Saturday, 28 September 2013
^^, Slide!!
Hello! Tuesday came along and I done all the usual up for breakfast and started to have my shower when, bloop clump of hair, bloop... another clump of hair, bloop bloop, more so as I looked down into the bath, it was covered in hair and there was no way I was going to let it all go down the drain and block it up, plus I hadn't even washed it with the shampoo yet. So I washed the rest of me and tried to tidy up the bathroom a bit with all the hair lying about. Finally got that sorted to a decent state and went in to the wooden floor room to shave the head. But with the damp hair and the fairly old shaver it didn't make it easy, got there in the end though and any longer bits that I missed I could just easily pull out.
Plans had been made that evening for a leaving party for a girl in work at the Limelight, so I wanted to get down early as I wasn't going to be staying long, or at least planned not to, but when I got there to go into Katy's the queue was already near round the corner, there was no chance I was going to be standing around for an hour with all these kids, so I phoned one of them to let them know I wasn't going to be there and turned to head back home. Quite pleased I did in the end, although I was really looking forward to meeting up with the work ones again and Claire who is going away.
Got the bus home but instead of going home I went for a bit of a walk. The walk was great it was nice and quiet, not much traffic and passed only the odd person, think I'll go for move evening walks. Even passed the bus stop I fell asleep at before.
Wednesday morning when I was opening up the blinds, in the garden was our wee robin, first time I've seen him for this winter and will see him a lot more in the months to come. Today I decided to walk into town and on the way had a relaxing seat behind the waterfront beside some guy drinking his cider, but there were lots of people walking past which was a bit crappy ruined the atmosphere of the river and birds. Finally got up and went on into town and had a look around, wasn't after anything, was more just to get out of the house for a bit than anything. In the evening I started feeling a bit rougher, legs sore and just a little cold and feeling sore, but after the couple weeks I've had I can't complain and had to wear my neck warmer to keep my head warm when I was in bed that night.
Can you find the robin?
Next morning, Thursday, was something similar to how I was feeling the night before, legs seemed very clonky and sore and just generally felt as if I couldn't be bothered getting out of second gear, which I didn't seem to do at all, all day. Went down to Consy to get something or to look for something, but when I got there I didn't have a clue why, I got there and just ended up going shop to shop and never remembered and even now I can't remember, I think it may have been to check the prices of a couple of things in game, but I'm not certain about that.
In the Evening I met up with a friend for some coffee, but I've been off coffee, or at least really cut down on coffee since last October and have only had a hand full of coffees since then, was nice having a chat face to face rather than just over the computer, would be nice to do it on a regular basis but people have busy schedules and I'm me.
I was going to watch a film in the Insyplex but wasn't sure which film to watch, the choices where; Lost in Translation, Requiem for a Dream and Scream. I went for Requiem for a Dream as I haven't seen it before, it was a great choice, the film was incredible, it flowed a little slowly towards the start and I was wondering when it was really going to start then BOOM!! all this mental shit starts happening, not a show for everyone but I thought it was great. After the film I got the films sorted for tomorrow in hospital as I was going in for chemo.
Well then... what's orange? If this is red, I wanna know, What's orange?
Friday morning bright, or more dark and early, and an early trip over to hospital for my check up first of all. Got seen to pretty fast or maybe that was because I fell asleep, but there didn't seem to be many people up today. All the counts were very good, platelets still up nice and high, or normal for most, at about 369 white and red blood cells were also at good levels too. I had to remind him about the antisickness tablet and that I had to change it to another one as the one I'm on seems to make me sick rather than clearing it up. But when I went to get the tablets from the nurse she had the antisickness tablet there for me, but I didn't want to take it and went on out for lunch. But only a few minutes later I got a call about getting another antisickness tablet so I just went back and took that.
I just remembered what I went to consy for; it was to check out the price of FIFA 14.
Finally out and had a couple of hours to pass, so I went down into town and had a small fry in Boogaloo, It was nice, a little pricey but worth every penny, the bacon was especially tasty a strong flavour off it. But as I finished the fry and was drinking my latte, two in two days! I started to get a bit... stoned, this was either from the antisickness tablet or the fry, walking through town was interesting as my eyes felt like the size of, something really big and couldn't focus on anything so trying to look at things in the shops was interesting. I even had to sit down for a while to try and take the edge off it a bit, but while I was on my phone I checked the prices of FIFA and seen that you could get it for £16 on the PS2 so I added it to my basket but couldn't remember my password so I couldn't order it. Got back to hospital and had a seat in the treatment room, chemo wasn't ready yet but there was plenty of room for me. Then i went onto the kindle and FIFA14 was still in the basket for £15.99 so bought it, the price had went up to £20 if I was to add it again, so hopefully I will get this tomorrow so I can play that in the Insyplex.
