Funny

It's almost 5am, the birds are tweeting outside and I can't sleep. So what do I think about doing... post a funny!

I shouldn't find this amusing at the moment.... you'll see why when I do a proper update.

Four men were sitting around a conference room table being interviewed for a job.

The interviewer asked, 'What is the fastest thing you
know of?'

The first man replied, 'A thought.
It pops into your head, there's no forewarning that
it's on the way; it's just there.
A thought is the fastest thing I know of.'

'That's very good,' replied the interviewer.
'And now you, sir,' he asked the second man.

'Hmmm, let me see..... a blink!,' said the second man.
'It comes and goes and you don't know it ever happened.
A blink is the fastest thing I know of.'
'Excellent!', said the interviewer.
'The blink of an eye. That's a very popular cliché for speed.'

He then turned to the third man who was contemplating his reply.
'Well, out on my dad's ranch, you step out of the house and on the wall there is a light switch.
When you flip that switch, way across the pasture the light at the barn comes on in an instant.
Turning on a light is the fastest thing I can think of.'
The interviewer was very impressed with the third answer and thought he had found his man.
It's hard to beat the speed of light.', he said.
Turning to the fourth man, he posed the same question.
'After hearing the three previous answers, it's obvious to me the fastest thing known is diarrhoea,' he said.

'What!' said the interviewer, stunned by the response.
'Oh, I can explain, you see, the other day I wasn't feeling so well and ran for the bathroom.
But, before I could think, blink, or turn on the light, I shit my pants.'

He got the job.

Are you laughing? I know you are. Toilet humour - you can't beat it!


Have a good day wherever you are!

Weekend at last

Week 1 over and I was never so glad to get to Friday night. I definitely spoke too soon on Thursday morning about not feeling sick. By Thursday night I was beginning to feel really bad, couldn’t sleep because of the nausea, even with the anti-sickness pills and moved into the spare room so I could pace about without disturbing DK. On Friday morning, it took me a full hour to force down two crumpets, just so I could take the chemo tablets, and the feeling didn’t let up much all day. I can only describe it as a really bad hangover.

The District Nurse came to visit on Friday afternoon after I got home from hospital – did a bit of frantic tidying and hoovering before she came as they come to you to save you going to the surgery with the risk of picking up infection and I didn’t want her to think I’d have been better off taking my chances down there! She’s really lovely though, and I liked her straight away. Her speciality is cancer and she’s done some training with Dr Samuel, my consultant, which does make me feel a bit better about the circle of information. The one thing I can’t complain about is not having any support – if anything I’ve possibly got too much choice of people to go to, and I wasn’t sure how information got from the surgery to the hospital and vice versa, but it seems to work pretty well. We both got a chance to ask questions, which was great, and she’s going to find out on Monday what other anti-sickness tabs I can try. I’m also hoping that it was just the “double” dose of chemo this week that’s made it worse. From now on I’ll only have the tablets and no infusion – fingers crossed!

By Friday evening I had no energy at all and couldn’t even read as the words were making me feel dizzy. The District Nurse described it as someone leaving the tap on an draining all your energy away, and to be honest I can't think of a better description. Almost couldn’t face the last 7 chemo tablets of the week. Still, I know they’re the things that are going to make me better so it has to be done!

Did eventually manage to get to sleep at around 3 and woke up at 10 on Saturday morning, feeling a bit better, but still tired. By the time I’d got up, had a shower and got dressed I was wiped out and had to have a lie down again! It just feels wrong, but I suppose I’ll have to get used to it for now. Sat down and watched a DVD in the evening - Babel, with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. WHAT'S THAT ALL ABOOT THEN!!! We're going to have to Google it to try to find out. We kind of get the jist of it, but don't understand the relevance of some of the detail. Answers on a postcard...

