Chemo, snow and waiting.....

Hi everyone....... I have at last started my treatment.

When I saw the snow yesterday, my heart sank. It was thick, as British snow goes, and soon made all the roads a slippery mess.

You Canadians will wonder why this should happen. Well Britain, (England anyway), is never ready for the snow.

When it pitched, the roads were un-gritted and everything came to a halt.

Very selfishly, I was only worried about getting my treatment.

I got up very early in the morning and my husband de iced daughter's car for her. She hates driving in the snow. However once we got out onto the main road, it wasn't too bad.

We found ourselves in the Hospital car park and there was no place you could park without paying an extortionate amount, which for cancer patients, some of them going in everyday, is a great hardship.

The nurse struggled to find a vein that didn't collapse and as I noticed my daughter going a funny colour, she was pleased when I told her I could manage on my own. I was much more worried about the snow than anything else I experienced.

The infusions took a long time to go in, and I was there well over six hours.

They gave me lunch and I had taken lots of things to do. However I was surprised the simple crosswords in the book I had brought seemed suddenly very difficult and I realised that my brain was not as capable of solving easy puzzles. When the chemical was flushed out of the tube in my hand, I started to be able to do the puzzles again, but I am making lots of typos that I am having to put right and I had to think really carefully how to put the signature on the post. I haven't worried about a picture this time. So I think that my brain has been affected already.

All in all, I was surprised how I could eat tonight although I do feel tired.

I have got lots of pills to take and I have lots of dos and don'ts ...... a long list of them.

Thank you to all who have emailed me and for everyones' support.

I will get round to answering soon.

I will have to play it by ear, but I have had enough for today. Will keep you posted.

Diagnosis

Photo copyright: Maggie May

I have come back from the hospital after a three hour wait for the results of the scan.

My chemotherapy will start in two weeks time.

I will have to have two different chemicals dripped into my body over a period of four hours. This will be repeated every three weeks until six sessions have been completed. Half way through, I will have a scan to see if the tumours are shrivelling. Yes....... they found two more tiny ones behind my stomach.

I will lose my hair, eyelashes and eyebrows as well as any other hair that might be lurking about.

Strange thing is...... they still don't know where this cancer has come from and probably never will. I have probably not had it long. It is unusual for this to happen, but then I am an extraordinary person.

I cannot work in a school because my immune system will get very low. I must also not be in charge of the grandchildren as I will not feel well enough. That will be a blow to my family but cannot be helped. I am fighting for my life here so need to only think of myself.

If all goes well I will be in remission by May.

I hope you will all bear with me if I don't comment as much after the next two weeks. It will all depend on how I feel.

I will live from day to day and as I said before, I don't want this to be a cancer blog. I hope to be able to write about other things too.