Finally the chemo came and got that all done and got more out of it with the piriton, so by this stage I basically wasn't capable of thinking, everything went through ok and no problems. After I was done I phoned my dad for a lift home, he seemed a bit surprised that I did phone as last time I just walked home, but everyone seemed a bit pissed off with me for that.
Was feeling pretty good apart from the drowsiness, but I know I'm not feeling too great, I just don't realise it at the minute. Later in the day I was just sitting watching the Ulster match and was just gradually feeling a little more rougher and rougher as the day went on. After the match was over I went up to watch a film in the Insyplex and today was Lost in Translation, great show, think it was ten years ago when I last seen it, the night I had a mole removed on my back and I remember sneezing and it ripping open a little, vaguely remember watching dodge ball afterwards that day. Was the perfect show to watch for the mood I was in, just very tired and lethargic, dropped my phone at one stage and it took half an hour to be bothered reaching down to pick it up. After went and took my tablets and went to bed. Woke up at about 4.30 and wasn't feeling great quite rough and very nauseous, but lay on to try and get back to sleep again, but then my mouth done it's watering thing with a different texture as to normal saliva so I ran to the loo and got there just on time to throw up, felt much better after that though and went up to sleep again and that was me until morning.
Think the main problems were that I ate so much yesterday, I normally have a small appetite but I ate what a normal person would yesterday and I don't think I had enough fluids in fact I basically didn't have any!! So I must increase that on Saturday.
Saturday so far I got up had breakfast and took my tablets and they have whiped me out again, at least this time I was expecting it so I can't complain too much, I have a week of these ones too... think I might just use all of them ^^,
Monday, 23 September 2013
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground.
So as posted in the last Blog my back was sore in the morning, but as soon as I got up and about it eased again. I'm guessing it's just going to be getting gradually worse again until my next chemo, at least this time it lasted longer than the previous couple of times that I had the chemo and was more than a couple of days relief. Most of this blog I'm going to keep short and to the point. It has been a week since I last posted, but things have been generally going very well.
The rest of Tuesday I really didn't get up to too much, a lot of sitting around reading watching TV and films. One of the films I watched was eXistenZ and started onto season 2 of The 4400, in the evening I got my first experience of the Champions League in the Insyplex, although it was Man United. I had a fairly early night for me, at first I thought I was going to struggle getting to sleep but then next thing I knew it was morning.
Wednesday I didn't have any plans but I knew I wanted to do something. I decided to go on a long walk and initially I went one direction, changed my mind a few different times so ended up zigzagging and finally chose a destination to walk to, which was over to my old school playing fields at Malone and then to walk into town from there. I thought the walk into town from here would be a lot longer than what it was, but turned out to be a nice distance for me today, in total it ended up being about 8 miles or so and sat at city hall for a while to think of how else to spend the day as I'd started early. On the way home I got a call to do a couple of chores, so in the process of doing that I bumped into a couple people I work with and chatted with them for a while, also the guy that served me in Tesco I used to teach, he didn't seem too happy to be there and/or having to serve me, if only he listened a bit more in school.
Yesterday I got a new coat, the last few times I've got a new coat it's rained the next day... today it rained, only in the morning though in the afternoon it settled and was a warm enough day. Phoned the GP to order my new sick line and asked when I needed it from and said the one I'm on runs out today, "oh you'll have to call again tomorrow", "I need it for tomorrow morning to take into work" "right, well do you want us to make it from today then?","yes". So will have to go down later to pick that up and of course when I got it they didn't even put a date on it! While I was waiting on the sick line I went into work to watch Elysium, was a good show, my type of film and obviously was good catching up with some of the work ones. The evening was spent watching more football in the Insyplex and then watched Looper in the evening, wasn't quite as good as I was expecting it to be, but watchable.
Today another event occurred, my mouth has cleared up as over the last week it has been a bit sore and more cracked than normal, this is just with the chemo and the immune system not being there and is quite common, wasn't really that bad in honesty but was just a bit frustrating if you were eating something a bit strong, would burn the mouth off you (more than the normal case for me). But today my hair has started to come out, I've noticed that over the last month or so the hair has been receding a little faster than what it had been and even more so over the last week, but today hair around my mid region was coming out quite fast, so far I've been finding it quite amusing, hopefully will stay that way. (Not the beard, not the beard, not the beard)
Friday morning I noticed that my head hair was starting to loosen up a bit after I had a shower and you could quite easily pull out a clump of it, this cheered me up even more than yesterday going to finally start looking like I am sick! May not be all good but at least it will make me feel better about being off work for so long. Plus I'm not vain enough to be worried about not having any hair, I'm more than just what you can see.
