I've read a lot of posts and blogs about people dealing with or suffering from the shock of cancer and I have to say that there isn't a great deal of positivity out there but why would there be. I guess that people tend to use these vehicles as a means to expel the frustration and pain that wells up inside them and, just like me, getting stuff down on paper really helps. I promised myself that when I started this blog life of mine I wouldn't be dragging everyone with me into the negative realms of my journey and that I would try and remain optimistic and happy throughout the journey and miss out the bad bits on the way however my real goal here is to convey the reality of the situation and allow family and friends to understand the situation as well as leave a trail of symptoms for others following. In saying that, you need to remember that I am a rubbish patient so the following report needs to be taken with a pinch of salt for in reality I'm never sick but when I am, I'm the most sickest man on the planet, just like any other man.
So yesterday was C+1 (Chemo plus 1). I had slept ok the night before, I think, and awoke at 7am to start the day. I promptly had a banana and that allowed me to start the drug regime. Firstly the big anti sickness pill, then the small anti sickness pill, then the omeprazole, then the vitamins and tumeric and then onto the main event the Xeloda. It all went down without a fight. The morning was a bit of a blur after that. I can remember sliding in and out of consciousness and it seemed like being awake for an hour sleeping for an hour.
Alison came over and brought soup which went down a treat at lunch time then it was more steroids and some other anti sickness stuff. Again it was back to the couch and then another round of slipping between the real world, a world where I wasn't asleep but wasn't awake and then the moments where I would pass out and wake up two hours later. Throughout the day I had been snacking on grapes and apples and eventually at dinner time we had a salad. At the appropriate time I had the final dose of Xeloda and the final steroid and then returned to the coach to continue the new routine, awake, nearly awake, absolutely zonked. At some point during the evening I put on the Grand Tour which I had three episodes to watch. It became a bit of mash up and I think I managed to 30 minutes of one episode 10 mins of another and 5 mins of the last one which has left me a little bit confused - I'll need to revisit I think.
Throughout the night the pattern pretty much continued however there were times where I thought I could barf for Scotland however the anti sickness stuff was working well and it never happened. The positive thing from all of this though was that I seemed to have less morphine which I am taking as a positive since it doesn't feel that Bert is exploding anymore. Perhaps he is just camped out for a little while, taking shelter while the Chemo army seeks him out. I shouldn't really talk about this as a fight or a war, the reality is nobody wins when there is hand to hand combat or shelling. I'm treating my cancer altercation as a bit of dance if I'm honest. It's a tango at the moment where each of us are spinning the other around a dance floor and this is where my nausea is coming from I think.
So we are now on C+2 and the appetite is fairly screwed at the moment as the nausea is still there. I am going to try and take a weight gain shake which should give 1000 calories or so and then see how the rest of the day goes.
