Christmas cheer

I blame Christmas. Thats why there hasn’t been a blog from me for ages. The chemo is still really tiring but when I’m feeling well, the best thing in the world is just enjoying doing ordinary stuff. I’ve even made my own Christmas pudding vodka!

Okay, it’s not just Christmas thats got in the way. I also had an emergency stay in hospital. A little while ago I suddenly became very ill in the middle of the night. It wasn’t long after a session of chemo. I had hours of severe pain and then I started vomiting. Sorry this is another blog post about being sick!

I couldn’t even get out of bed. Instead I was using the plastic bin in my bedroom. I’d actually bought it thinking that one day it may have an alternative use.

As I’ve had so much of this, I knew it was different this time. This was something much worse that the normal awful. Speaking to one of my consultants on the phone it was clear I would have to go into A and E. The moment when being ill turns into an unexpected hospital visit is scary. You get used to coping with being poorly but when you need proper medical help, it turns the situation into something much more stressful.

30 hours later and I was still vomiting. By this point the only thing coming out was bile. I was too ill to sit up in my uncomfortable hospital bed. Moving made things worse. Instead I was lying on my side, resting my head on a cardboard sick bowl, in place of a pillow. When I needed to throw up I just had to turn my face into the bowl. This is genius, I thought to myself, as I filled another bowl.

Genius??? It was only a few days afterwards when I’d stopped vomiting that I realised just how bad I must have been to think something like that. Drips and drugs helped me to improve. My parents brought in some of my post so I managed to make my stack of sick bowls look a little bit festive.

Almost a week later and I was out of hospital. No one was quite sure what exactly made me so ill but it wasn’t anything serious thankfully. As a veteran of getting bad news, I can’t tell you just how relived I was.

The problem was probably something to do with my stomach lining becoming inflamed. Apparently the correct medical term for my horrific sickness is that it was….”just one of those things.” Excellent.

Since getting out of hospital, I’ve had another dose of chemo and I’m fine. I managed to make the Christmas pudding vodka above. It wasn’t that which put me in hospital!

I have all the usual nonsense that goes with chemo of course. But that’s alright. That’s more than alright. I’m alive and feeling (relatively) well. I’m so looking forward to celebrating another Christmas with the people I love.

Happier New Year

This may seem a bit late but pretty much most of Christmas and the New Year has passed me by. There were some lovely moments however far too much of the last few weeks have been a blur of illness, aches and a throat full of the most painful mouth ulcers.

When it gets this bad you have to pause your life. Most of the stuff you want to do just doesn’t happen. You have a constant exhaustion. Meanwhile it seems like everything around you just carries on as normal. Recently there have been some wonderful comments on my blog. Thank you. I’m sorry that I don’t have the energy to reply right now but they’re all read and apperciated.

The three weeks recovery time after chemo no 5 are always the worst because it’s the penultimate load of drugs. The build up of toxic chemicals is horrific. There is no real chance to recover before the final session. Somehow chemo no 6 doesn’t seem quite so awful as you know that the treatment is over. At least for the time being.

So it was on Christmas Eve that I had chemo no 5. This was exactly a year after being told that the disease I’d thought I’d fought off was advanced and would kill me someday soon. What is it about my cancer that ensures I spend Christmas Eve at hospital??

This year there were no mince pies as we waited. It didn’t matter as I’m not allowed to eat on the morning of my chemo anyway. But there was some Christmas cheer on the ward. Especially as my friend Chantal brought along some festive flowers.

I saw the same lovely consultant as the year before. I’ve been her patient for so long. We have shared some Incredible highs….she gave me the all clear from my ever first lot of cancer. And more recently, some terrible lows…on Christmas Eve 2012 she explained that I may only have months to live.

But Christmas Eve 2013 seemed so much more positive. The latest test results were encouraging and showed that the chemo was giving my latest tumour a good kicking. Most importantly I was still alive! Still able to sit in that small, bright room and talk about my future. On the way out I gave my consultant a hug. I thanked her for helping to prolong my life. There’s not many people you can say that to!

It wasn’t great being in hospital at that time of year. But at least we were all able to leave at the end of the day. There was a unique feeling that we had something special waiting for us when the treatment finished. Normally all you have to look forward to is projectile vomiting and a chemo hangover.

Even my bag of drugs had a Christmassy look. As they slipped into my veins I had a dreamless doze under a thin, blue blanket. When I woke up it was time for Christmas.

That night, when we got back, I slept in my own home. I’ve now properly moved to the countryside. Thats no 1 and 2 that I’ve been able to tick off my List for Living! It means I’ve stayed alive long enough to do the most important on my list. As I fell asleep I was happy that this Christmas Eve was much better than the last one.

Chemo no 4

If you’ve never experienced chemotherapy then you should consider yourself incredibly lucky. It is really, truly, one of the worst things I’ve ever had to go through.

I’m now just over half way through my current course of treatment. What makes it so bad is that it builds up in your system. This cumulative effect makes each evil chemo cocktail more horrific than the last one. This stage is also tough because I’m still a while off from finishing.

It seems like ages ago that I had chemo no 4. It’s taken me more than a week to start to feel sort of normal.

My normal is very different these days. It means I feel okay. I’m not stuck in bed. I’m not throwing up. I’m not feeling too emotional. I can walk without too much pain. That’s my new normal.

