Tuesday 19th February 2019
“Good food, good company, great listening music and a wonderful atmosphere. You can’t ask for anything better” — Anthony T Hincks

Yesterday was a looooooong day in that it finished about 3.30am today when I finally got to sleep. As predicted, the steroids kept me pretty much wide awake until then, despite feeling completely knackered most of the day. I think I dozed from 1am to 1.30am but a chemo changeover and needing to pee woke me back up. When I got onto the 4 hour saline/salts bag, I went for a pre-emptive pee and then managed to get to sleep until about 7.15am when it was finished and I got unhooked.

Around 2.30am, I was slowly running out of things to read or watch on the internet, and I started noticing how hungry I was. I thought about wandering out for breakfast when 8am came, given chemo wouldn’t start until late in the day (because of yesterday’s delay,) but then thought against it in case I missed seeing the Dr. So what else do you do at 2.45am, yes, download the Uber Eats app and see who will deliver to the hospital. You’ll already know I enjoy the sins of a McDonald’s breakfast, and I saw they started taking orders at 8am.

I’m not on commission here, but it was great as a first time user. At 8am, I went on and ordered my food. The best bit was leaving a note for the driver, like arranging a weird blind date in a strange place. “Oak Road Drop Off Point, The Christie Main Entrance. Postcode _______ . Blue Hoody / Grey Shorts.” I watched his journey on my phone, tracking the little car down the roads until he was nearly here and walked downstairs to meet him. It worked though, he passed me my food through the window, and I went back to my bed to eat. A good start to the day.

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After breakfast one of the ward doctors came to see me, although she was not familiar with my treatment regime. The only thing I wanted to know was when we could start today’s chemo, because there needs to be a gap between days. She didn’t really know but said she’d find out. She checked me over and everything else health wise for me was OK. Around 11am ish, my Dr came and said he was happy to bring it forward and it was agreed we’d start around 3pm.

Basically from all of us in our 4 person room waking up this morning, we were chatting away about a whole range of things for a good few hours. I’ve landed on my feet again in this room, I’ve said all along the company and conversation can really make a dull trip a whole lot brighter. The chap to my left wasn’t around last night until late. I spoke to him today, he was about 31 and was in the stages of diagnosis for lymphoma, with a long but not yet defined road ahead. I shared my experiences and advice for what it was worth. He left for home around 2pm and we wished him well.

3.30pm – I’m hooked up. It’s visiting time, so the others have visitors, and it seems like a good time to try to nap, although this first chemo bag is just 30 mins so I’ll wait for it to empty or I’ll be woken in 15 mins. Today is the same regime as yesterday, with an extra 30 min chemo bag tagged on the front, so I’ll be finishing up after 1am. For the next 10 hours it will be regular trips to the toilet with Evil666-Bob as ever.

8pm – I’ve lost more time due to big gaps between changeovers, I’m due to finish at about 3am now. It’s no big deal, I’m here anyway, the last bag is a 4 hour bag so I can try to sleep about 11pm. They’ll still need to take my blood pressure occasionally so a full nights sleep isn’t a guarantee. The giant syringe of steroids will also have its say.

I feel absolutely fine, again just that ever so slight fuzziness I’ve described both times when walking around during the chemo drips, similar to when you are pretty drunk and your body is full alcohol. No other issues today.

We didn’t end up with Andy the star nurse today, but it was his last day before a week off. I got to say goodbye and thanks for his help in previous cycles. That’s my first goodbye, and a nice reminder for me of being in the latter stages of the process. Hopefully this will be last ever time on a ward here due to successful chemo.

I’ll watch some Champions League football, maybe see where else Uber Eats deliver from, then I’ll wait til 11pm for my last bag change and see what the night brings sleep wise. Today has flown by relatively quickly. Great conversation and company, both here in person and on some facebook posts (you know who you are!) Kept in touch with Jayne and the kids on video calls. Chilling with some music when it’s been quiet. Good food. You really can’t ask for anything much better.

Edit 9.30pm – Dave has blagged us some ice cream from the nurse and we’re sat watching the Liverpool Bayern match 😀