LFG BQ

Guess who's back? 5am blog club! And this one is a special one... Today marks 100 days since I started chemotherapy. It feels simultaneously like the click of my fingers and 1000 days ago that I walked in to the Combined Day Unit having absolutely no idea what to expect; the instantaneous taste in my mouth, the red wee from one of the drugs (only for a few hours, don’t worry!), feeling like a zombie extra from the Walking Dead for 48 hours and the now infamous 4am steroid club of course. It has and continues to be a ride! My hair has stabilised but my eyebrows are gradually (quickly!) disappearing which is an odd experience. My facial hair is even more patchy than usual - blonde on my face, dark and much thicker on my neck. Bizarre. I feel tired and drawn out but the light at the end of the tunnel gets that bit bigger each day. 100 days means eight rounds are ticked off leaving only four to go. That in itself is quite the thing to get my head round. But the countdown is truly on - ...

It’s 5am, round 7 was yesterday. That can only mean one thing… it’s a steroid-powered blog baby! I’ve been thinking about what to write and I’m going to try and keep the update to how I’m doing to a minimum. I’m doing ok, it’s more of the same and I’m progressively more tired. But we’re 7 rounds in now, which means we have truly broken the back of this beast with only (ONLY! Ha) 5 rounds to go.  Round 6 was just before Christmas and I did a deal with the devil to get me to and through the big day relatively ok, which I then paid for with a good 5-6 days of pure misery evoked by hellacious stomach cramps. I spoke to the consultant earlier in the week who said the Vinblastine element of the AVD cocktail can play havoc with the nerve endings in your bowel. WONDERFUL. Thanks for the warning pal. In any case, I’ve been prescribed some heavy duty Buscopan to counter it when it lands this time round.  *It is worth noting I did have A LOT of turkey over the festive period, but I’m gon...