Despite this I still quite enjoy the actual chemo day itself. As usual I had lovely friends there to help distract me. They came armed with some very thoughtful presents. So Chemo no 4 went quickly.

But within hours, I could feel that the poison was working. This doesn’t usually happen so fast. Over the next few days it got worse. It seemed like I was tumbling into a deep pit of misery. My body and my head hurt so badly. There was intense tiredness and nausea and all sorts of other horribleness. It took four days to hit rock bottom. It was a very dark, bleak place and it took far too long to leave.

Now, I’m out and suddenly it’s almost Christmas. When you go through cancer treatment you kinda dip in and out of life. You lose track of time.

Luckily I have something to remind me about 25^th December. My next session of chemo is on Christmas Eve. It’s not the most festive of things to do. But I’m still here. And this time last year I wasn’t sure that I would be.

Back again

I never thought this would happen so soon. I had hoped to have a cancer-free Christmas but that’s not to be. I have another tumour lurking inside me.

I start another round of chemotherapy today. I’ll have it every three weeks. It’ll mean a chemo session on Christmas Eve.

Of course, I knew that it was likely. When you have advanced cancer like mine you’re told to expect it to keep coming back, each time quicker than the last.

My last chemo ended in May. I arranged my next check-up at the very end of August. I wanted to leave it as long as possible, but not too long, if that makes sense. In the weeks leading up to the hospital date my body was full of pain. I feared the cancer had not just come back but it had spread. What the doctors call metastasis. One of the most evil words you’ll ever hear as a patient.

Two weeks before the appointment I had a blood test. It was taken after a busy day at work. I felt so alive, surely, I thought to myself I must be okay.

But no. The result was bad. It was no longer the perfect ten, the score had almost doubled. There and then I had to repeat the test. When the result came back the number had doubled again. It seemed like my worst fears were coming true.

Later a scan confirmed that the cancer was active again. It turns out that my new tumour is small and thin and not too far away from the last one. Along with sadness, anger and frustration there was some relief that it hadn’t spread. Apparently a lot of the pain was caused by stress and scar tissue.

Now that I know what’s causing the pain, it hardly hurts at all. I don’t look like I’m ill and I don’t feel it either. This is the best I’m going to be until next spring so I’m celebrating that with a picture.

After my diagnosis last Christmas Eve when I found out that my cancer had become incurable I was told to get my affairs in order which I sort of did but not really. You don’t want to think that you really have to. However now I’m more prepared. Last week I wrote my will. That was a hard day.

So here we go with more chemo. Uggggh. It’s all exactly the same. It makes me want to cry being back again so soon. The same walk along the dolphin corridor to the treatment centre. Seeing the same lovely nurses. Sitting in the same chair. Having the same side effects for the same anti-cancer drugs. Being pumped full of the same steroids. And losing my hair once more.

But I do have something very special on my side that’s making me smile and it’s not just James Bond.

Along with the conventional chemo, I’m also taking part in a clinical trial. I’ll take a tablet every day which could make the chemo more effective and stabilise my cancer. It’s very exciting as the results of the trial so far are looking very good. It’s having hope that’s keeping me going and got me out of bed this morning. Now I’m just waiting for it all the begin.

Stupid, stupid cancer. You have no idea how much of a kicking you’re about to get.

Chemo#15

Merry Christmas from the chemo ward! I’m not sure why but the coffee cups now come with a seasonal greeting.

The weird thing is that it could well be Christmas for all I know. When you’re going through intensive treatment which lasts for such a long stretch, time seems to be elastic. Months melt into each other. You lose track of the seasons. Each week is pretty much the same and mostly spent inside.

The first ever time that I had chemo more than 11 years ago I found this so hard. I really missed the elements in a way I never could have imagined. I longed to feel the rain on my face, to get cold waiting for a bus.

It wasn’t until then that I understood how much the weather helps you to feel alive. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. In fact I think that bad is better.

That’s why one of the things on my original List for Living was to experience extreme weather. And I certainly did that. When I was based abroad as a foreign correspondent I lived through some of the coldest temperatures on record. There was plenty of snow, ice and all sorts of wonderful wintery weather. Perhaps that explains how come I’m not quite so worried about being disconnected from the weather during this lot of treatment.

Even so, I do what I can to be out in the elements. Before chemo#15 I had lunch outside with my friend Anna. I wanted to absorb as much of the sunshine as I could before an afternoon in the not-so-great indoors.

Once on the ward, watching the sunlight bounce off the bricks, was as good as it got. This kind of view only adds to the feeling of your life being put on pause. But last week I found out that I’d actually managed to turn back time.

To make sure that the toxic drugs aren’t doing too much harm to your body you have various tests. One horrible side effect is that it can seriously damage your bones. A while ago I had a scan to check their density. I’ve now discovered that amazingly I have the bones of a 20 year old!

At hospital there was some more good news. I was told that I won’t have the week of chemo which I missed tagged onto the end of my treatment. It means that I’ll finish in just over a week as planned. It’s like getting a week back which is brilliant. I’m so incredibly overwhelmingly tired of it all.

I’m relieved that my third series of anti-cancer treatment will be over soon. I always seem to have chemo at the same time of year. With bank holidays and the start of spring I know that once again, it will be over soon.

There’s another sign that it won’t be long ’til the end of chemo – Sasha the dog has had her winter coat trimmed. She is all ready for lots of sunny days outdoors where once again she’ll be helping me to recover from the past few months.