Month: September 2005

I'm booked in for my third session of chemo tomorrow.  I freaked out last week when my consultant told me it would be a different chemotherapy agent than the Idarubicin  I've had in my two previous treatments.  My immediate reaction was "I haven't lost my hair, my eyebrows, by eye lashes with Idarubicin – I don't want to lose them with another treatment – and I don't know how else I'll react."

I guess I was a big bit scared of the unknown.  After I found out I was grumpy and quiet (all just hiding the fact that I was a so worried about this change).  I met with the MacMillan nurse (Jeff) on the ward and he let me know that it is normal to change the chemotherapy agent – just like other drugs you can become resistant to an agent so it is better to mix it up a bit!  This did help me relax a bit. 

Read More

I am back in hospital again!  My chemo finally kicked in last week.  I felt really weak and my appetite just disappeared.  The solution to the appetite was to give me steroids! Steriods?…Do I really want to look like some kind of Russian womans' Olympian from the mid 80's?  I thought I might blow up and start growing hairs on my chin!  But I got a few injections and…wow…I felt like I could eat for Scotland…toast, cheese, noodles always hungry!  Problem one was kind of solved…

…and then I lost my sense of taste (which was a bit of blow since I'd really been enjoying my grub!)  Wednesday last week I started to feel really low and very tired.  I just couldn't do anything without gasping for air or feeling like I needed to lie down.  Charlie was in Glasgow on Thursday for a teacher meeting and didn't get back until about 11pm.  By this time, my temperature had rocketed, I'd picked up a tummy bug which made my insides churn and my mouth was really sore with mucusitis.  What a welcome home :-)  After, another hour of being unable to get off the toilet or get to sleep because of my temperature/mouth,  Charlie called the ward and I was admitted at about 2am in the morning.

Read More

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Let's hear it for the power of prayer.  I just want to post a small update to let you know that I got home on midnight Friday, just in time for my birthday!  I would have been home sooner but I had (another) allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics I was getting.  This time I turned red!  What next green with purple spots?

On my birthday I decided to completely shave my head.  I had little wispy bits of hair here and there, it was a bit of mess really.  Now I look like "Locke" from  "Lost" on Channel 4.  Have you been watching it…I think its fantastic and it the only T.V. that Charlie and I will sit down to watch (with our hectic lives!!).  In fact, we liked it so much we've got the DVDs from America and we're about five episodes ahead of Channel 4 now!  My birthday was a low-key affair but I did have a cake which the girls have pretty much demolished.

Read More