I took my sick line down to work and had a bit of a walk around town and sat at city hall for a while just looking around and thinking about things. It was nice, not having much to worry about and watching the world go past on their busy breaks, rushing from A to B to go and queue for some food, to eat too quickly and then to rush back and work. I finally got up and started walking for home, walked the long way round through Botanic and through Ormeau, it was nice apart from the masses of dogs running around without leads.
When I arrived home my Halloween costume arrived and I tried it on, it fits well, maybe a little too well in places. I don't know if I'll definitely be doing anything for Halloween but I decided to get one anyway just in case, although I may need to add to it. After watching a bit more of The 4400 I went for a bit of a nap as I had made some plans to go to Culture Night in Belfast, but as it got closer to the time I changed my plans, slightly. Still went to the Culture Night but with someone that I've been dying to meet up with for a while now, was a little nervous to start off with and that doesn't happen too often but turned out to be a really good night and really enjoyed it.
Saturday I had a good lie in and when I got up I felt fairly fresh done the usual garbage today ie feck all, but then got persuaded (asked) to go out for a few drinks tonight again so ended up doing that. Was another long one, different from the night before and almost as enjoyable. Sunday was spent mostly lying around in bed watching basically all of Season 3 of The 4400, but thankfully no hangover, I've been quite lucky lately with the lack of hangovers. In the evening when sister was on her way home from the house she got a brick thrown at the car and it smashed her back window, the two kids were in the car at the time so there was a bit of panic when we first heard, but everyone was ok, maybe a little shaken but not hurt and they came back to the house.
Monday morning the kids didn't go to school as the car had to be cleaned up, so while they were busy doing that I was with the kids and we watched a few films that I had, they seemed to enjoy them and it past most of the morning and afternoon. They went out for a while I went upstairs and I was looking into the mirror washing my hands when I noticed that my facial hair looked a little different than normal, I know I shaved it last week but it looked a bit more patchy and not as full as it would normally be at this stage. A little later, I can't remember why I done this, but I pulled out a few of the beard hairs very easily. This was one of the things I didn't want to happen and it annoyed me for a while and shortly after I discovered that my friends' engagement party is on a night that I will be getting chemo so I am not sure if I will be able to go to it or not, I hope that I'm feeling ok and I'm able to make it for a little while. But soon after I cheered up and after all it is just a beard. I've just had it for so long it will be unusual to be without it for so long. In all my years I've only ever clean shaven a handful of times. Another thing that didn't exactly make me happy but at least I got it out of the way, but I got a call from a school I would regularly go to for teaching and had to say to him that I wouldn't be available until about January or so.
I have seemed to have killed a few hours doing this, haven't been giving it my full attention as I've been listening to music (The Pixies) and talking on twitter, and also noticed now after being a little itchy on my face that my eyebrows are starting to loosen up a little, I must resist the urge of pulling all these hairs out haha.
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Thunderbolts and lightning
So on Friday evening I went up to my friends house, was quite sceptical about heading up as they have a dog and forgot about the cat they had picked up too until I got there. It was a fantastic night and some things never changed, stayed there till... very late. When I got home though I fell right to sleep, woke up a few hours later at my normal time and decided that there was more chance of hell freezing over than there is me getting up at this time. What got me up in the end was that the football was starting at 1245. Got up in time to get breakfast sorted settled and watching that. Didn't have any hangover or anything, not that I drank loads but I certainly drank enough. After the football I just sat on the computer for a while and went for about an hour's sleep later.
Tim had mentioned about going out on Saturday night to meet up in town as he wasn't available to go out on Friday. Plus that was the same for someone else that was doing a 20 mile walk for the NSPCC on Saturday morning. I initially didn't want to go out but as I hadn't been out with Tim for 4 or 5 months I felt that I needed to. There was a lot of confusion as to what was going to happen Mojo wanted to meet for a couple quiet drinks and wanted to head Ormeau Road direction, Tim did not want to go there, mostly I thought because he didn't know which bus to get and didn't want to get a taxi there and home. The plans ended that I was meeting Tim at 9.30 in Lavs and the others where meeting in Tilt at 10.00... Could both be done!?
Of course it would, I said to Tim before we met there about getting the bus on up to Ormeau. So I got the bus into town lavs, had a pint then bus up to meet the others for more pints, was a good night in there again really enjoyed it, but the Googses couldn't get a taxi home so, for some reason instead of walking homeward they walk the same distance the opposite way to Mojo's house and get a taxi from there. I don't think they realised just how far it was to his house. Was another great night and I've really missed going out and socializing with my friends, I don't know if I'll be able to from the next few weeks onwards but I hope I will be able to, for short periods at least.
