Sunday 3rd February 2019
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress” — Frederick Douglass

Getting straight to the point, today has been an unexpected struggle.

The schedule for today was wake up, visit Mum briefly to drop some things off. Then come home, rest until Lee and the kids came for a visit, have some pizza with them and watch the football, then just see the rest of the day out and hopefully feel up to a day back at work tomorrow catching up from home.

2.30am, the laxatives kicked in and I was up for a while, an annoyance timing wise but it served a greater purpose. The kids then woke us at 8am, which wasn’t so bad but I still felt quite tired. I mentioned yesterday there’s a bug in the house. Jayne is still struggling a bit, Luke seems to just be coughing still. I was a bit dehydrated, I had a sore tongue and a mildly sore throat, but my temperature was ok. No emergency referrals needed though.

I went to see my Mum around 10.15am, and noticed the 15 metre walk from my car to inside the house was doing me in. By that I mean out of breath, heart rate high, feeling exhausted, holding onto the worktop when stood. Going back to Cycle 1, the tiredness from walking around hit around day 7, but Cycle 2 Day 7 seems a fair bit worse. Just standing to talk was and is hard work today. Luke and I stayed there for about half an hour and came home, Jayne and Parker were still out shopping. I had an overwhelming urge to curl into a ball on the sofa and sleep, but I didn’t as visitors were imminent.

Our visitors arrived at lunchtime and we sat chatting with a brew, I ordered pizza in and then we watched the football, it was really enjoyable and the kids had a great time. Around 3pm, through the 2nd half I was struggling to be awake. As soon as they left for home around 4.15pm, I went straight up to bed and said I’d have an hour / hour and a half nap. 2 hours later the noise of the kids coming up the stairs like a herd of elephants woke me, and I was really groggy, not ready to be awake at all.

Since then, about 6.30pm, any amount of movement is a real effort. Cooking tea in the kitchen was hard work, and since I’ve eaten, just going between rooms is a challenge. I’ve retreated to the comfort of our bed with the laptop about 9pm, and I can’t wait to do the pre-bedtime routine and get to sleep. Pre-chemo I remember reading about getting tired ridiculously easily and scoffing at the idea, it’s quite hard to comprehend before you’ve experienced it. It still baffles me !

Days 7 to 10 of each cycle are usually the low points after the 3 day cocktail of all 3 drugs has its delayed effect, and this one has arrived bang on the money. Ever the optimist I hope this is rock bottom for cycle 2 and with some minor miracle tomorrow I start to bounce back, but I get the feeling tomorrow is going to be much the same given the 2nd half of today has been worse than the 1st. If not, tomorrow might be a record breaking day for daytime sleeping. I’ve felt less tired going to bed after a 100+ mile day in the saddle. Today I’ve done 1750 steps and had a 2 hour nap 😦

My worry was always that in cycle 1 you start from 100% fitness. When you start cycle 2, you don’t, maybe around 85% or so, maybe less. Hence cycle 2 hits a little harder. There’s been a marked difference from cycle 1 to 2, I know it’s 3 weeks away yet but I dread to think what this point of cycle 3 will be like. Although the silver lining at that point will be that it’s the home straight. Eyes on the prize !