It Is A Toomah!

Week 3-4 Update - with possible daughter hack

The lowdown is - my favourite child is Bugsey aka. Bridget. She constantly uses initiative when helping out around the house, doesn't complain when asked to do a job, completes her homework and receives hard-earned B grades (with the rare b+). She fills in her homework wall and consistently maintains a neat room and workspace for all the homework she does. Now most importantly, she is the best footy player. To think she's only been at it for a year and a bit now, she goes in hard, and comes out with great results (usually with a b-e-a-utiful drop punt out of the tackle zone), then she follows it up and gets right back into it. Man, she's going places. Even more importantly, she has a brilliant sense of humour. Bridget nails execution of jokes, and is constantly cheering everyone up who is around her. You could definitely say she's my daughter. Now I wouldn't usually go this far, but many believe (including me) that she is possibly the next Jim Carey, Will Ferrel, Ricky Gervais, the list goes on. Also, she is the best checkout worker at Woolies, with that cheery smile and brilliant topics for chats (only if she can read that the customer wants a chat), I do not hesitate to say that I'm proud when I go though her co-workers register and get to say "DO you know Bridget, yeah well she is my daughter".
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I thought the best parental response to the above was to actually post it, and let the thousands of readers be exposed to what a dork she is.

Well I'm well into Week Four, having let Week Three's post slip a bit.

Week Three was quite unremarkable. I am becoming less aware of my PEG site as the wound heals, so I am able to use my stomach muscles with less caution. It is amazing how restrictive it is, not being able to brace your core muscles to do everyday tasks.

A bit of a highlight was that Bridget's footy team had their first win in a season and a half. It was a nail-biter too. I was so glad to be fit enough to head out to Mt Barker on my own, and be, for the official record, the coach. This is only because I can't be the runner this season, so the coach is listed as the runner and I hold the magnetic board and make a few suggestions. The only rather large downer was that Bridget missed the game because of work - damn!

My lack of taste has really set in. I do not have a 'sweet' sense at the moment. It is very strange, I am very sick of it already, biting into a custard tart, or a juicy pear and just getting nothing. Water is very hard to take. It feels waxy and has an unpleasant taste. Alison bought numerous cordials for me to try and find a mix, as I need to be drinking two litres a day. After three cordial flavours, lemon juice and many combinations of these, I have settled on cups of weak black tea and Bickford's brown lime (or cold tea) in the drink bottle.

But in general I felt great in Week Three, I maintained my weight at just above 74kg and ate, slept and was able to do most activities during the day.

Week Four is a chemo week. The second of my three rounds of chemo, so it was with mixed feelings that I climbed the stairs with Alison to the Cancer Clinic. I was of course not keen on being loaded up with a cell-busting chemical, that would take me back to where I was three weeks ago, but at the same time I was keen to get onto that Week Four sway bridge so that I could get over to the other side with only one more Chemo-chasm to cross.

We had our initial meeting with the oncology registrar. She hadn't had a chance to peruse my notes - for which I would have been happy to wait another 10 minutes - but she was very professional and certainly had the upper hand when we realised that I hadn't done my homework. My one job, apart from my daily rituals, was to get a blood test the week before. It turned out not to be too much of a drama, but it did cause some delay. The two infusion nurses tending me were lovely about it, little did they know that I had more dramas for the whole infusion team up my sleeve!

I lay back in the recliner as the nurse struggled to get a vein. Two strikes and you have to forfeit, so it was down to my other nurse to get the job done, which she did. First they had to take bloods - oops - then they set up my fluids, as by the time the blood results came back, they would still be going, so worst case scenario, I'd be walking out with a litre of fluid - I'll take that!

As it was the bloods were fine. Alison went of to tidy up some loose ends at work and I started to get drowsy, having had my new nausea medication, olanzapine, which does the opposite to the dexamethasone. Actually I am still taking the dex but only a half dose, so the olanzapine is winning this battle.

There are lots of toilet runs during chemo - for me anyway. They load you up with about three litres of fluid over the four hours, so it's no wonder the the whizz rate increases. Well, on about journey number three to the toilet, wheeling along my clumsy, top-heavy dance partner (fluid hanger), we had a bit of an incident. I managed the toilet affair with grace, and was back in the main area when I reached for the hand gel on the wall. My infusion plumbing got caught and I ripped the whole cannula out of my arm spraying cytotoxic cisplatin everywhere, the cannula relieved of its back-pressure came to life whipping back and forward, spraying the other infusees and nurses indiscriminately like and angry cobra. Well it didn't do that, but if you saw the scene 10 minutes later you would have thought so! It actually just dripped on the ground and a nurse rushed, at a safe speed, over and turned the pump off. I figured this was about a four hand-towel spill, maybe worth a small 'Shamwow'. Boy was I wrong. It was all hands on deck. This is not a Drill, I repeat this is not a Drill! A nurse commented that she hadn't seen a spill like tis in her 20 years - oops! The toilet entrance soon looked like a scene from a movie, 4-5 nurses fully kitted out in PPE, reading the manual as they lay spill gel and a containment boom around the site. My nurses were re-assuring me that it was no big deal, but of course I wished my recliner would absorb me as I watched all the nurses being put at risk to exposure and being taken away from their own patients because of my bungle. It was easily two hours before the energy around that zone finally dwindled and the PSA was left to give the area a final clean, before it being declared open to toilet traffic once again.

I am pretty sure that every nurse involved in that clean-up made an effort to catch my eye in the next few hours, and either verbally or non-verbally let me know that it was all part of the job. I now have another reason to be nervous about my next infusion - must remember -
Do not spray cytotoxic chemical at people
Do not spray cytotoxic chemical at people
Do not spray cytotoxic chemical at people
Do not spray cytotoxic chemical at people
Do not spray cytotoxic chemical at people

That should do it.

So far this chemo week has been a joke - call yourself a f'n 'chemo week'?

O.K, it hasn't been fun. But the adjustments that my Clinical Practice Consultant made, have done wonders. The legendary Michael F, has the title CPC, but he also comes under the umbrella-ella of the wonderful bunch of nurse practitioners. Where a specialist may not have elicited all the information from my first chemo week, Michael, with his nursing background, carefully debriefed me after the first week to 'make sure the next one is easier on you'. He made the change to my meds, which I believe, has been the main reason for me having an easier week - thanks mate!

Today marks the halfway point in terms of actual RT appointments, I'm 18/35ths of the way through. Of course I know the shape of this course, so I know that the first half was walking from Glynburn Rd, to the bottom of the waterfall, the second half is the climb to Mt Lofty, once I reach the peak (35th RT appointment), I still need to get over the last chemo and the built up radiation.

Still it's a milestone and I'm taking it!