John Wayne

Can’t believe it’s the end of Week 4 already – just 8 more radiotherapy treatments after today and 10 more days of chemo tablets. Generally speaking, I feel pretty well at the moment as the nausea is under control and although I still don’t have any appetite, I am now managing to eat very small portions of normal food again, rather than odd cravings.

Sadly though t’other end isn’t faring quite so well, and I’ve got a bit of a John Wayne waddle going on. The itch isn’t quite so bad, but the gel I was given brought it’s own problems in that the last lot had to be washed off before any more could be applied, and that in itself was taking more skin off – I’m down to the third layer in places, but thankfully it’s not completely raw yet. Rather than have to wash quite so often, I asked the nurses whether it would be OK to use some Aloe Vera gel I had in the house as quite a lot of people recommended it on the Macmillan website. They said to give it a go, and it does seem to have slowed down the deterioration a bit so fingers crossed.

The other problem is going to the loo, which towards the end of the week I have to do A LOT! It feels like passing broken glass just now and that’s only going to get worse before it gets better, but at the moment it’s bearable.

Because of the skin rubbing when I walk, I’ve not been quite so mobile over the last couple of days, but have managed to get another piece of needlework finished (sorry Linda!). This was a piece of canvaswork I started at the Embroiderer’s Guild summer school in Stirling last year. The tutor was Jill Carter who has written a book on this and also the Hardanger book I was using for the last sample I finished, both of which I’ve had out of the library for MONTHS! She was a VERY posh lady, but tremendous fun although I’m not quite sure what she thought about the two disruptive pupils sitting at the side!