It's been a month since my last update, I'm not sure why I never found time over the last month, I just struggled to organise my thoughts enough to put them in to some sort of order.
Over the last month Ned has been in and out of hospital as an inpatient, really struggling with nausea. The doctors believe this might have been caused by the proximity of the tumour and treatment to his brain stem, but they can't be sure of that. Thankfully we haven't seen a return of the horrible blood vomit in the last month, much to my relief and I'm sure Ned's too! He has been very tired most of the time, spending days at a time in bed, but none of the doctors seem concerned by this so I try to let him sleep as much as possible so that he gets all the rest his body needs. There have been times when this has got a little lonely for me, but I am very lucky to have my wonderful parents who have stepped in. I even caught Ned texting them last week while he was awake for half an hour, he was asking them to come over as he thought I needed some company. They promptly phoned me and asked what I wanted bringing over that evening from the takeaway as we were going to sit and watch a film together :) I think I scared my mum though as I burst into tears at the offer. Emotions run a bit close to the surface at the moment.
Oh yes, it's been Christmas hasn't it?! For a while it was looking like Ned was going to be in hospital over Christmas, but he made it out about a week before and managed to stay home the whole time. He did stay in bed for most of it, but I think he saw it as a victory to be home in his own bed, and every victory counts! We didn't really celebrate Christmas, but we had decided that this would be the case way back in November. We are going to do our own Faux Christmas later in the year when he is feeling better. I did try to inject a little festivity by making a Christmas Dinner (a week late, we had to wait until he was having a good enough day so that he could eat it) and putting on a little Christmas music, but it was clear Ned really didn't want to... I actually think it might have made things a bit worse. I think he was more comfortable pretending it wasn't Christmas. I felt terrible at one point when he turned to me and apologised for ruining Christmas, I stopped my efforts after that, it clearly wasn't helping him.
But the big news for us? It's done... 32 sessions of Radiotherapy finished with his last session yesterday. No more driving to and from Manchester every day, no more battling to get him up and going in the morning. The travelling to and from the hospital every day (an hour each way) has been really draining for Ned, especially with his nausea as it seems to get worse in the car. (One day we forgot his sick bucket and we were on the motorway when the nausea hit... he ended up throwing up in his hat! :-/ ) But.... *drum roll* ... It was the last session yesterday!!!! We both breathed a sigh of relief! He will have a check up in 6 weeks, and a scan in about 12 weeks. I have to admit that I'm nervous for that scan... I keep worrying that the treatment might not have worked. What would happen then? But for now, with that quite a bit in the distance, I am really happy to be able to focus on getting him all the rest and relaxation I can. And you never know, perhaps getting a little bit myself too!
