Well, I am just over the half-way mark. There has been both good and bad. The bad, quite briefly, is that I get lost in the system every week. When I turn up, they are always surprised to see me and I am never on their lists. That said, they sort it out and I am given treatment. I was, this week, moved to speak to the ward manager who has promised to sort it out. There have been no scans yet, but I have seen my consultant twice and he has decided that the growth of the tumours has slowed or stopped, which is good, because they were increasing at a rate. He won’t, therefore, be interrupting the chemo to deliver radiotherapy. Good news. I was reading the regime information again last night and it was explaining apologetically that hair loss and a couple of other nasty side effects are inevitable. Not so! In fact I am growing my hair back because I have not lost one. I am also avoiding a whole list of other problems, which is making this a lot easier. My pain levels are up again, at the base of my back, and if I forget to take the pain killers during the day, and I do that regularly, I seriously know about it and all activity needs to cease until I take them and they kick in. This can take over an hour. Shall I set my phone alarm? Maybe stop thinking about it and just do it?
The family are all well. Martha regularly advises me to ‘take a chill pill,’ to which I reply, ‘Whatever..’ Is this the right response? Joel is doing well at school, especially in the art of conversation and has been practising answering questions. He had one the other day with his teacher, Sarah:
Sarah: Why is the lion trapped?
Joel: He’s sad..
Sarah: Why is he sad?
Joel: He’s scared.
Sarah: What’s making him scared?
Joel: Stop talking, Sarah.
If only we could end our conversations like that..
We are off to bask in sunny Scotland now. We’ll try and get some photos to post on here when we get back.