Sunday morning when I got up I had another bit of a lie in not quite as long as the day before but was fresh enough when I did get up, but knew I'd need a bit of a nap later on. The day comprised of watching TV and the bike racing, both the MotoGP and the World SuperBikes were on, and Eugene Laverty, a guy from here, won both the WSBK races. Later I had a look at the fantasy football team and it's doing quite well for now, normally I do pretty crap at them but I've been keeping an eye on it this year a bit more than normal and don't have a load of players not getting any points. Sitting first in my work table and 3rd in my friends' league.
That evening Jillian had mentioned about flashing lights over Belfast I had a look out the window and more or less as soon as I looked there was one, so I got the camera set up and started taking a video as there was no way it would be possible to take a picture of it. It was coming from over Hollywood direction, a bit later I had a look out again with the camera recording but didn't see any, but when I was looking over the video (I had opened the wrong one) I seen another flash at the very start, so each video had a flash. Moved it frame by frame and made a picture out of it and then my bro zoomed it in on the lightning.
Monday I got up and thought about maybe going to the cinema to watch Elysium but I faffed around too long and took a few videos of the changeable weather that we were having today so I just stayed in the house. Phoned the GP for a sick line that I need from Friday onwards and they said that they can't do it until Thursday, will go watch a film then maybe depending on the mood. Today I didn't do much at all and just really watched TV and a film too, but I enjoyed it all the same.
I haven't really mentioned anything about lumps and bumps or feeling bad or headaches or sore legs or backs which I would normally moan about, but this is because I haven't had any problems, this weekend I've felt "normal" for the first time in a long time and it's great. Even well before the chemo I haven't felt this good. I'm putting it down to the drink, I remember telling the doctors that I was sure that alcohol was good for my platelet count and they didn't believe me. After a few years and a "few" drinks they finally come to realise that it did have a positive effect on the platelet counts to the point were they knew when I had been drinking at the weekend just by looking at my counts. They even came up with the reason as to why it might be the case, which is very plausible, as my spleens been removed most of my immune system is working from my liver so if I fill it with booze it'll be too busy getting rid of that than attacking my platelets. But I feel great and I hope it continues.
Tuesday morning sore back starts up again, chemo must be wearing off.
Friday, 13 September 2013
Dumpa dumpa daaaa
Tuesday 10th September, today I woke up quite early, but it was too early to get up so just lay around and watched a couple of programs on the Kindle but when it got closer to a respectable time to get up I was getting tired. In the end I went back to sleep again but didn't get into a full sleep and was just quite a light one, turned alarm off and continued to lie on. Eventually there was a phone call for me which turned out to be from the hospital asking if I was available today to go for my MRI scan in the afternoon. Of course I jumped at it as it may be a couple weeks until I would get another one.
This did waste quite a bit of the day as I would have to leave at about 2.30 to get there and avoid the school kids and the traffic with them. When in the hospital, there were already a couple people waiting so I guessed that I could be a while, especially since it takes at least thirty minutes for each one, got out my Nook and waited. Just over an hour later I get called through to get ready for my scan and ended up sitting there in a gown for near 30 minutes while others that were waiting for relatives sat there awkwardly avoiding looking at me. Couldn't carry my Nook with me as it was stored in the locker, so lay back, closed my eyes and just waited, a sort of warm-up for the main event.
Finally got called in and lay down into the machine and all started, got ear buds in but they never gave me music this time round so I could quite clearly hear the thud, thud, thud of the machine. It was peculiarly relaxing, there was a bit of a shake going on that relaxed me even more and nothing to look at so I just had my eyes closed, next thing I knew the nurse was back again, talking, couldn't hear her with the ear buds in so took them out and asked "what sorry?" "you can take the ear buds out"... I was a little dazed after so I think I might have fallen asleep in there, or at least dozed off for a while and took as long to waken up and focus on what I was doing.
On the way down into town to get the bus I had an urge to go to the shop get a twenty pack an head to the pub to have a pint and watch the footy, but I held it off and went on home to find out that there was load of family coming over that night and after being told off by my mum the previous day for looking like a trap in the house I had to make a bit of an effort, so I put on a "fancier" t-shirt, I was quite tired and found it hard to focus on single conversations, but think I made it pass ok and didn't look as if I was drifting.
Wednesday the power is supposed to be getting cut off from 9.30-5.30 for some maintenance so I want to get out for a while to kill some time rather than doing nothing in the house. Last night I ordered the last bit of my nephews birthday present from Argos so had to go down and collect that and may as well get him the card at the same time. It was a bit of a damp day but not heavy showers and they never seemed to last long, which was evident when I was walking down. Once it was raining for a "prolonged period" I would put up my hood and as soon as I put up my hood the rain stopped and I put down my hood, a minute later it's raining again and I put up my hood and it stops I put hood down, over and over the whole way there and back. Took the long way back to call into the chemist and to get a sandwich, it was an absolute beast!! chicken, turkey and egg in a round bap, it was bigger than my face and a real struggle to cram it into my mouth. That evening we had all the family over again, kids running riot and the adults just as bad, if not worse.