Today, my folks came out with some soup (nothing better than your Mum’s home- made soup when you’re feeling bad!) My sister’s hubby also came out on his bike after being round to see her at her car boot sale, which was a nice surprise. Was starting to feel the effects again though, and once we’d had some lunch (tinned peaches and pears for me) and SD had gone to carry on with his trip, I’m ashamed to say I had to go and have a sleep again! Dad took the dog for a walk – ever keen to go as you can see from the photo below! And in the absence of any ironing to do (it’s a good standing-up job, so I’m keeping up with that pretty well) Mum helped out with some housework – very much appreciated even if it does make me feel really guilty.

My reading material this week has been Jane and Mike Tomlinson’s “The Luxury of Time”. Now I KNOW that reading about someone with cancer probably isn’t the best when you’re going through treatment yourself, and I’ve sobbed my way through parts of the book, but it was SO good! Bought at the charity shop last Saturday, finished on Thursday night/Friday morning when I couldn’t sleep, which I think is a record for me, even on holiday. There’s another book which takes over at the stage when she stared doing the iron man triathlons, which I’ll have to get at some point, but perhaps not just now… Highly recommended, but be prepared to cry. Next on the list is Kate Mosse, Labyrinth, a brick of a book which I think is going to take a little more than a week!

Three Down!

Couldn't get Blogger to upload the "apple 3" today, so will have to settle for the dog instead!

Well, halfway through my first week, and so far, not so bad. I felt queasy all day yesterday, probably because of the combination of both lots of chemo, but wasn't so sore which was a bonus.
Got a straight run into hospital, there were loads of parking spaces when we got there and was in, zapped and out again within half an hour, so hopefully that's how it'll be from now on.

I promised to go and visit my folks because although we speak every day, I'd not seen them since before my planning scan, so we went to see them in the afternoon and visited my aunt on the way to get a bit of a "fur fix" - their mad Westie puppy, very cute but with a cheeky wee face just looking for badness to do!

Didn't get such a good sleep last night - woke up at 3am and then every hour after that till I got up to have a bath at 7, so just waiting for the painkillers to kick in now. At least I don't feel sick today (so far anyway!) Nothing much else to report - it was nice to have a straighforward, uneventful day.

2 down, 27 to go! Thought I had some stars with numers on, but and apple will have to do! I was hoping to do an update after my first radiotherapy, but it turned into a loooong day and I was SORE at the end of it, so wasn’t much use in the evening.

First appointment was at 12.40 at the radiotherapy department, so we headed off just before 11.30. I knew it was going to be a bad day when the road in the village was blocked by a housebuilder unloading trusses right across the road so no-one could get past. First detour… Then we remembered that the main road to Aberdeen was supposed to be closed for roadworks, so rather than chance going that way we decided to take another detour, only to be caught up with a farmer moving beasts from field to field, with a queue of traffic behind them! Found out today that the road isn’t actually closed, so that was a needless detour, but never mind… We still made it to hospital with time to spare and 12.40 seems to be quite a good time for parking – just coming to the end of the morning clinics, lunch time and before afternoon visiting, so there were plenty of spaces.

Didn’t have long to wait for radiotherapy. The ladies in there are so nice, but they still manage to get loads of people done and out without too many delays. It didn’t seem to take them long to get me lined up for my two blasts of radiotherapy – one from the top and one from the bottom, I think about 10-15 seconds each. I’m lying on my back and just have to pull my undies down far enough for them to see the marks, but am covered up with some paper roll so not much loss of dignity – not that it makes much difference to me now!

Next it was up to Ward 15 to collect my chemo tabs. This is the day ward for all sorts of people who are having chemotherapy and were I would be for my infusion the following day, so it was quite good to be able to see it first. Bad timing though, it seemed to be really busy, together with lunch breaks so it was a while before I could catch anyone to ask about my prescription. It hadn’t arrived so they asked if we could go back in a couple of hours.

Used the time to go and get some shopping for DK at Sainsbury’s and bought some sushi for lunch – fish for him, veggie for me – we are TRYING to be healthy! A tiny bit of retail therapy for me at Holburn Crafts, then back to hospital for 3pm, and my prescription STILL hadn’t arrived from the pharmacy. Went to sit in reception and eventually it turned up at just after 4! I wouldn’t mind, but by that time I was getting really uncomfy and once that happens I find it difficult for the rest of the day. Enough moaning!

