May Contain Nuts

Not the best of starts to the day. I was a bit late getting up so had to rush my breakfast. Bag was all ready to go, so off we went. 

Got to the chemo unit, had my book with me and sat reading in the waiting room. My appointment was at 9:45am and we always arrive early. Today on the board it said appointments were running 1 hour and 30 minutes behind. So, I was all prepared for a long wait. Thankfully it was only half an hour for me. 

Sat in the chair, they started to attach me to the flush through drip when one of the doctors came over and said I needed my bloods doing again. I only had them done on Tuesday. She came back later to tell me that my immunotherapy and chemotherapy has had to be adjusted because my kidney function is low. Not drinking enough. So, the pharmacy is having to make new ones for me. Thankfully it didn’t take too long. 

When they pump through the antihistamines, they instantly make me feel drowsy and spaced out. Then I must give my name, date of birth and first line of my address, so that takes a lot of concentration. Immunotherapy starts and then they come and put the cold cap on me as it must be on for an hour before the chemotherapy. 

It was quite warm in the unit today, so I was quite glad to have the cap on. Bruno (one of the staff) sat down in front of the air conditioning unit to cool down. I did tell him he needs a cold cap. Not only does it cool my head, but it also cools my whole body. Even my nose gets cold. I hope I can keep tolerating it in the autumn. 

The other two rounds went in quite quickly. It’s amazing how much quicker the picc line pumps everything through. So that was a good decision. Not such a good decision though as the nurses wouldn’t change the dressing as they wanted to leave it to the picc nurses to do it as it is still bleeding. 

I didn’t really talk to too many people again. It’s hard to have a conversation with a massive cold cap on your head and I struggle to turn my head. Spoke to the man to the left of me. He was telling me that he had pains in his stomach which he thought was his appendix. Went in for a CT scan where they found kidney stones and they saw something on his lungs that they weren’t happy about. He said over twenty years ago he had lymphoma, and he had been treated for that with some strange drug that contained TB. They were concerned that there was TB in his lungs, so he was on a course of antibiotics for that for a year, whilst biopsies were taken on his lungs. They came back as cancerous cells. His daughter was also diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer at the same time. It’s now been a year since her treatment started, and she has had her operations and chemotherapy. That’s a lot of things for one family to go through all at the same time. 

Had my usual lunch of a cheese and pickle sandwich but opted for a KitKat and a toffee yoghurt, followed by fruit shortbread biscuits with my two cups of tea. Made sure I drank two jugs of water as well. 

Listened to a few podcasts whilst I was there. I’ve worked out that I can’t listen to Chatabix as they make me laugh too much. I tried to sleep but it impossible for me to relax enough to sleep. Some of the other women manage it, I just get disturbed by the machines bleeping. 

Finished the chemo and then had to sit with the cold cap on for an extra hour and a half. So, I let Simon know my estimated finish time, so he didn’t have to rush down. I was all done by 5pm. They gave me my bag of drugs and needles, and I left to go home. 

It leaves me feeling very dizzy and disorientated, but I was still able to leave a message with the picc nurses to let them know that the dressing wasn’t changed. They called me back within half an hour and told me to come in tomorrow at 8:15am. 

I went to bed at 9pm due to being shattered.