Happy bones

Today I had my pre-chemo catch up with my oncologist, Dr S___, as my next session is on Monday. She wanted to know how I found things the first time around, so I referred to my symptom diary and asked her some of the questions I'd been saving up. She is really happy with how things are going and I'm ready for round two! I shall enjoy my last weekend of relatively high energy levels before being whacked back down to the ground on Monday. She also had the results of my bone scan, and happily they have come back clear, so the cancer has not spread to my bones. Unfortunately, however, she did not have the results of my CT scan, so I have to wait a little longer for those. St Bart's has had a complete and utter computer system failure! Their computers have been down for 10 days and everything is being handwritten at the moment, causing quite a backlog. It's astonishing how such a large and important hospital can be offline for such a long time. They could learn a thing or two about disaster recovery from our Head of Data and Business Technology at work. She said that patients have been having their chemo cancelled and wards are running very behind with everything. I hope it doesn't affect my session on Monday. Hopefully I will get my CT results next time I see her. In the meantime I'm happy with my cancer-free bones.

After visiting my oncologist, I also had to have more blood taken, which will be tested and sent to the chemo ward in advance of Monday. This will happen for each round of my treatment, as they have to check all the different levels in my blood to make sure they have recovered enough from the last round for me to be able to take some more. As long as I can get up off the ground before the referee counts down from 10-1, I can get back in the ring. Given that my current chemo end-date is mid-September, which feels like an age away, I'm hoping nothing delays any stage of my treatment. At least I'm slowly getting used to needles, and finding good breathing methods to ensure I don't faint again.

Other than that, the side effects have faded somewhat since my first session. My hair, which we had shaved to about 3mm, has continued to fall out, although it's much less distressing when it's just tiny little stubble. Each morning in the shower I rub my head with a facecloth and loads of little hairs come off onto the cloth. I'd say about 85% of it has gone now, and there are just some stubborn ones that are clinging on. Hilariously, the cowlick at the front is still there, a spiky patch of stubble, just as unruly as it was when it hid beneath my fringe. It sticks out of the scarves I'm wearing on my head, prickly to the touch, and I wouldn't be surprised if it clung on to the bitter end. The nausea has completely gone, and my tastebuds and food cravings are almost back to normal, but I'm still quite fatigued, and I'm not sleeping very well. Dr S___ isn't going to give me anything to help me sleep just yet, she's encouraging me to try to drink as much as I can in the mornings and ease off towards the evenings, in the hope that I won't need to get up in the night to pee. We shall see. I'm still incredibly dehydrated all the time, drinking pints and pints of water all day. I've also got lots of little tubes of hand cream (many of them gifts from you lovely people, thank you!) that are strategically placed all over the house, in every bag I own, in my desk drawer at work... I'm never more than 2 paces away from some handcream! I'm also moisturising my almost-bald head. My scalp is going to be treated so well while it's exposed, by the time my hair starts growing back it will be in such wonderful condition.

My mum is coming down to London on Monday, to look after me in my first few days after the next chemo, and give Tanai a bit of a break. This is great timing, as he has disappeared into a bit of a mental vortex: he made a huge scientific discovery a few days ago and is so excited about it, he's frantically trying to write up his findings and get them published. (He did try to explain it to me, but it went completely over my head.) He's extremely distracted at the moment which is fine when I am doing well, but it will be good to have mum around next week to make sure I'm okay!

Not much more to report. I'll check in again after treatment and let you know how I get on.