🎵 Bon Jovi – Livin’ on a Prayer (https://youtu.be/lDK9QqIzhwk?si=6GTYbuvIOtA-c_bq)
Well, we made it: 9 out of 9 weekly chemos completed! Officially half way through the 18 weeks of chemo!✅🥳
You’d think I’d have bounced into The Christie this morning like Rocky at the top of the steps, arms in the air, triumphant music playing in the background but no I didn’t.
I’ve actually felt a bit off and low for the last couple of days. That stupid little voice has been creeping in telling me I’m a burden to everyone, and I’ve been feeling a bit why me, why this, why is again? Or, as my daughter rather less sympathetically puts it, I’ve been all “Woe is me” 😂 and she may have a point.
The week itself went by much like the previous one, I was pretty okay, just tired, until Friday. I had a lovely lunchtime catch-up and Reiki session with a good friend, came home afterwards, got into bed and then pretty much slept on and off until Saturday in time to go and get my bloods done.
The rash on my arms has continued to redden, itch and hurt too. I’d ended up taking the new tablets morning and night because they seemed to help ease it, but more on that particular piece of self-medication later. 🙄
So back to today, the last of the weekly chemo sessions and everything should have been happy, exciting and whooop!!
We set off in good time to get the first couple of important jobs done – get a parking space so we can walk over early enough for a brew. Small pleasures, people’s! ☕️🫖
Except the usual car park was full, so we drove around to the multi-storey and were told the only spaces were right at the top floor. As we made our way up, a stressed out daughter called us as someone had just stolen something off her car.. we were stressed, she was stressed … that saga would need to be followed up once we were settled.
There we were, parked right on the top floor, looking out over Manchester (and i still didn’t have the urge to do my Rocky impression!). We found our way to the stairs and somehow managed to choose the side without a lift.
So down we went.
And down.
And down.
And down…….
Twelve floors later, we emerged at completely the wrong end of the hospital to where we needed to be and had to trek through The Christie to make it to my sign in.
By this point I was slightly late but everything was running on time, so no harm done. Time for the brew?
Nope! M&S weren’t serving drinks. Apparently it would be another half an hour. Of course it would, Monday was going splendidly!
Then things started looking up.
Once I got settled in the Red Suite, two of the lovely ladies from the exec team, Jo and Louise, came to see me. It was so lovely to see them, have a catch-up and feel connected to my old Christie governor life for a while. Then the icing on the cake was that they went down to get us drinks and came back bearing brews and M&S sugar ring doughnuts.
Now that is executive leadership. ❤️😂
Meanwhile, the nurses got me hooked up for chemo number nine. It took two attempts to find a decent vein again, but thankfully there was none of last week’s drama llama.
While all this was going on, my daughter rang her dad. Someone had only gone and stolen the wing-mirror cover off her car in broad daylight and the neighbours had actually seen it happening.
The irony is that normally her car wouldn’t even have been there at that time because she’d have been at work. She was working from home because she’d originally planned to take me to chemo, so again, the car shouldn’t have been there at that time, but then she developed a bad throat so stayed home. Back to that weird spooky timing thing again!
My son was also meant to be part of today’s chemo taxi service but came down with a cold too, so neither of them could come anywhere near a chemo unit full of people with compromised immune systems which meant poor G drew the short straw again (and that set off my I’m a burden/chip on my shoulder).
Before I left today, I asked for some more of my antihistamine tablets because I’d nearly run out. Apparently I shouldn’t have nearly run out. I’d been taking two a day, but I wasn’t supposed to. Oops. 🫣
Thankfully they gave me another prescription and some stuff to put in the bath to try to calm the itching down, so hopefully my arms might finally stop driving me nuts.
And that was that. Nine of nine weekly chemo sessions done – I got home, caught up with the kids, then went straight to bed and slept for quite a few hours.
Maybe today wasn’t the big triumphant finale I’d imagined – I didn’t feel euphoric. I was tired, a bit blah and a lot itchy, but still I did it! I hit the halfway through chemo mark!
9/9. Done. ❤️
Now let’s see what the rest of the week brings. For now, I’m getting cosy and relaxing – I love Autumn nights … and next week it’s onto the next chapter.
Sam x
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