Ok, so today was meant to be my last day of chemo, after near two years of treatment, well apart from the 7 months off when they thought I was cancer free, I have been really looking forward to this being it and moving into the monitoring phase. I must admit though that I have been a bit nervous too, with the luck that I have, could today really be it?! Well, as it turns out, I haven't finished chemo!
Having rocked up to he hospital for my 10 o'clock appointment, we were told that the chemo wasn't ready yet. Now this we weren't surprised by - the pharmacy never seems to have things ready on time. Anyway, after a bit of a wait, I was called through to the chemo day unit. Then came the first issue of the day. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but this time I have a double PICC (2 lines going into me) and it seems that one of the lines likes to be blocked each time I turn up at the hospital. They take it in turns though just to be fair! Anyway, this time the nurse couldn't flush the clot out and unblock the line so I was given some urokinase to break down any clots in the line. Thankfully this did the trick and I have two working lines again, for now anyway!
I had my mouse drug connected and away we were for the first drug! Alas, as this was being checked, the nurses realised that this was the only drug that had been prescribed! Not again! Having had the same problem with the first cycle of this round of chemo, I knew that this wasn't likely to be quickly sorted. However, I hoped that it could all be sorted in the two hours that it would take for the mouse drug to be infused. The nurses contacted the duty colorectal oncology registrar. From the notes, which thankfully were on the unit this time, the nurses could see that my oncology consultant wanted me to have the full chemo again for one last time. However, the registrar turned out to be a bit of a tw*t and wouldn't just come up to see the notes and prescribe the medication. Instead he insisted that he wanted to talk to my consultant (who doesn't work Mondays as far as I know) and he'd then call back. We still hadn't heard from the reg by the time the mouse drug had finished or by the time that the flush was done (another 30 minutes), despite the nurses paging him 4 more times. The nurses even tried to call my consultant directly, but only got her voicemail. By this time it was 3 o'clock and even if the reg would prescribe it, there wasn't time for the pharmacy to make it up and for it to be given to me before the unit closed for the night. Grrrrrr! We were then advised to go home and I now have an appointment for Wednesday afternoon to hopefully have the chemo drugs. Such a frustrating day!
Oh well, at least I'm not cold sensitive at the moment, so I was able to enjoy some fresh (but cold) pomegranate this evening! You've always got to look on the bright side! ;-)
Anyway ....
Yesterday I had a brilliant morning at the Royal Parks Half Marathon! I met up with the Beating Bowel Cancer crew at their cheer point just before mile 6 and doned my t-shirt (alas no bum shorts). We cheered all the runners past but especially those running for the charity - about 30 of them! I also saw Aisling and gave her a big hug! The last of the runners came past just before midday so the cheer point was packed up and I was able to go and see Aisling finish the run. She did amazingly well and finished in 2 hours 22 mins! I am so proud of her! Well done Ais!
Well, I think that's it from me for tonight.
Take care folks
Xxxx
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