Tuesday 22th January 2008

Tuesday (chemo dilemmas and some positive news at last)
I may not post much for the next week as Anne is here and I’m often a bit physically low after the chemo so don’t worry if there is a bit of a lag! Anyway it’s starting to be a routine that I post late on the chemo night as the steroid injection means I don’t sleep very well so here I am at 2.30pm.

Well the diarrhoea continued all night and into the morning although it was tailing off a little. At the Marsden I arranged to speak to Gill the clinical trial nurse to check about this, also my blood pressure was up above the clinical trial level so that was another question mark. After an hours break the BP had slipped down to just below the critical level so it was just the diarrhoea to worry about. We when to se e Alex the doctor, at first he was keen to delay but as my temp was okay and my tummy had started to settle down a lot he agreed to let me go ahead (the concern was that it would be dangerous to have chemo if it was and bug that was causing the problem). I felt we were all vindicated because the 10am bout was the end of it and I’ve been fine every since.

However I’ve kept the best news for last; amazingly Alex had the results form my CT scan already and also results for all of my tumour marker (CEA) blood tests, the lesions in my liver have visibly shrunk (the one was used as an example and was probably the best but it had shrunk by about 20%!), as backup to this my CEA markers have dropped from my first appointment to now by about 70% (over 50% indication a high probability that the tumour is responding well).

It’s early days and baby steps so I’m trying hard to keep my feet on the ground and not let myself get carried away as in the past this has lead to huge disappointment; but it’s a better result that I dared to hope for at this early stage and Alex did quote it to me as ‘good news’ and ‘steps in the right direction’.

So I think is little celebration is in order so you should all go out and either have a drink, a cream cake or whatever your own favourite indulgence is and blame it on me!

Monday
Slept a bit better last night but still not all that well so I let Phil lie in for a bit while I did a few bits to get ready to go off to the Marsden. Packing was tricky because it’s a bit up in the air what we are doing; I have my CT scan today and also the blood tests and then I should find out if they are okay for me to have chemo tomorrow. (I’ve been taking this very, very expensive honey for the last week which is supposed to help with keeping the white blood cell count up during chemo so fingers crossed).

My sister Anne is coming down with her husband for a visit and is arriving tomorrow; we had arranged this before I missed the last chemo session so it was going to me my ‘good’ week but now we’ll be away so I sent her a key. This means that if my blood is okay we will go over to my friend Gaynor (the good cook one) and stay overnight; if chemo is delayed again we will have dinner with her then drive home so I can be there to welcome Anne and Arthur.

We had to wait ages for the results of the blood tests but the answer was yes! they are fine for chemo tomorrow. Before that I had my CT scan, as I’m allergic to iodine I had to drink nearly a litre of this horrible white gloop for the contrast medium. Just as we got to Gayes house I started with the most vicious diarrhoea which essentially lasted all evening. The food was yummy as always and my appitite wasn’t affected so I don’t think it’s a bug but I suspect the white gloop is that culprit. We’ll have to wait and see if this means I can’t have chemo after all; I’ll be very hacked off if that’s the case!

Sunday
We didn’t sleep very well last night as Phil was so feverish and restless and he was really sick today so we didn’t go out at all (I did pop out to get us a takeaway from the Indian shop across the road as we hadn’t got anything for dinner)

On Sam’s advice I cut the tomatoes in half and slow roasted them for hours in the oven, we ended up with something that looked like a juicy version of sun dried tomatoes, Sam would have put them in jars with olive oil but as I don’t have jars I’m going to freeze them for later use. We still have several pounds of fresh ones left and unsurprisingly we had cheese and ‘tomato’ sandwiches for lunch.

Saturday
Feeling better again today but the irony is that Phil now had rotten cold, we are hoping that he caught it off me which would mean that I don’t get it again! We did go out to the shops and the library but it would have been too wet and miserable for a walk even if Phil had been well.

Sam came over for a quick visit, we had been supposed to be going to her but as Phil was ill she did the drive, she’s a very good friend, she stopped off at the Farm Shop and bought me a whole box of tomatoes for £2. I used about 1lb or more in tonight’s supper (a lovely quick fish dish that my friend Gaynor showed me and I’ll have to see what I can do with the rest of them tomorrow.