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

Tomorrow. assuming all is good to go (as in my body ain't too broken to handle it... yeh... right... as if.... ), tomorrow ... OK. today now, as in Thursday. Penultimate chemotherapy.
Not particularly looking forward to it. really. truth be told, I'm really rather starting to feel quite broken and bashed about by it all, and not, necessarily in a good way.
But. assuming tomorrow does go ahead, and the plan still stands, and, the final post-chemo scan, at soem point, doesn't reveal anything unexpected, re-returned, or suchlike, then, after this one, there is only one more.
Just packed my handbag, its a sort of chemo-handbag really, drugs, drugs, and more drugs, IPod, headphones, snickers bars, peanus, nailfile, curticle oil pen, lip balm/butter, just the essentials. Oh, and for slightly odd reasons, a couple of... well, chains.
Guess I oughta think about sleeping. or at least trying to sleep....
need to get up 7, try wake up and then go get bus, to be at hospital for bloods circa 9, clinic circa 10.30/11 and, I think the chemo's penciled in for circa 2 PM.
Hope they remember give me my premeds this time. Doing chemo a fortnight ago, with no antinausea, no steroids, and none of th the whateve r else is in that little medly of drugs, was a bit unplesent, really. although... apparently I clearly don't need the antinausea, even for whilst having the influsion, as I still haven't done any of actual being sick/vomiting type stuff... - I keep trying to tell them all I'm invincible and indestructible....


chainmail laid out ready for the mroning. must get out the new, ribbon, to put in my hair; penultimate chemo is to be a black ribbon. The final one may be a white ribbon, I think. eight ribbons in total, in a fortunight .... assuming my hair is still sufficient to attach the ribbons, which are attached to my hairband, too... - my pony tail is so tiny now! even though the hair, has, actually, already started thickening and growning back... its getting longer too which... is kinda weird

Not sure what I'll have for lunch tomorrow.... fish N chips again, maybe..... or a portion of chips, and chicken balls and sweet and c sour sauce (its a chippy and a Chinese that we've found, not far from the hospital), or, of course, there's always the option of a full cooked breakfast, for lunch, in the cafe next the chippy.... need soemthign solid, anyhow, so I can take teh two antibiotics I'm on, then; made the mistake this mroning, of takign them after breakfast.... err, 'after food', clearly means 'after a meal', not just after a couple rounds toast, or something equally light - felt a wee bit uncomfy as the antibiotics settled in this morning, on top of just the single, lonley scotch egg I had for breakfast.

cooked a mushroom risotto for William and I tonight, came out fabulusly well, took ages, as I'm upping the steralising hygine etc, stuff, big time. No compromise. and I don't want no more infections.... - so hoping that I actually get a two week break, this time, between teh final two chemos.... two wweeks to actually like recover a bit, rather than keep rushing in to hospital

and... then.... it'll all be over, bar the radiotherapy. but, I've a feeling radiotherapy is just a piece of cake, compaired to the chemo - gona go for thinner ribbons, all of the same colour; one for each radiotherapy sessions - no idea yet how many I'll be due.... guessing either 5 or 10, so, basically either a weeks worth, or a fortnights worth... which... oughta mean... by the end of June, maybe... maybe...

then all I'll need to do is get myself fit.

may take up mixed martial arts. seriously.... considering it... afterall, compaired to chemo... it'll so not involve any pain and.... I'm sure the world is crying out for more blind mixed martial arts experts...

Right. final cuppa tea... then... beddies I think...

I wish your radiotherapy was going to be Proton treatment like I had, cuz that is a walk in the park.

Cool old Guy checking hospitals
"My priority for a hospital would normally not be what and how close the food establishments there are nearby and have a nice meal fried"

It's a bank holiday over here today. We are celebrating the Ascension of Christ. Officially, that is. Personally I don't give a fetid donkey's kidneys. I think I shall celebrate your penultimate chemotherapy instead, my trusted bipedal

Cool old Guy not very cool while waiting
"Would there be a nice new ribbon? "

Hmm, I was wondering myself.

was kinda too tired, and busy, on getting home yesterday, to even turn the PC back on, and didn't have time to fire it up in the morning, before leaving home.

