as I'm on liquid rations and its probably too late for coffee anyhow so tired....

Overdid wondering round town, earlier, actually I think... especially in the cold really feeling the cold so much; having been in overly hot hospital for a week doubt I'll be late to bed

You could crochet. That uses large, non-pointy-stabby needles.

cosy.

I'd neeed to find an expert to teach me

actually, considering another 'entertainment' option, which may also help if I end up being held priosner in hopstital again getting (at last), a new laptop/ultrabook.... I'm otterly bewildered by choice; the last time I looked at computer/laptop technology, it was running windows XP about time I updated by tech a bit too; thinking getting a portible laptop/netbook, powerful enough to run my recording recording/editing software, as well as having enough power for JAWS to run symultainiously, etc... and for basic word processing, emails, webbrowsing etc., etc., and for music /MP3 storage, and for audio book storage/playback too may go into John Lewis, have a feel round some models.... - I've kinda forgotten what the differnce is, in holding/using a 1.7 KG machine, VS a 2.7 one etc half of the ones I keep finding seem obsessed with having touchscreens, which I can't imagine I can/would use, as well as ordinary (I guess), touch typeing type, physical keygoard

I highly recommend going cold turkey vis a vis the smoking while engaged in some medical drama. I don't know whether it's the adrenaline or the drugs, but it seems to work. 'Course I replaced my nicotine addiction with coffee. You've got to cut down on COFFEE???!!! You poor thing.

Joking aside, excellent news about the prognosis. Carry on, that 2legs.

Yeah, cold turkey is the only way to go

(But a hot may be good for taking your thoughts away from it )

Sure, cold turkey.... but don't give yourself grief if you just have to have a smoke. It's a very strong addiction, one of the strongest. But do think about how disgusting it smells/tastes/is if/when you do have one.

Best thing is to keep an old, stale pack somewhere just in case you really need one. I had one I found under the passenger seat of my car that could have been there for years. Those are perfect cigarettes for a budding non-smoker.

How to give up smoking?


Get the patches and join h2g2... I swapped one addiction for another


I notice you are halfway there by being here!!


lil xx

instead of patchs, or gum, etc, I've got Swedish (somewaht stale), chewing tobacco (whjich you odn't actually chew)/snus...

problem is, I have really seriously low concentration right now.... so even my useual entertainments, like reading, I'm not feeling up too which is a pity, as they'd be some kinda distraction, from both the cigarettes, and from the of my limited 'liquid intake'; its not cafine per sai I can't have, just I can't drink more than 1.5 L/1500 ML, liquid a day, which, kinda means I've also pretty much gone tea towal too, at the same time... mihnd,not that my tummy feels like it could face a beer ATM i know... I know... seriously. Mind, I hardly drink much anymore anyhow, but perhaps the idea of having a few beers, would be nice, at some point, once I'm feeling a wee bit butter... (at the moment, mainly feeling crap due to confussion small brain haemoridge and just general bleh-ness) apart from which... I feel tired all the time asides which... I feel absolutely fine.

soon shall have new distraction from nictoine,/cigarettes, which I thnk even my tiredness/lack of concentration will be fine with;

researching it is awkward as my brian is still a bit confudles, esp with the bit of memory loss I've got (well, a lot actually, goes back to at least December); but more memories coming back... gradually I think : researching getting new laptop type thinggy..... but as I say, concentration making finding the one I need/want to meet my computing needs, tricky... not helped, I'm so not up to date/haven't kept up to date with windows computers, err, my stuff is old.... PC is still win XP... seriously... mind, finding some interesting ultrabook type thinggies, running win 8.1, so when I'm tired like this, I hope I can get such a laptop, be able to run cakeawalk on it, and play about with recording/making music, basically whilst hiding under the duvet shall get expensive, though to update, which is kinda why I've put it off so long; not just have to update the OS, move onto win 8.1, and buy a new machine/laptop, but have to upgrade teh screen reader (probably more than the laptop/ultrabook), and I think probably update teh recording software, cakewalk too.... actually must have a look see how much the software bit will cost too but... really I'm kinda lucky, the money thing, I've always been careful with money so have itk, without having to whipe out savings.... plus, of course, (hard to figure out exactly); not smoking... oughta save something like £160 PM <bigteyes
but... before I buy the laptop/ultrabook, must research it... in the meantime.... gona buy cake tomorrow