Wednesday 20th February 2019
“I have to say goodbye to things in order to take on bigger things that I’ve always wanted to do” — Mahershala Ali

So I actually slept a bit last night ! From around 11.30am, to 5am I would say I slept, with distractions. Firstly, I woke up 4 times in this period, absolutely bursting to pee each time. When you’ve got to get up in a daze, grab a cardboard bottle, unplug Bob and wheel him along to the loo, by the time you get there you are nearly out of time ! Secondly the nurse woke me to do my observations, although I did sleep through it when Bob beeped after my 4 hour bag of saline finished and the nurse came to reset it to let the dregs go through around 3am.

Bob beeping at 5am when the dregs had gone through over 2 hours (which isn’t normal but probably done so to let me sleep), woke me up when the drip finally emptied. I wanted to be unhooked, it’s so much easier to sleep when you don’t have to worry about a line going from your arm across to Bob which you could yank out, however unlikely. Although waiting the brief time for that to happen, made me quite awake.

I sat with my headphones on from 5am until 8am, messing on the internet, looking for my next garden project and ordering a few bits for it. My appetite has done a runner, and I didn’t feel like breakfast but I forced down 2 weetabix and 3 slices of toast, just. I’m a little concerned that the lack of appetite means I’m somewhere closer on the path to nausea and vomiting, which I’ve been incredibly thankful to avoid so far. I’ve never needed to take anti-sickness tablets over and above the ones they dish out alongside the chemo. I’ve got some for if that time comes, but I desperately hope it doesn’t. Usually as soon as I finish one meal, I start daydreaming about the next and thinking about finding some snacks to tide me over.

Dave, Roy and I chatted away for an hour or two, but by 10am I think we were all tired again and we were all napping away. I’d only had about 8 or 9 hours sleep in the 2 days, so I slept on and off until 12pm quite easily, but still woke up a bit groggy. By then it was lunchtime, and I just wasn’t hungry. I’d only ordered 2 courses today, Soup then Pork & Vegetables. I just about managed that too, but was really full.

All this time, I was still waiting to start chemo, it hadn’t turned up. I finally got on around 1.45pm, and today it was about 5 hours. 1 hour chemo, 4 hours of salts. Sometime around 7pm I would finish.

So Roy, Dave and I chatted some more. Roy got the good news he was going home today after some radiotherapy. Yesterday he was told it was a possibility, so I jokingly told him to see if he could get out before me, we’d have a race ! He didn’t seem so sure about winning that yesterday, but he managed to get out around 6.30pm today, about an hour before me !

Marcus text me and said he’d drop by again around 4pm on the way to the airport ahead of his crazy 28 hour journey back to New Zealand. I didn’t want to depress him by taking him on the ward so I wheeled Bob with me down to M&S and we got a brew. We chatted away until 5pm, then he headed off to the airport. It was great to see him, and twice in one short visit to the UK. I headed up to eat my evening meal, although I had only ordered one course this time and struggled to finish it off.

I’d previously asked The Christie charity team if they could donate my money raised towards Ward 11, who have looked after me. It’s not all about building big fancy buildings, the wards need new stuff now and again and as they’ve been the ones looking after me, I wanted to give something back. I had a chat with the sisters about that, and hopefully they’ll be able to cash in on some things they need the most. Fingers crossed.

I’d be leaving soon, and felt bad that Dave was losing both of his most recent buddies very close together, but as luck would have it, another of his Christie friends on a different ward was moved up to ward 11 and got Roy’s bed within about 30 mins of him leaving. I really enjoyed Dave’s company, and I was glad when I was leaving that he’s got another friendly face along side to keep him company. If you’re reading this Dave, thanks for the laughs, the chats and the biscuits, and best of luck !

Jayne and the boys turned up about 7.30pm, just as Bob beeped to say he was finished with me, I got some nice hugs. Parker was in a dinosaur onesie which raised some laughs.

The nurse came over and took out my cannula, I already had my prescription injections and my discharge papers so it was a quick exit. We stayed and had a quick chat with Dave, then off we went. I said a few more goodbyes to the nurses I’ve become familiar with, and walked out with a beaming smile on my face. It’s not over yet but no more overnight stays, or marathon sessions of chemo. Just feeling progressively more crap and hitting rock bottom around Sat/Sun/Mon, hopefully perking up come Tuesday onwards, and have 2x Friday chemo top up’s, and chemo is finished.

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That wall of medals you see, has inscriptions of the names of people or groups that have raised over £4,000 for The Christie Charity. I’m up to £1320, and my employer will add £250 on top to support my cause. But that’s not even half way there, although considering I set out to raise £1,000, I’m thrilled at how much I raised already. I’d bloody love to get a coin engraved on the wall though, so I’ll have a think about what I can do over the course of 2019 to maybe stretch to that bigger target. #Goals. https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/chemophil

Eventually we will move onto the more serious stuff, having a CT scan around early April, and keeping all of our fingers and toes crossed that the chemo has actually done what it was supposed to do, and killed the cancer. Eyes on the prize so far has always been getting to the end of the chemo, of which there’s 2 weeks left, I’ve always taken for granted it would do it’s job. All I can do for now is hope that’s the case, get back to some kind of normality, and dream about celebrating the all clear in the not too distant future.