Well, went to bed fairly early, wed night. Still awake at 5 AM; just thought to myself 'screw, it, gona get up and get a shower', at which point I must have fallen asleep, as I then woke, just befre 7.

hospital. bloods. saw rubbish doctor not consultant.

she remembered to check my lungs though, and I'd had an X-ray too, and both were fine, so I was cleared for my bleocine She seemed happy enough I'm handling the chemo, and didn't think the infections were too much a concern, even if they'r erubbish as far as I'm concerned

Tried to go get food, was raining so couldn't get fish N chips and have to eat them standing in rain.

have to eat. would feel so sick taking antibiotics on empty stomach, plus with hydrocortisone, I'd be at risk of nearing a coma by time of chemo; hence why having food for sick people to eat is a good idea. food is medacine.

couldn't face yet more crap prepacked sadndwichs,

so took infection risk, and got a quiche, and ate that. nothing else to do.
quiche was way too rich. so was feeling nauseous, for first time, by the time we got into chemo.

Nausea stopped soon as I started getting the drugs pumped into me.

go figure....

they remembered pre-meds, so that prob helped.

err... hang on

so... yeh... I'd had a line put into the port, for the bloods in the morning, and left, in, plus we got into the chemo day unit, inpatients, early, which was nice, and they weren't as busy.... - pointed out I missed my premeds, time before... and got them... and a short drip of saline put up, whilst premeds 'took affect' .
then the bleocine and adrenocine (docarubacine) were pushed through (they're just injected in quite quickly now; about three to five mins each)...) - initially they'd given me each of them, on a long drip, with combined saline, and saline 'flushes' between; then at some point, I convinced them I'm 2legs, and so they stopped all that poncing about.

then tjust the red death. Dacarbazine..... the one that has to be hidden from direct sunlight; as do I , potentially for years, after having had it (bad stuff happens, not quite sure what; think skin cancer for one thing, nice). - its the bleo which causes lung cancer later in life, and messes my heart up.... these drugs are kinda.... 'meaning bisuness' I htink

anyhow, so they hooked up my dacarbazine...... decided I didn't need a symultainious saline to drip in with it, and ... seeinngly set it on full power...

could.... kinda feel that go in... a bit more than useual.... at that speed... but...

stuck on my headphones, fired up the IPod, and went into my new playlist. "chemotherapy".

1. Prince. Cream.
2. Frank Zappa where the torture never stops (for a change in pace, before).
3. Ozzy. Crazy train.
4. Ozzy no more tears.
5. Ozzy, Mr crowly.
6. Prince, where doves cry....
then... just various stuff... can't really recall how far I got into it... and I tend to sip forwards when I lose concentration which is sadly very often....

Got home, reasonable time, but hit rush hour, when we got out of hospital....
napped/cuddled in bed on getting home, with William, for a few hours. well, I didn't nap/sleep, obviously, I was so tired.... mainly just cried. really.

ate massive Chinese for dinner, though, beforehand, wasn't really sure I could stomach a thing.

err... then had a really late shower, just to relax and clean off 'hospital' before bed.

slept.
oh. I slept.
had energy this moring, but went quick, after I spent a couple hours cleaning kitchen, to enable to steralise it.
I'd woken early, before 7. finall had kitchen clean enough and sterile enough to cook by.... dunno about 11, though of course, I had spent some of that time, just sitting down, drinking coffee, catching my breath par way through the cleaning/tidying/steralising. finally got round to sort out last of laundry from a few days back...

Too tired to go into town to do any grocery shopping, so W did that for me

Probably one fo the main rasons I didn't sleep night before chemo yet again, this time, is that I cried for most of it. no idea about what... or even if anything specific. really.

