£1615 in 4 days! How amazingly wonderful is that, plus a little 10 year old girl called Grace is shaving her head too!
A big thank you to everyone who has donated so far and to Grace and Emily who started all this off, you are truly awesome. xx
My left arm was still very bruised from the previous week so they had to inject the radioactivity into a vein on my right arm instead. I then had three hours to wander round Chichester whilst drinking plenty of water before returning to the hospital for a bone scan. I had to lie still for 45 minutes without moving or talking, on a bed which moved along underneath the scanner. It starts with a big square plate lowering down to about an inch from your nose and then it feels like the scanner is moving very slowly down your body to your feet where it spins round and goes along underneath you back to your head. Actually it is the bed that moves and it took me half an hour to work this out! It was just extremely boring. That's all I can say about it!
My left arm was still very bruised from the previous week so they had to inject the radioactivity into a vein on my right arm instead. I then had three hours to wander round Chichester whilst drinking plenty of water before returning to the hospital for a bone scan. I had to lie still for 45 minutes without moving or talking, on a bed which moved along underneath the scanner. It starts with a big square plate lowering down to about an inch from your nose and then it feels like the scanner is moving very slowly down your body to your feet where it spins round and goes along underneath you back to your head. Actually it is the bed that moves and it took me half an hour to work this out! It was just extremely boring. That's all I can say about it!
Two days later I'm back
in hospital to meet with the nurses. I didn't think it would be a big
deal as it was just another chat but there were more shocks in store.
They keep throwing things at me so I keep going back into my shock
bubble so I can absorb the information and deal with it. They
discussed side effects of the different drugs I will be taking - feeling hot, dizzy, metallic taste in mouth, pain near injection site, red urine, burning/stinging sensation when passing urine, anaemia, bruising easily, nosebleeds, vomiting, nausea, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers, extreme tiredness, inability to concentrate or think clearly, sore eyes, runny nose, sore or red skin, rashes, especially on palms and soles of feet, darkening or ridges on nails, sensitive skin to the sun, hair loss, infertility, numbness and tingling hands and feet, fluid retention, weight gain, painful muscles and joints, and rarely, changes in your heart and blood pressure or an allergic reaction within minutes. I will also be given
steroids which I'm really not happy about.
I will have virtually
no immune system as the chemo attacks the bone-marrow so I have to
avoid anyone who is ill, even with a cold. If my temperature goes
above 37.5 degrees I have to drop everything (even if it's the middle
of the night) and go straight to hospital within the hour for
antibiotics and maybe stay in for a day. Again – single mum, 3
kids, no car, how the ….!
Then we moved onto how
they administer the drugs. Finding a vein each time you have chemo
can leave your arms black and blue and destroys the veins so you
would need six good veins usually in the same arm furthest from the
cancer. The alternative is having a PICC line, (peripherally inserted
central catheter) a tube going into a vein in your arm which goes up
and round to the artery near your heart. Where the tube comes out of
your skin, there is a special cap that can be attached to a drip or
syringe. Sometimes there is a clamp to keep the tube closed when it
isn't in use. This is all done under local anaesthetic with an
ultrasound followed by an x-ray. It is taped up to your arm and left
in place for the 18 weeks of chemotherapy. I will have to have a
nurse round once a week to flush it through and I have to keep it dry
every time I have a shower or bath by wrapping it in clingfilm and
taping the top and bottom. I also need to be very careful when I
sleep.
I went round to the
chemo ward and it was full of elderly people in their 60's sitting in
big red cushioned chairs that recline. No privacy. Nothing
interesting to look at. Very clinical. Not a nice atmosphere. I felt very very young.
Too young for this to be happening to me. I can't believe in four
days I will be sitting there having a line put in and two days later
having toxic chemicals pumped into me.
Every shock makes me
feel very drained. Again I really didn't feel like taking the kids to
their clubs but I managed to find some energy from somewhere. After
we got home I read a special book to the boys about a mummy with
cancer and tried to hold back the tears as I explained to them I
would be going through the same thing and in a few weeks I would have
no hair. Tayvah said I could get a long blue wig. I gave him a cuddle
and told him I loved him and how well he is doing at school and Soo
Bahk Do (karate). He is a clever boy. He is only six and can count to
10 in Korean. Fyhren seemed quite happy studying the book for a long
time. He was four a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how much he
understood.
