It’s Monday of week two, cycle three and we’re back from the New Forest Folk Festival. The festival was great fun, we have a new camping set-up which converts our Citroen Belingo into a camper van and it was its first outing. A bit of a learning curve, both to set it up and to operate, but overall it’s a great arrangement – very comfortable to sleep in. I seemed to have plenty of energy for all the camping activity, which is really great news.
There was some great music, Harbottle and Jonas, Merry Hell and Flossie Malavialle were stand-out. As usual, there was some ukulele action, Southampton Ukulele Jam performed on Saturday and then ran a jam in the afternoon. It was busy as always, but Shirley and I managed to find a corner, distanced from the crowd; great fun. We decided to leave a little early on the Sunday afternoon to get back home for the England game. What a match! 3-2 to England, who soaked up immense pressure from Mexico in the last 25 mins when down to 10 men. Magnificent.
On our way down to the festival a letter appeared in my NHS inbox from my oncology consultant to my GP. It was an update, reporting my PSA fall from 257 to 16 and my ALP level from 900 to 357. I’d not come across ALP before, I discovered that is refers to alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme found throughout the body; bone specific ALP is associated with bone metastases in prostate cancer – normal levels are typically between 40 and 129. From my research, a drop from 900 to 357 is very good, especially after one cycle of chemotherapy with manageable side effects.
It’s now the end of week two, cycle three. I’ve managed to avoid any uncalled for infections, which is great, and my white blood cells should be on the up – I’ll know when I have my blood work done next Tuesday. My energy levels are very good at the moment, I’d say they are at about 80% of my pre-illness levels and, given the heat, this is quite an achievement. Consequently, I ran our usual ukulele club night on Tuesday evening and then a full jam session on Wednesday evening, great fun. The week was then rounded off with dinner with our friends Cinzia and Dan - lovely.