Thursday morning was an early one, my aunt and uncle were leaving to continue on with their travels around Europe, was great to see them again and I guess it will be quite a while until we meet again. Most of today was just spent sitting around and didn't bother doing very much, was originally going to go out for a walk but the weather was just a tad too miserable so stayed in and watched TV and read. At five I called James back who had called last night but was busy at the time so couldn't chat and caught up with all the bizz on his end and it was just so hard fitting in all the craic that I had had since we last spoke. In the evening Tim called over and found out the news on his end as well. Everyone seems to be getting so old and being all serious these days. The Insyplex got a reopening tonight with a showing of Red Lights, it hasn't been getting utilised the last couple of weeks, just with being slightly busier in the evenings.
Friday morning was hot chocolate day, but to my dismay there was no hot chocolate! Wasn't a long stay in hospital but I did have to come back a bit later to pick up some tablets for my tongue which seems to be pretty dead. While waiting I went for a walk into and around town and was heading back up to the hospital and thought I would pop into a cafe for a latte, sat down and ordered a full English breakfast... and a latte. It was from Ming de cafe, was really nice but I wasn't hungry so may have enjoyed it more if was to go when hungry, certainly filled me up at least and finally got my tablets back into town and home.
In hospital today it was all about the blood counts and how they were reacting to the chemo. The platelets where doing really well up to 400 odd, WBCs where 8 and RBCs where around 13. The white cells are down a fair bit from what they were but are still at a very good level and makes me feel like I might be able to go out for a few pints tonight and have a bit of a change of scenery, more just to get drunk. But that will be discussed on the next instalment of A Lan and his Blog...
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
CHOP Force 1
Friday night's sleep into Saturday was fantastic, only woke up the once and didn't have my sore back that I've been having, which again makes me think that it is the swollen glands that are causing it, rather than the bone pain that I thought the last couple of days. You never know it may be a mix of both. But then I've been having this back pain for a couple of years, so have I had the swollen glands for a few years too? Surely it would have been picked up on before now though. Either way what's done is done and it getting fixed now.
During the night I did feel a little nauseous but wasn't too bad, just frustrating as I knew I wasn't going to be sick or anything but just that feeling. When I did get up in the morning I was very flush and red faced, this was from the steroids and felt a little pudgier too, but I did have that steroid high, was on the highest dose that I've ever been on, twice as much as what I had ever been on before the chemo.
While having breakfast my Uncle who is over visiting from Australia was watching the Aussie rules football from earlier that morning. I had watched it a few times but think I learnt more in that one match than all the others I had ever watched combined, didn't realise you can't get sent off! But after you can get banned for a number of matches. Most of the day I was feeling pretty good and mentally was in a really good form and almost felt normal. Started making a few stop motion videos with the coins again to kill some time. But got quite tired and nauseous towards the evening again, so this is probably with the chemo. To be fair of all the problems I could be having with it and normally have, this is nothing. Long may it continue.
When the evening came my lips seemed to get a funny flavour a distasteful one, so just kept cleaning my teeth and using my mouthwash and it seemed to distract my taste buds from it and soon forgot about it. Was watching the new Star Trek film and started hearing fireworks so jumped up to the window and started recording them, they were from the BBC Proms thing down near the Titanic building, after that watched the rest of the film and a bit of the IT Crowd and went to bed.
Another good sleep was had and only woke up a couple times but got to sleep again very fast compared to normal, thankfully my back was ok again this morning and so I had a bit of a lie in too. But today I felt a lot more drained and tired, I had planned to do a bit of exercise as a release with the tablets but I didn't need to do that or have the energy to try it and felt a little nauseous again after taking my tablets.
The day passed with doing very little, something similar to yesterday, was in a good mood but didn't do much and it flew in, although I think it's down to someone that I've been chatting with and taking my mind off things and it's been greatly appreciated. In the evening I was playing around with the Kindle Fire and looking up a few different books. I was looking down the maths ones and had a check on a few that were free for the Prime members but normal members would have to pay for... I was shocked to see how simple some of the things were that people weere paying at least £1 a pop for, I have better notes stored on my phone from when I was writing notes for a website that I never bothered to actually really work on. So during the night I was having a think about starting up with that again. I was now very tired and felt very nauseous even with taking my anti-sickness tablet.
