Chemo Cycle 4: Days 1 & 2

Woo!  I am 2/3 of the way through, thank goodness!  I won't bother writing a separate blog about the end of cycle 3 as it was quite nice, Muse were fabulous and I had no major symptoms.  So I will start off with how yesterday went...

Day 1:  Saw the consultant who confirmed that my drugs were to be changing from FEC to something else (don't remember the name).  However, she said that if I hadn't been sick so far, these drugs were unlikely to chage that - if anything, they may be a bit better.  She also confirmed that I needed stitches removed in the Hickman line (yuck) and said that she would ensure that the day unit knew. 

Went through to the day unit and finally was shown through into the public area.  I mentioned about the stitches needing to be removed - bearing in mind they were in the chest area and I didn't fancy stripping in front of everyone - and they seemed surprised, even though I had heard the nurse talking to them!  Argh.  And to give an idea of how far away the two units are, I would estimate about 15 metres.  Double argh.  So I managed to get into a private room.  I was hooked up with no problems, told it would be about an hour and then the nurse said she would remove my stitches.  I panicked.  I don't know why though - I have had stitches removed before and know it doesn't hurt, but I did.  But the nurse was great and talked me down and tried as much as possible to relax me, and finally the stitches were removed.

And then I started feeling yuck. I couldn't concentrate on my oh so difficult Grazia and I couldn't play on my phone.  I felt sick but not sick (I know) and spinney*.  I was lying back, but felt like I was going to fall down.  I felt hot and cold.  It was awful.  I was literally counting down the minutes until it was over.  They then flushed me out and I felt a tiny bit better but ugh it was horrible.  DH took me home after we had to faff about for my next appointment and I went straight to bed.

Day 2:  Woke up feeling more refreshed but still tired.  My mum is here, so she took DD1 to school and DH took DD2 to nursery, so we had quite a relaxing morning.  Until I looked at my drugs and realised that one was missing.  So I phoned up the day unit who said 'oh yes, here it is in our fridge.'  Another argh.  So when DH came home early to take me to the radiotherapist, we had to first go to the main hospital to collect those drugs.  So about 40 mins to get those and then say, 25 to get back to the local hospital in time for my radiotherapy appointment.

And yes, I am going to need 5 weeks of radiotherapy, starting the end of November.  They will give me 3-4 weeks after the last chemo to recover and then I start that, every week day.  And yes, that means I will be having to go in over the Christmas holidays, although I was told Christmas day is a Saturday so I won't have to actually go in that day (not that I think I would whatever day it happened to fall on, but you never know) thank goodness.  PITA.

I'm not sure what to do about work though, as apparently you don't really get many symptoms from radiotherapy apart from tiredness.  (My friend pointed out though, if I am going to have to do that blooming drive every day, of course I will be tired!)  So I think I will see how I feel and take it from there.

Boo hiss to cancer.

*spinney in my world - how one feels when the world is spinning around, similar to dizzy.  It is not a bushy copse.