Friday 22nd February 2019
“I am reasonably happy, providing I keep busy.” — Burt Lancaster

I had a good nights sleep from about 11am to 8.30am. I fell asleep pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow last night ! That was a decent amount of sleep and I felt pretty ok with that. Although, there were at least 3 pee trips again, I’m drinking a lot still to make sure the bad stuff is flushed out.

I’d arranged to go and pick up some more garden bits this morning at 10am, so I headed down for some breakfast. I managed 2 weetabix, the appetite is still not so great. Jayne was working from home so I took Parker and left Luke at home, and we were out about an hour.

When we got back, I felt reasonably energetic, but still like my stomach wasn’t quite right. Not like I needed to be sick, but still like I didn’t want to eat. Parker and I enjoyed a little sun while we sanded some wood and did a bit of prep work for the garden project.

At 1pm I was due to meet my cycling coach, I met him at the National Cycling Centre and we sat chatting for an hour. Again I took Parker, and he was hungry on the journey so we nipped in for some junk food before we got there, he had a happy meal and I managed a burger and chips, although still not easily. I got a bit of a buzz talking about cycling goals and what we could start to work on, we’ve got a list of things to look at and some of them just start with me and the bike so we can already look at dates in the diary pretty soon after my last treatment on the 8th March.

Off we went back home, and messed around outside some more while the sun was out. I decided to take some of the anti-sickness tablets I was given on Cycle 1, Day 3 when I was discharged. I’d never had the need to take any but I thought I’d see if they settled my stomach. They have done to an extent, and I felt more like I wanted to eat this evening, managing a reasonably sized meal fairly easily. In fact, a few hours afterwards I would describe myself as a little hungry ! I’ll take the anti-sickness tablets again if my stomach feels a bit ropey.

I watched TV with the boys for a little while as Jayne had some friends around this evening and was cooking for them. We stayed out of the way to let them enjoy their night. I put the kids to bed about 9pm, and decided to do a little bit of painting in the garage for an hour, otherwise I’d have just ended up wanting to have a nap and it was too close to bedtime for that. I managed to finish painting the new patio table I made, after blowtorching it to give it the rustic look. I say made, it was bolting a few legs onto a 1 metre wide cable reel top, sanding, burning and painting it.

I’ve noticed the painful fingertips again today, and I certainly noticed the hot water coming out of the tap felt like it was scolding when it was no hotter than it usually would have been. That’s come on a lot quicker this time. So too has the fuzzy hearing, I’ve noticed that a few times today along with the usual tinnitus. Neither of these I can do anything about, just get on with it and wait for them to get back to normal again. These things, and the lack of appetite is all I’ve noticed so far, but unusually on Day 5. Things don’t normally happen on Day 5, I think it’s just a sign of chemo on top of chemo, the cumulative effect.

I expect tomorrow I’ll start to slow down a little, and feel knackered at the trivial things again. It usually sets in on Saturday and finishes me off on Sunday. I’m sure I’ll be able to manage some more painting and stuff. As always, I’m happy when I’m busy.