On Monday morning when I woke up it suddenly occurred to me, the only times that I've been feeling nauseous is after I take the anti-sickness tablets, so I have now stopped taking them and have felt fine since. But then again I was feeling much better today than what I had been the previous couple of days. I never really noticed at the time but comparing how I felt today, I actually felt very rough over the weekend. A dream I had last night that I remember was that I had lost all my hair but when it grew back it was blonde, blonde like it was when I was a kid and going in to teach and no one recognising me. As long as my beard is left as it is, I don't care about the rest.
But today we had family over visiting for a while in the morning and I had decided that I was going to go for a walk, needed to go to the chemist so that was on the way to town and that's where I went. But when I got to the Waterfront I thought, "that wasn't so hard, what do I do now...?" so I walked round town a little and then walked the long way home, round Ormeau, started getting quite sore from about half way home but was glad of this and it made me feel like I'd actually done something other than sit on my butt all day like I have been the last week or so. Tomorrow won't be quite as extravagant but I'm sure I'll do something. When I got home I started organising my notes that I had for the website to get that started up again and to work through it, even if it is just to give me something to do, but will keep my brain working a bit more.
Just before dinner I got a call from my GP and they were asking if I still wanted to see a dermatologist, which I had asked about a fair few months ago, at least six, well before any of the lymphoma stuff had came about. I said yes and I mentioned about having the lymphoma and she was silent, had a look over the notes that she had and said "we have no record of that". This no longer surprises me from that place and I told her that I'd been on the chemo for over 10 weeks now. They must have thought the inhaler had fixed whatever was wrong with me and lost the letter I took round to them explaining about starting the chemo and having a virus and that's what the problem was with the chest. So anyway they'll be getting me to see a dermatologist to check any moles for signs of skin cancer.. haha!!
Had a nice dinner with my Aunt and Uncle that are over and my Mum and Dad. It was a nice night but was very tired after the walk today and found it hard to concentrate what was going on so had to go up to my room and was playing around on the computer for a while and thought I'd start on this rather than letting it all pile up like on previous days and forgetting a lot of stuff. But I'm rather tired now so night.
Friday, 6 September 2013
Arrrrrr Chap!!
So after getting a fairly early night, for me and heading to bed at about 11.30 and falling asleep almost straight away, I get my four hours and waken up, go to the loo and back to bed, but was not successful at getting back to sleep. Must have tried for about an hour before giving up and started to listen to music. I can never fall asleep when I'm listening to music (except when drunk sometimes) and watched a couple of episodes of The IT Crowd next thing I knew it was quarter past six, my alarm goes off in fifteen minutes!! So tried to make the most of it, turned off the music, put my head down and closed my eyes.
Fifteen minutes later "beep, beep, beep" alarm goes off, up showered and while I'm drying myself I feel my neck where it was swollen yesterday and guess what's there? Another couple of lumps, so by this stage I really wanted to get the higher dose of chemo, this can't go on getting all these lumps all over the place.
Left a little early to get over to hospital due to the heavier traffic with schools etc being back, but there didn't seem to be much of a difference compared to normal. Once there sat and read a little and then gave bloods and back to wait more, got a shout to come and get my weight and height taken, normally a sign of something new...
When I got round to the doctor he was asking how I was and I was explaining all the problems that I was having with the swollen glands and he said that they got the results back from the CT scan. The good news is that the larger glands have got smaller, but not by much. One example is that one was 6.6cm and is down to 6cm another was 1.5cm and down to 1.1cm and he was explaining that he would have expected these to be gone by now with the chemo. The bad news is that although the big ones are going down there are a lot more small ones popping up all over the place, aaallll over the place, so it was consistent with what I was telling him. He went on to start talking about increasing the chemo to a stronger one, R-CVP to R-CHOP and explained that now I WILL get the side effects loss of hair, nausea, constipation and other stuff too.
The smile that went up on my face must have confused him, he didn't quite know how to react. But I was almost sure that the glands would have went down and would have stayed on the same dose and I would have been very disappointed, but to hear that and that I'm finally getting something that's really going to work, or at least be more likely to work. I don't care about the side effects and looking forward to the hair coming off if I'm honest, this slow process of receding is taking too long.
I also brought up about my back being sore mostly in the morning and I told him that I did initially think it was the glands, but how it has been feeling the last couple of days feels more and more like a bone thing. He apologised and said "you've told me that a few times" and said that he'd book me an MRI, I told him there's no need to apologise, there's other stuff you've been working on and that I wasn't sure if I should get it sorted with him or with my osteoporosis doctor. It wouldn't have mattered either way apart from time scale, so I'm getting an urgent MRI. What are your guesses at what that is? My thinking is that it's one of the ribs being squashed in or pushed while I'm lying down and that's what's causing it, just hope it's not a crack or anything like that.
