When I first started going to Worcester to get my bag changed, the chemotherapy patients had their own waiting room deep inside the suite that treats both haematology and chemotherapy patients. The two groups of patients both checked in with a single receptionist, and then the haematology patients waited in the main waiting room, whose […]
The main news of the week is that it seems likely that I have finished my chemotherapy, after five cycles instead of six. The decision taken on Wednesday was actually to take a fortnight’s break from the chemotherapy, including the 5-FU in the bag, and to wait until after we see the results of a […]
I went to Worcester for my bag change today, and to decide whether or not I was going to go in to Cheltenham for the sixth cycle. There was a long delay because only the registrar was there and the consultant was dealing with a problem elsewhere. We waited for nearly an hour on one […]
I’ve had two blood transfusions in the last two weeks, and I thought it might be interesting to describe them and their effects. On both occasions I was given two units of red blood cells to counteract a low blood count, whose effects were mostly that I had no energy at all and was constantly […]
This has been a rough week. I have felt unwell for most of it, with temperature fluctuations that left me alternately shivering and uncomfortably warm. On Wednesday the consultant decided that I had an infection, and that it needed hospital treatment, so Gillian took me down to Cheltenham. I had had a blood test in […]
I’m home from hospital at last. I’ve been given some pretty strong antibiotics (Augmentin) and some mineral supplements as some of my blood numbers were a little low, and I’ve been on intravenous antibiotics while I was in hospital, so I’m quite tired now. I’ll blog more fully about my status tomorrow, when I shall […]
Gillian and a friend drove down to the hospital, bringing my laptop, some books, and several changes of clothes last night. Unfortunately the hospital is closed to visitors, because of an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting virus on several of the wards — not mine, thank goodness — so they weren’t able to stay for […]
In this image you can see a scan of my torso from the back, on the left and the front, on the right. In the left hand image, right in the middle of the chest there is a dark spot. That is the tumour on my T8 vertebra showing as a “hotspot” in this bone […]
I apologise for the delayed status report. I wasn’t feeling too bad yesterday morning and afternoon, so I left blogging until the evening. Unfortunately my back got a lot worse so that by then I didn’t feel up to doing anything at all. In fact, the whole of the week has been dominated by my […]
Today I had my second dose of radiotherapy, prescribed to address the back pain I have been experiencing lately. I thought I ought to describe what happened, as it was all new to me. This was meant to be palliative therapy rather than curative therapy, so it may well differ in detail from others’ experiences, […]
