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Okay…so lot’s of poor me’s in recent blog entries but this is how things stand, medically and physically, at the moment:
The oncologist says I’m doing very well (huh?) – my blood tests show that everything is getting nicely knocked out without being at critical levels where they have to intervene.
I am so breathless and tired because my bone marrow is being suppressed, which means in turn that it’s not producing enough red blood cells to oxygenate my blood. Hence, haemoglobin levels are way down (normal is 150 whatevers, critical is 90, and I’m sitting just above 100) meaning that I’ve not got enough oxygen getting around. If it gets too low, I’ll need a transfusion. Sadly enough, that’s reassuring as there’s a distinct cause and effect and mechanism for treating it.
Nausea and aching bones are just annoying side effects of the chemo and should go away once I’m finished.
Not so good is that the signs of peripheral neuropathy are stepping up. At the moment, this is still just pins & needles, on and off, in my fingers and toes but, particularly since the 7th treatment, it has been more on than off. The danger with this is that it can turn into numbness in the extremities and if ignored, can become permanent.
Everything is cumulative on this treatment and as it is every 7 days, there is not much time for recovery. I’m usually just starting to feel human and it’s time to go in for the next one. On Thursday, the Registrar said that, if it gets too much worse, they may look at giving me a week off to recover some resilience. I’ll do what I’m told but I really don’t want a week off – I just want to get this over with. Even worse though, would be that the treatment could be stopped. No-one is saying that, but I know and they know that it is a possibility. I’m down for 12 treatments but apparently 9 is the magic number – the rest are just insurance. Mind you, the hope is that this whole chemo business is just insurance and that there are no cancer cells left from surgery to kill.
The oncologist also told me that I won’t be returning to work at the beginning of Term 3 as I so naively hoped. Maybe during the latter half of the term, maybe not. Some will depend on whether the chemo time has to be extended, then there’s recovery, then there’s radiotherapy for an unknown time. I say unknown because I thought I’d been told 15 days, David thought it was 20, and the oncologist thought it could be more. I’ll find out more when I go for my appointment with the radiation oncologist in July. And after that, I will be put on a course of hormone therapy drugs which are likely to need tweaking before the dose is right and liveable. That’s the next 10 years sorted!
I really do want to get through the chemo, though – all of it. It is such a draining business, both physically and emotionally. It feels like it’s never-ending and that this is all there is and all there ever will be. No matter how much I try to be normal, I have no energy or motivation, positivity has gone out the window, and life seems so bleak. It’s hard to believe that 6 months ago, before the diagnosis, I felt well and had plans.
Oh dear, I started so well and it seem the bandicoots have moved back in…