Thursday Off to the Radiotherapy department for The Planning Session. Airy waiting area and WRVS come round with tea! Excellent. But there was a TV on in the corner, which no-one was really watching, with a load of squawking bints arguing at full volume on some godawful sitcom. No need for that I thought selfishly. It might be a nice, genuine distraction for people waiting for treatment, I know that. But give me a radio every time! After a half hour wait, went through. It wasn’t as hi-tech as the booklet said, haha. There’s a lot of building work going on there at the minute. For you fashionistas out there, forget the lederhosen - hard hats and baby blue overshoes are,like,so now! More entertaining than the telly anyway. I was to have a CT scan which meant a cannula (why can’t they be trained to use the Hickman Line??) but she took one look at my invisible veins and bottled it decided that in her professional opinion, she felt we could do the scan without the contrast dye. Hmm. So the kid in me demands to know “Why?”. “Well we’re very hi-tech here so we can merge this scan with the last one you had in November!” “Yeah, so why do we have to have contrast dye at all then if you could do that all along?” “Yeah but why were you going to give me a cannula when you knew about the hi-tech bit?” I didn’t push it with the last one because she was about to tattoo me and, therefore, held all the cards. So had a scan without dye then she brought out her big felt pen. I had a dot about 3” above my belly button, 3 across my pelvis and one on the outside of each thigh. Then she went round them all with a needle and just pricked them. So no pain and really quick. Design-wise, I asked for something funky and festive (she tried to look like she hadn’t heard similar a thousand times before. Which was very nice of her). I got ‘black splodge’ which, I suppose, could look like snowflakes if you squinted at them. And you were pissed. Then I was out of the door before I could ask any more questions “They’ll explain everything at your first session. Bye!”. Think she was running late :) Then home to my roaring fire - first time in a week!!! So curled up and caught up with some phone-calls. Been invited to a friend’s for an early xmas dinner “cos we want to spoil you” Sniff. My line feels weird tonight. Not at the site where the lumens come out but in my neck where they put it in. It’s knobbly and a bit tender and red and when I move, yawn or swallow feels like it’s tugging. Please don’t let it be an infection. I’ve got plans for this week and IV antibiotics in hospital doesn’t come anywhere near…