This is now what a theoretical intake of drugs for the day looks like:

Pile A are the “essentials” 7 chemo tabs (Capecitabine) to be taken in the with breakfast and dinner, and one antibiotic in the morning and another at night.

Pile B are the painkillers to be taken in and when needed, and up till now I’ve needed them all every day. I can actually take 8 of the evil wee yellow and green ones in a day, but if I take that many they make me sick, and I’d probably rather be sore.

Pile C are the “sundry extras” anti sickness tabs, anti constipation tabs and anti diahorrea tabs – all to be taken as and when needed, but so far not yet!

I’ve also got a mouthwash to use to try to prevent the mouth ulcers that can happen with the chemo.

Day 2 and we were back to Ward 15 at 11am – an hour later than originally told because they said the prescription probably wouldn’t be up by then. And surprise, surprise it hadn’t arrived by 11 either! Is it me?? We’re told to take a seat anywhere so after first sitting on a broken recliner (it IS me!!) we move over to the side of the Ward beside a bed where there’s a man lying asleep – seems to be having a blood transfusion. Finally manage to get comfy with my feet up and sitting on a pillow and settle down for the wait. Two hours later at 1 o’clock the chemo finally arrives – together with lunch! I didn’t think I’d be able to face food while getting the chemo but it was actually quite good to have the distraction of trying to eat soup and jelly left-handed while it was all going on in the other hand!

First got the canula inserted and had an anti-sickness drug fed through a syringe, followed by a steroid and then the chemo – Mytomycin. It looks bright purple in the syringe, but by the time it’s going through the tubes, it’s really light lilac, almost clear. Didn’t feel anything much, just cold going into my hand. All that just took about 15 minutes then I was hooked up to the hydration drip for it all to be flushed round. All in all, probably took about 45 mins, but then had to just sit for an hour to make sure I was OK. In the meantime DK went off to try to find something to eat at the hospital café (nae easy when you can’t eat wheat or dairy!) and a doctor came to speak to me about pain management – which although isn’t too bad during the day providing I’m not having to sit around too much, has been getting worse at night.

He said to try to take some more of the evil wee yellow and green tabs and also prescribed a local anaesthetic, which alarmingly comes in a syringe as it’s usually used for people who have to insert catheters, but I just have to use to rub on to the tumour area to help with the pain at night. So, after a trip to the pharmacy to collect the prescription managed to get off home.

I felt much better in the evening than I had the day before, and we went down to the park for a wee walk with the dog. My sister had been out in the afternoon to give him a walk, but she said he wasn’t that keen and “he wouldn’t poop”! Probably why he wasn’t keen – if he doesn’t need, he won’t go – especially during sleepy time during the day. We got a dud!

Even managed to get a decent sleep right though to 7.30 this morning, so the local anaesthetic seems to help. Back in today for 12.40, but should be a quick visit this time just for radiotherapy – fingers crossed!

A Bit of a Bummer.....!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything at all – not that I ever managed to do too much that was actually interesting enough to keep it up regularly anyway! However, although this was never intended for the eyes of anyone I actually knew in the real world, with everything that’s been going on recently it seems to be the easiest way to keep everyone up to date. Those who want to can check in from time to time and I don’t have to pester people who’d rather not know all the gory detail with emails.

Apologies to everyone who already knows everything to date, but I think a bit of background is probably needed for those people I’ve not been seeing regularly – including the few “cyber friends“ I’ve made if they’ve not given up on me by now!!

So, the story so far….. around Christmas time, I started bleeding when I was going to the loo - on and off, not all the time, I wasn’t in any pain and didn’t seem to have any other symptoms. I didn’t really want to go to the doctor and to be honest I thought it was probably haemorrhoids so I got some cream and thought it would sort itself out. By the end of February it had got worse and it was clear it wasn’t just going to go away, so I made an appointment with the doctor.

