Friday 15th February 2019
“Every day is a good day to be alive, whether the sun’s shining or not.” — Marty Robbins

Well today the sun was shining down, a taste of spring, and it was one of my better days along the way. I certainly didn’t enjoy the alarm going off at 6am, so much so I fell back asleep and was awoken by a finger in my ear at 6.50am. No, not Luke or Parker, my immature wife ! Although that meant just 15 minutes until we needed to leave so it was a little frantic.

I checked in at the hospital at 8am as planned, bloods done at 8.15am, then I saw the Dr at the earlier advertised time of 9am. All good again, the 5 days of filgrastim injections since last Friday (where my neutrophils were 0.4 against a target of 2 to 7.5) had shot my neutrophils up to about 43. Wow ! If I need the injections again, they may revise it down to 3 days of injections, not 5. I asked about my runny nose, apparently a high white blood cell count can cause this, so no further action required there for now. That was it, all good to go for the afternoon chemo, and to come back on Monday for more.

I then had just over 3 hours to kill, as my chemo appointment was at 12.30pm. I checked in at reception about 9.30am, and said I’d be around if anything earlier came up.

So with 3 hours to pass, where did my mind go ? Yes, well done. Food. I love the food there, both on the ward and in the restaurant. Except the restaurant breakfast. The sausages taste like they cost about 7 pence to produce, and are 50% salt. With time to kill, I fancied something greasy and tasty, so I walked the 0.8 of a mile to a McDonalds up the road, walloped a sausage and egg bagel, sausage and egg muffin, and a hash brown. Yummy.

I walked back, got back to the hospital around 10.20am, and as I was about 20 metres from the chemo waiting area to find somewhere quiet to sit, my phone rang and I was asked if it would be ok if I could go up early. Hell yeah ! 2 hours of waiting now not required. Up I went, and into the chair next-door to last week, the same one from a few weeks back.

The nurse was really chatty, easy to get along with. It all went as it should have done, the cannula went in first attempt, my chemo was ready and waiting, so I was able to text Dad and give him a 12pm pick up time. I felt a bit tired but resisted the temptation to nap. In an upright chair, just like on an aeroplane, I’m one of those people that can only sleep with my head back, mouth wide open, and normally some snoring in there for good measure. Not a good look.

I was finished around 11.45am, great going to say my appointment was for 12.30pm ! Super efficient ! I went and sat outside today, as the sun was beaming down and it was quite warm compared to recent weeks. I got a great photo of the sun shining down on the hospital… either that or it was Dr Evil’s “frickin laser beam!”

Dad arrived on time, took me home and dropped me off, I’d got a second wind at that point though. All those carbs kicking in. I did some work stuff, recording my weekly video, and managed it in one take this week. Then I decided to spend some more time in the sun and wash both cars. I threw the roof down on the clean car and went to pick the kids up from school. I’d predicted in advance that Parker would see the weather and ask to go out on our bikes, so I said yes and we did 2.2 miles at a 6 year old’s pace.

After that, we decided to have a Fajita night, so I went to Tesco again topless (car) with Parker, got some supplies and headed home to cook. I slaved over a hot stove making all the ingredients, and we sat down together to eat.

To say it was a 6am start (well, 6.50am), I’ve done 2 miles on the bike, 8,300 steps so far today, done a bit of work outside with the cars and inside cooking, I’ve handled it pretty well. It’s 9pm and I feel like I need my bed, but I can have a lie-in tomorrow so it doesn’t really matter. I’ll stay up a bit longer yet. Getting in and then home earlier was a bonus. Spending time in the sun is a novelty in February. Only one attempt for the cannula in my arm today, great. Best Friday chemo day to date, everything went well. Apart from the finger in the ear, the only blot on an otherwise fine day. Revenge will be sweet…

All that remains of Cycle 2 is 2 days of weekend to chill out, enjoy, and then start it all again for the last time on Monday with Cycle 3 🙂 3 weeks to go…