I had two things to do today - make a baked New York style cheesecake ready for my sister's birthday tomorrow and go to the hospital to have my first cycle of chemo. Well, like all my best laid plans, neither of these things went quite to script!! Grrr
Cheesecake first ... The recipe told me to make the sponge base, cook it and then let it cool before adding the cheesy topping. Well I cooked it for the time it said and left it to cool. However, when I started to spoon the cheesy topping on it just sank through the sponge - oops! Anyway, I put the base back in the oven to cook a bit longer and then obviously had to let it cool again. On the second attempt, the cheesy topping sank a little bit into the sponge again but I had to carry on as it needed to bake again for over an hour and I only had that time before I had to leave for the hospital!!! I suspect we may have a marble effect with the sponge and cheese all mixed up when we come to cut it and eat it!! I just hope it tastes ok!!!
Well, onto the chemo saga!! My sis and I arrived on the chemo ward to be told I needed to go for a chest X-ray as the PICC wasn't in the right place!!! I explained that I had been through all this already and had another PICC put in correctly (see earlier post). Anyway, the nurses explained that they couldn't give me any chemo unless I had another X-ray today and the doctor signed off on it! So off to X-ray I went again! The receptionist was surprised to see me again, after all this was to be my 4th X-ray in a week!! Well, after a bit of a wait and then the X-ray, I went back up to the chemo unit. Obviously the X-ray showed all was fine because after about 45 minutes I was hooked up to my cetuximab (the mouse drug). Now, this is when the first hints of something not being quite right showed themselves. Normally, the three drugs I am on (cetuximab, oxyplatin and 5FU, aka the condom bottle) all get sent up from pharmacy at the same time and then stored in the fridge on the ward until I'm ready to have them - they go on one at a time which is why a chemo session takes a minimum of 5 and a half hours. Anyway, sometimes if the pharmacy hasn't quite finished making up the drugs, they just send up the first one, with the others following. This is what appeared to have happened today. However, when the nurse called the pharmacy to check, she was told that only the cetuximab had been prescribed!! Hummm. It turns out that my consultant had the day off today so they couldn't check with her. The next step was to get my notes from the file room and check them. Alas, all my consultant had written in there was that chemo was to start today and she didn't specify which drugs!! Ok, so next I spoke to the oncology registrar on duty and told her that my consultant had suggested to me when I saw her on clinic a couple of weeks ago that I was to have all the same drugs as earlier this year. Thankfully the registrar thought this was most likely so off she went to prescribe the oxyplatin and 5FU. However, it was approaching 6pm by this time and the day unit was winding down for the day and it was going to take at least 2 hours for pharmacy to make up the drugs!! As a result we came home - the cetuximab infusion had finished by this point. I have to go back tomorrow to have the other drugs. It wouldn't really be a problem but I'd stupidly booked my car in for an MOT on Friday morning back near my parents house 100 miles away!! This has to be rethought as I will now have to go back to the hospital on Friday to get my condom bottle disconnected!! How stupid of me to make plans whilst I'm on chemo!! Doh!!
Anyway, here's hoping tomorrow will be a better day, especially as it's Sarah's birthday!!
Night all
Xxx
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