Monday 2nd March
First appointment with the doctor. He had a bit of a poke about and despite my embarrassment about the whole situation I knew from his reaction that it probably wasn’t just nothing. He asked me to go back for a proper examination later that week.

Thursday 5th March
Second appointment with the doctor. By this time I was getting over the embarrassment and just wanted to know what was wrong. He carried out a proper examination complete with proctoscopy (I think!) By this time I was also becoming aware of a small lump in my perineum (don’t know? – neither did I before all this – Google it!!), barely big enough to feel and not painful. I was referred to hospital and the doctor said I should get an appointment within two weeks.

Tuesday 10th March
Doctor phoned and asked me to to the surgery and have some blood samples taken because he said it would be quicker if the hospital already have the results when I get my appointment.

Thursday 12^th March
Hospital appointment arrives for the following Monday and I have my appointment with the practice nurse to have blood samples taken – the first of many!

Monday 16th March
First hospital appointment. We arrived in good time for my 10.30 appointment , but the waiting room was packed and a nurse came round to say that the consultant was running about half an hour late, so we settled ourselves for a bit of a wait. Finally after about an hour when people who came in much later than us seemed to have been seen first, a nurse came over to ask my name. I heard her go back to her colleague and say “she IS here!” Turns out that my appointment letter had been mislaid after I’d handed it into the reception so the nurses didn’t know I was there. When they realised, there were lots of apologies and I was whisked through to a consulting room. More poking by the consultant with a nurse and young lady doctor in attendance and he did apologise for having to do it when I must be sore! I was completely over the embarrassment by that time. I wasn’t at that point given a name for what I have, but the consultant did say that I’d be likely to need "a fair bit of treatment" and mentions chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He said that he would organise some more tests - CT and MRI scans, and an examination under anaesthetic and flexible sigmoidoscopy which he says will probably be the following week.

Tuesday 17th March
7pm got a phone call from a junior doctor to say they've a space in theatre for me the following day and would I be able to come in that evening? AAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!! I've not had any tea yet and have just stripped the bed and put it in to wash AND I've got no clean jammies! We agreed that I could go in for 8am the following morning.

Wednesday 18th March
Arrived at Ward 32 in plenty of time - it's the bowel ward, but they were also an admitting ward that week, so it was pretty busy. At 8am, the wee wifie in the bed opposite is throwing up, and the girl in the bed next to me is moaning about her Methadone - "I've usually had it by now!!!" OMG, get me out of here - it's full of sick people and junkies! Anyway, I get my hospital goonie on with my bum hanging out the back wave goodbye to DK and settle down with my sewing which seems to amuse everyone. Not too long to wait before one of the nurses comes to give me an enema to “clear everything out” and get taken down to theatre about 10.30 - one minute I'm looking up at a map of Scotland, the next I'm waking up in recovery and asking if I've been snoring! (They said not – they might just have been being nice, or maybe you can’t snore with a tube down your throat!) Back in the Ward at about 12.30, and after about an hour of feeling squeamish, I think more to do with lack of food than anything else, one of the nurses brings a cup of coffee and some toast. Feel much better and get the sewing out again. My first visit to the loo after the procedure was a bit alarming – as they’d taken a couple of biopsies, I had some sort of packing to stop any bleeding which I “lost” when I went. I could only find the male nurse when I came out, but explained what had happened, so he said he’d get one of the females to come and see me. I caught sight of us in the mirror – me bending over and her peering up my bum – so the comedy of the situation wasn’t lost! Definitely no room for any embarrassment now!! The consultant comes round in the afternoon, sits on the bed and says he thinks he and I are going to see quite a bit of each other, but still no mention of the actual C word. He says I'm very chirpy, and that they don't see many people stitching these days. DK arrives back to take me home at 7pm after I've had something to eat - Lentil & Veg soup and Sweet & Sour Chicken - not like the hospital food you always hear about, so polish the lot off, unlike my other three ward-mates!