No idea where I'm finding the energy to do chemo from now. just thankful its inside me somewhere. I guess.

one more... to go...

Cool old Guy releaved to hear the adventure
"Rubber

How about your ribbon? "

oops! thought... I'd mentioned the ribbon! stupid chemo brain!

I put the ribbon whilst they were putting the drugs in me...

one of the nurses was really shocked; I think when i took the hair band off; with the ribbons she'd kinda expected to suddenly discover I was wearing a wig.. :

no one on ABVD, the chemo I'm getting keeps their hair. no one.

I have. - she was like 'wow' you've still got hair, and... hang on.... this is your forth cycle!? (two infusions per cycle, hence this my seventh infusion)'

I then explained to the nurse, how not only I've not lost it all; its started growing back, growing longer, and getting less thin, already, even whilst I'm on chemo - I got her to touch it, as I do't think she quite believed what she had noticed
thne, to shock her even more.... I showed her my nails;

they're perfect.
I've never had nails and cuticles this good, at any point in my life; but, whole point is; chemo screws up your nails; I don't have any ridges, my nails are stronger than they've been in my entire life, grow more, don't break, arn't fragile, and don't have any discoulouration associated nomrlaly with chemo...

she was even more shocked.

Then.
in a final gesture of shock the nurse.
I drew back my shirt a little more (well its open so they can access the port in my chest),
and put her hand on my chest; and asked her why my skin was in better condition than its been... since... since, quite probably ever that I can recall!

one suitably shocked nurse.... I still can't figure out why my skin is so* soft... very odd

oh, and the ribbon; it was a black one, put into the middle of the others, and still thinking a white one, for 'surrender' for my final infusion, end of the month!

final... one... end of the month...

I need a bath; I can smell chemo drugs; sort of scent of them... through my pores/skin

Well, I think nobody, bar none, in the history of chemotherapy, has spent more money and time slathering themselves in coconut oil, cocoa butter, and various other moisturisers as you have. So I'm not that shocked that your skin isn't as dry as most!

Cool old Guy checking nails
"Sounds good, rubber doc, belly rubbing not a bad score for a day many people would not even remember.

Apparently the nauseaness has gone as well. Now only finding the daily routines . "

Oh. I have to pay attention; I consider my main duty of the day, on chemo days, to entertain the nurses properly.... basically... so many of the other patients are ... well rather quiet, and absorbed in the ... their chemo, they don't entertain the nurses enough.... - the nurses deserve a laugh.... I certainly give them that.... me, plus William combined.... a kinda suped-up over-camped, slightly rediculus, obscure.... obscene... snutty.... strange.... alternative, kinda double-act for their amusement an bemusement
yeh... well, the chemo itself is pretty damn horrid, and has gotten moreso... and, more painful and stuff, but... that's just physical nonsense, and I can just not feel any of that, if I wanna just 'block' it... I kinda need a small break, at parts of the infusion; which is when I get my headphones on, and blast my brain with heavy metal and stuff, for a few minutes; and leave the room, and my body just sitting there.... for a while, to soak up the endorphines, I can channel across from teh music and stuff...
Then... really... its just boring... tedious... and days of... bleh... until the next infusion tonight, so wanna wash, I can smell the chemo drugs, dacarbazine, i think, soaking out of my skin... which is kinda yucky.... but... I'm just too tired phsycially now, I think to shower, or bath... well, partially physically too fatigued/tired, partially mentall/emotionally so tired, I think... just fed up with it all.... and want it all to stop... and go away... which... of course it will in a few weeks, or so, I guess... - just no idea yet, of course, after the final session, how long before ... its some sembalance of non-chemo... at least two weeks or more after the last one I guess, as its always two weeks between sessions anyhow, and now, as its built up, I neer really feel like there is much clearing of teh body, or whatever, from teh drugs, between sessions... maybe by the end of June... there'll be some... 'non-normality' returning