After hospital I had preorganised to meet up with an old school friend who was back for a few days, so I popped into work to update them on the shenanigans and then went over to the lagan to wait for him to come. Somehow he slipped past me, only by about a minute or two though, but caught up with him when he was looking at wedding bands (rings). We had a nice meal in California Coffee and he wouldn't let me pay anything. After I was running out of time and needed to head back to the hospital for the chemo.
I went in and told them I was back expecting that I might have to wait a bit longer till a bay was ready for me but they took me straight away. Got a red chemo and was told that my urine would be a bit red for up to 48 hours and then the other two chemos, one made my nose very tingly and then I got my dreaded piriton... followed by the retuximab. Everything went well and just sat and watched The IT Crowd on the Kindle Fire. Once it was over got all my extra meds for the next week or so and went to the loo. I had forgotten being told about the red urine and didn't think it would have been so quick to get into it, but that brought another smile to my face, I guess if the nurse didn't tell me about it I'd be shitting myself.
I had been thinking on the way down out of the hospital that I was going to walk and was, then decided I'll get a bit to eat and wait. Phoned M+D and they were in Lisburn and told them I was just going to walk home, of course they don't listen and say they'll be over in 30 mins, "I'm walking" ok we'll be over in 20. "no, I'm walking home".
So I finally got round to walking home, and felt pretty good for it cleared out the piriton from my system a bit, so that was one positive and on the way home got a call from another friend and chatted with him from about half the way home, after I missed his call and phoned him back, actually using some of my 3000 minutes for a change. Once home I went to the toilet and the red was gone, and about 10 minutes later M+D where back and weren't too happy I walked, but then they realised that I was perfectly fine and they settled. Ok maybe something could have happened, but I wanted to walk and so I did.
The evening has been spent writing the 2 blogs and stopped to watch a bit of the Ulster game and then off to watch the Germany V Austria World Cup qualifier, Germany won 3-0 but started getting tired and a bit of a sore head, nothing too bad though, so I'm guessing after this I'm probably going to get a bite to eat and go to bed. The fun part will be tomorrow I guess....
Friday, 6 September 2013
STOP OOOOHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh!!!! (i know its Flash)
Hello!!! Tuesday I woke up with the usual back pains, but once I got up again it seemed to settle. Throat started getting a little sore, this is normally a sign that there's another lump so had a wee feel around and there was just beside my Adam's apple hidden in behind it a little. Today my tripod for my camera arrived, just a small one but it's good for hooking onto things, so I have a few "projects" in mind that I will work on and started one today. One of the BIG things today was that I had a shave, wasn't the longest beard that I've had but was still a decent amount and its now all gone. In the evening I was missing heading out for a few drinks and thought about the times sitting in annies having a few pints for no other reason than to do that.
One of the things that got me thinking about this was that I was supposed to be heading out to a friend's birthday on Saturday but due to the antibiotics I wasn't able to, plus I felt pretty shit at the time and feel I have a pretty good excuse not to go, sounded like a good night though.
Wednesday morning I woke up laughing and I remembered what I was dreaming about. It was X-Factor and Ed Sheeran was playing on the stage sitting on a stool, he had a dog with him but it was over at the front, side of the stage sitting on some speakers and it jumped down and started trotting across the front of the stage. It was a real wee scruffy jack russell and had a bit of a limp on its front right paw. So he's walking along and the camera does a nice wee close up of the dog and then changes to one behind the judges and the wee dog gets too close to the edge of the stage and steps onto thin air and crashes to the floor, the gasps and "aww"s from the crowd. That's when I woke up.
Back to reality though, surprisingly my back was sore again and it is definitely getting worse, I'm also starting to think that it's not a swollen gland that's causing it and more than likely the osteoporosis, it's definitely one of the ribs. Bloody agony though. Today I found another lump in my throat bigger than the one the previous days and a bit lower to where my collar bone is, this is number 6 in 5 days...
I got a visit from one of my friends and he just happened to bring a paper that had a picture of himself in, basically middle page and about 1/3 was the picture and also a bit about him joining a new hockey club. Mum didn't recognise him in the picture and said "you've lost a fair lot of weight" when he pointed himself out, I'm sure that made his day. Was good to see him again. Just before he came I started making a stop motion things with coins so once he left I had a bite to eat and started back on that again, I was quite impressed with it if I say so myself, hope you enjoy it. In the evening the family all came over and after watched "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" good show only seen it when I was drunk before and to be honest I only remembered the very, very start.
Thursday morning once again my back was sore but not quite as bad as it had been the previous days. Though of a couple new projects, one was a stop motion video for my friend's birthday that I missed on Saturday, it was basically singing "Happy Birthday" to him. The other is a time-lapse of the clouds passing overhead.
