So once again Thursday came along and today I wanted to have a fairly quiet day, with all the running around and "stressing" I had been doing the last few days it was nice to finally get it over and done with for another while and be able to relax a little over today and the weekend. Had all the things I needed to send off, put them in an envelope and popped them into the post box, now to wait.
Some more forms did arrive today but they were not for me to fill in, they were for my dad so I made a copy of all the info that he needed to fill them in (and more) gave him the forms and the copies... "Oh we'll do that sometime together" why we? You have everything I can possibly input and you have to fill them in and it's for you I won't gain anything from this... He was so enthusiastic to get these forms too, but I think he expected that it was me who had to fill them in. Today would have been a good day to work on the last blog as I was just sitting around and for a while I was literally staring into space, not always a bad thing as it can be quite relaxing in a way not thinking about anything in particular and just being, give it a go sometime. I've noticed over the last week that I haven't been drinking as much fluids as I normally would, think it's been with all the running around so I will drastically need to improve on that if I want to do all the things that I've got pencilled in for the weekend. But Thursday night was going to be a quiet night so I stayed in and watched The Last Stand in the Insyplex and had some snacks and off to bed.
This week though I've still been getting the problems with the sore arms and legs and night sweats as well, they seem to be getting gradually worse too, but nothing much can be done about that for a couple of weeks and I certainly wasn't going to let it put a downer on my weekend which I was thoroughly looking forward to. Friday started with a nice lie in, which I don't think exactly helped with things as i felt like crap, but after breakfast I went round to check up on my friend Tim who had the heart surgery and he was looking really well and in good form and seems to be making a swift recovery back to 100% thankfully won't be long until he is up and about again.
In the evening I just went to a friend's house and had a few drinks but wasn't feeling 100% felt very blocked up and congested in my belly and nothing seemed to be sitting right, so the next day I took some laxatives which seemed to help with that. My neck and head were also really sore, this was another thing that would have played up with the lymphoma so... so. Made the most of my O2 priority moments app again by getting a discount on dominos for us all, didn't last long though, was quickly scoffed.
Saturday nothing much happened had a long lie in and my niece was over with a cold so I had been told that they were going to go out and waited for a while until I realised that they weren't going out so had to go down and take the chance, I didn't mind, but if it could have been avoided that would be preferable, she was feeling down in the dumps though and all the others had left her in the house while they went over into the park but at least she had me and her granda there to cheer her up.
The Saturday evening I had made plans to go and watch my friends band, Cursed Sun, hadn't been to see them in a while and there were a few works ones and others that I knew would be going so I headed round to that, was an early start and knew I was going to be meeting other people after so I had to "pace myself"... chuckle. The second place we went was to Morrison's and met the two James there and we went upstairs as it was one of their relatives birthday, I didn't know them but I know some of the family and we just got our own table and had some drinks and cake. By this stage I had already had an ample amount of booze, but it was still early and we headed round to the Hudson Bar for more and after a while we finally decided that was enough... but I didn't fall over... like someone else, haha but one of us did get a chip with mayo on it flung at their head which turned out to be quite amusing, I got the blame of it initially surprisingly and then we got home.
Was very happy that night just with catching up with some of my friends and just felt how much that they have really helped me over the last few months and I don't feel as if I have told them enough, just how much I appreciate it and how much they have helped me through this "challenging time" which in actual fact isn't, because of them (and some people that may not even realise it!). I'm not very good with the emotional, soppy stuff so I'm just going to say, thank you.
Sunday came along and I wasn't feeling half as rough as I should have been after the amount of alcohol that was absorbed, although after drinking some ale I think I have a bit of a taste for it now, even though one of them tasted what I would imagine perfume to taste like. But I have a goal of finishing my Star Wars book before Tuesday so I can start a new one in hospital, spent most of the day doing that and I think there was a bit of TV too a quiet day.
Monday I had to go up to hospital to get my bloods checked as I was going into surgery the next day to get my cataracts removed, went up to the hospital and there was no problems with that as I'd already booked it in advance and they supplied me with some evidence that I am on chemo for the ESA too, counts where all very good, the white cells and neutrophils where maybe a bit on the low side but still within the required boundaries so I got the green light to get the surgery, got a fair welt of the book read by that stage and went home to continue reading to finish it off and that was basically Monday as far as I can remember.
Surgery day!! I wasn't too nervous about this, if anything I was more calm than normal, but reading through the letter I realised I was supposed to phone them to make sure I wanted the appointment, I'm not used of having to do this and considering I had to go up to the hospital the day before to get my counts checked, I think they wouldn't mind if I phoned them up 2 hours before I was due to be there...
Movember Update 19/11/13
Anyway I turned up handed in the form and they asked me to take a seat, didn't seem to matter, waited about an hour and then went through to speak with the doctor who wanted to make sure it was ok with my doctor as they hadn't got back to him, but since he sent off to ask them I have changed doctor to the new lymphoma doctor which he didn't know about and I had told him that they were happy if he was happy and that the counts where blah blah and everything is technically ok to go ahead. So everybody was happy that everybody else was happy that everybody was happy so we went ahead. Waited a bit longer and went into the nurse to get the eye drops and then a bit more of a wait to go in and get it done.
*if you're squeamish you may want to skip this paragraph*
When I went into the final stage they put me down on a table and then the anaesthetist came in to numb the eye, this was certainly one of the more unpleasant things I have experienced, guy coming at your eye with a needle about an inch or so long and sticking it in just beside it in the wee pink part at your nose, I could barely keep my eye open and I could feel him moving it around beside and behind the eye. Once he put that in, that was his job done, could still move it and blink and see ok. They brought me into the next room where they hooked me up to the heart monitor to make sure I wasn't freaking out, heart rate seemed to stay quite low in the 60s which I was surprised about, thought it would have shot up, maybe it did at time but I was too busy bricking myself, they seemed to pin my eyelids open, not exactly sure how but u did feel something that seemed to be grasping the back of my eye in the four corners, really not sure though as well I couldn't see anything but shadows and a bright light. They put in a few more eye drops to wash it out a bit more but they made me jump and then he realised I could still feel and said that because I was young the anaesthetic mustn't have worked as well but he continued on. Then there seemed to be a bit of pulling at the front of my eye as they cut the skin in from of the eye and it felt what pulling an eyelash feels like... but on the actual eye some more fluids put on and then when I'm guessing they put in the plastic lens, that was quite sore, a bit of looking around and then that was basically it, they slapped on a mask over the eye and took me into the waiting area. Not sure if this is what happened but this is what it felt like what happened.
It was more uncomfortable rather than being sore and a very unpleasant experience all-round, but it's done now... the cover they put over my eye was see through as well, I was expecting it to be a type of plaster over it, but I've to keep it on until morning and then to use it at night time sleeping.
That evening I just sat and watched TV as well as I could as the mask and the tape were blocking from seeing too well. But at least I still got to see the England Germany game which I'd been looking forward to for a few days, just a bit of a pity Germany didn't put out their main team and was more testing for some players for the bench that anything, but they ended up winning anyway and then a spot of Midsomer Murders to round off the night and then off to bed.