Well bloggers it’s been a while since I blogged, sorry!
When I left you I was at day 10 of cycle 3. Happy to report that the rest of cycle 2 was pretty unremarkable, in fact, I would go as far as to say easy. I felt fine and dandy! Only slight blip was a slight infection around where the cannnula was put in and that was quickly sorted with some cream from the chemo nurses. No more hair loss either!
So there I was, day 20 again and ready for the dexemethesone. I was slightly apprehensive about cycle 3 because everywhere you read people say it’s the worst one. I’d had my bloods done the day before (day 19) took the Dex, as instructed at 2:30am. It has to be 12 hours before. I did actually get back to sleep, thankfully.
On the day I took my dex, as before, at 3 hours before and 1 hour before and arrived promptly for my appointment at 2:30. One thing I will say about chemo, you do meet some nice people in the room and because you’re all on a cycle, often it’s the same people. I chatted to a nice lady called Margaret, who has breast cancer, sadly she’d done less favourably on the hair front, but told me she’d bought a nice wig, which she promptly pulled out of her handbag to show me!
The checks all done and cannula nicely and easily inserted we were off!
I asked the nurse for my PSA result and rather annoyingly it had risen, all that hard work and the bugger had gone from 0.47 pre chemo to 1.59, what the hell! The nurse said it was perfectly normal and that a lot of men experienced an upward tick in the first 6 weeks. Still disappointing and I left the hospital feeling rather deflated.
Night 0 and day 1 - night zero one hour sleep, the normal dex rush kicking in! Day 1, now usually I’m hyper and don’t feel any effects of the chemo. Not this time, flat on my back, it had kicked in straight away. I managed to potter about the house and was in bed by 7.
Days 2-5 Much the same, lots of groin and pelvic pain, tired, tired and tired!
Day 6 I turned a corner - it was also the appointment with my oncologist. He confirmed the spike in my PSA was nothing to worry about. In fact he was so unworried he barely wanted to pass the time of day discussing it. I do hope he’s right! I have another PSA at the start of the next cycle, so we’ll see!
He also signed me up for my 4 weeks of radiotherapy which will follow the chemo and hopefully should be in November.
Days 7-9 feeling better but more groin and pelvic pain and a little nauseous, but generally ok. Helped by regular paracetamol.
Well has cycle 3 been worse? Well yes for me it has, but still manageable.
Onwards and upwards!