Today I was feeling pretty good in the morning but I did gradually start getting worse and worse until I had to go to bed for a while, legs where freezing and was so tired. Think I went over for about 25 minutes but I was still really tired after and the rest of the night and went to bed early as I'm up early in the morning to go to hospital and hopefully get my CT results and maybe find out what is actually happening. Quite sure I've said before but I really do want them to increase it to a stronger one to give it a good kick up the ass cause at the moment it really doesn't feel like it is doing what it should. At least today I didn't find any new lumps.
Monday, 2 September 2013
Lumper (2013)
Friday 30th August, hot chocolate day again. Just a short visit planned for today, but I have came prepared for a long stay. With all the problems I've been having lately this wouldn't surprise me. Got the usual bloods taken and waiting around until the results came back and went to the doctor. I started going through all the problems that I was having and that I had discovered a couple of new glands that had swollen up, another in my throat and found the one under my arm which has the swollen armpit. The armpit one seems to be getting sorer and the pain is shooting down my arm to my elbow now and I also mention about the heavy sweats at night and the return of the dreaded cough.
The doctor decided to send me for an X-ray to check how bad my lungs where as she could hear a rattle in my right one. When the results came back She said that it was abnormal, but nowhere near as bad as what it was at the start of July, thankfully. I was given a script to take to my GP to get a prescription for a load of antibiotics. Headed straight to the GP after and handed it in (11.30) and was told the prescription would be ready at 16.30 and went home for lunch. During this time I was gradually getting sorer, tired and more blocked up as the day went on. When I got back to the GP and said to a different secretary that was there now, she had a look for the prescription that wasn't there, checked the computer and it was marked that I did come in with a script, but the script was not where it was supposed to be. After a lot of running around by her she finally came with the prescription. This is the usual of my GPs practice, been going to the same one all my life and it takes forever to get anything and they never seem to be up to date with my records.
Friday just seemed to be a pretty crappy day, things seemingly going on all day and the final thing was at about 11 my throat started getting sore, so I'm guessing this is part of the possible infection, but I don't know how it could be linked as one is chest the other back of throat, so could even be another. Friday over!!
Saturday I was starting a new project, to do with stop motion after getting a lot of hints from a friend on different hobbies to take up. Initially it was going to be with matches, but I was unable to get any yesterday, but turned out to be a good thing as I came up with something I think may be a lot better but I have plenty of something else, which I will not reveal just yet. To prepare for this I cleared my shelf (which turns out to be a good seat to look out the window) and that day I build my WoW Mega Bloks Zeppelin with pictures to make a stop motion, silly but fun.
Today though I have been feeling pretty crap, also I have discovered another lump behind my ear, it's a bit of an unusual one, seems a bit like a vein sticking up, but isn't. My cough also continued today and I have had a sore left arm and left leg and unusually pale aswel, I don't like that the things seem to be spreading to my left, it really does make me think that things are getting worse rather than better with the chemo and I do believe that I really want the strength of the chemo increased next time, but I'm sure they won't unless they have evidence that it's not working as it should be, but just need the results from the CT, hopefully they will be back for the next cycle next week. Most of the day I was pretty tired and lying around and had an early night to try and ease things for tomorrow.
Sunday came along and I woke up with the sore arm and leg still, had a good feel around my left arm pit and found ANOTHER swollen gland in there, does seem to be a pretty big one too and wonder how it was missed on Friday by the doctor, that's if it was there and so the infection or lymphoma is definitely getting worse and also making me feel more shit. That day my legs got really cold again and felt my temperature increasing, so a few paracetamol and lie down with the legs covered to try and warm them up a little, most of the day was spent on the computer and listening to the radio for the football. Arsenal beat Spurs 1-0.
Monday things just seemed quite similar to yesterday with the aches and pains in my arm and legs with all the swollen glands still in place and still getting a bit of a temperature and a sore head. Some of the day was spent doing the Civil Service Fast Track, I have no interest in joining it but I was doing the examples and test to get screen shots of the questions to help out a friend so they would have more practice at the questions for their test. Going through the example I was using Fraps to take screen shots, but didn't discover it wasn't taking them until after I had went through the whole test, but then realised this only works for games and not for web pages. So had to use the print active screen and pasted it to word to that I could put them all on the one file, one file for the wordy ones and one file for the math problems. Even with doing this and using up a few minutes I was still able to get the majority of questions completed, think I missed the last 2 on the wordy one and just as I was about to hit submit for the final math one, the time ran out. I was surprised by this and well chuffed, will be surprised though if I get through to the next stage, mostly because of the wordy one, think I got most of them wrong but the math one I feel I done pretty well in.
Today I have been very sweaty but this could be due to the increase in temperature outside, but I don't really like it, it doesn't help with knowing when things are bad, at least I was able to tell when my legs where freezing, sore head and the blooming pains. Things have settled down now as I'm about to go get dinner sorted. have a good evening.