Monday 23rd March
CT scan - possibly the worst experience so far - not the scan itself, but because it had to be done with a full bladder. Had to drink two pints of a tracer solution (Gastrografin) that tasted like aniseed - the first at 7.45, the second at 11am. I HATE aniseed, so was just about gagging by the time I got the second lot over, and I have a bladder the size of an ant at the best of times, so holding on is not my strong point! Also, during the scan they give you an injection in your hand - as it's going in it feels like a hot flush going through your body. Luckily they had warned me that in females it makes you feel as though you've wee'd yourself – doesn’t it just! The weirdest feeling, but it soon passed. Then just had to drink loads for the rest of the day to flush everything out again. DK was away working by this time so my folks took me in and dropped me off, then little sis came back to take me home again and stayed over.

Thursday 26th March
MRI scan – I was going to go to this one myself, but my friend wouldn’t hear of it and said she needed a day out (NS, you definitely need to get out more!). To be honest I was glad of the company for the drive in and half-hour wait to be taken. I have heard people say they get claustrophobic in the scanner, but as I was in feet first with my head just out of the opening, so it was all fine. Quite noisy though, so they give you earphones with music playing - might have chosen better than Northsound radio though! (the local radio station)

Thought that was going to be it, but then...

Monday 6th April
PET & CT scan - at least I've got the full set now! The PET scan looks at how well the body is working, while the CT scan gives information about the body’s anatomy (size, shape and location of organs). Combining the two allows for a more accurate diagnosis of cancer. Apparently there are only two PET scanners in Scotland – the other is in Glasgow, so I know how lucky I am to have all these resources within an hour’s drive. I had to fast from midnight the night before, and got some Diet Coke to drink beforehand – something to do with how the body takes up the radioactive tracer, and not having your heart show up too brightly on the scan – I don’t know, it was all explained to me and seemed to make perfect sense at the time! I was then taken through to have the radioactive tracer injection in my hand and had to lie still for 45 minutes until the nurse came back to take me through to the loo and then to the scanner. It was more like the donut shaped CT scanner than the MRI tube and really nothing to worry about. I then had to sit in the waiting area for about 10 mins until they checked that everything on the scans was readable before I could go.

I then had a couple of weeks to wait and before my appointment with the Consultant Clinical Oncologist on Wednesday 22 April, who confirmed that I have Squamous Carcinoma of the Anal Canal and Margin – T4 N1 M0. The tumour has spread into the surrounding tissue, and is in the lymph nodes in my groin, but it's contained in my pelvic area, which at least is good. I've to get 28 sessions of radiotherapy Monday - Friday over 5 and a bit weeks, with chemotherapy at the same time. In years gone by, he said they'd have given one lot of treatment, have a rest period then give the second lot, but the rest period also gives the tumour a break, so it's better if they just blast it with everything all in one go.

So, that’s the situation at the moment. I had my planning CT scan on Thursday 14^th May, and had the markers for the radiotherapy treatment drawn onto my tummy and thighs (my “targets”), so I go to hospital for my first blast of radiotherapy and to collect my chemo drugs later on today. Over the weeks I’ve gone from having no pain at all, to feeling like I’m sitting on an egg and having to take 3 different painkillers – paracetamol, ibuprofen and tramadol – just to be able to do anything at all other than sit in the bath. They’ve usually worn off by about 4am, so I’m up then to take my last (or first) tramadol, pace about for a bit then go back to bed to try to get some more sleep. I’m glad the treatment is finally starting, but also a bit nervous about the possible side effects.

I’ll post my progress here whenever I can, and be as honest as I can without giving so much detail that I’ll not be able to look anyone in the face again when I get back to work (I think I might have crossed that line already!) If my experiences help to encourage even one person to go and get anything checked out at the doctor before they might have normally, then it'll be worth baring my bum for! I’ll try not to make it all too miserable though – so far there’s been some humour in almost everything that’s happened and I’ll definitely need a laugh over the next few weeks. To be continued….