Yesterday was Chemo number 3, which also involved a visit to the oncologist for the first time for a while.
In between last post and treatment I started to feel a little better as my ulcer finally healed. We also spent a nice relaxing weekend at my parent's house, had my bloods dine and made some nice bread. Making bread is surprisingly tiring I've discovered, but worth it.
My sister came up on Monday night so that she can keep me company over the next few days, and also brought some rather lovely Red Velvet Cupcakes. We're a bit of a baking family...
So, as for treatment #3, it started as always with taking my blood pressure and weighing me in the chemo suit. I'm managing to maintain a steady weight, which is good, although my blood pressure has been lower each time I've been in. Maybe it's because I'm less stressed over the treatments, but 94 over 48 is pretty low!
Next up was a trip back over to the Parapet to see Dr Adams, and thankfully I didn't have to wait too long. He went through the symptoms I've had over the treatments, and recommended an ibuprofen gel to help my vein pain. He also examined me - it seems that the lump under my arm has gone, and the lump in my breast appears softer, which is good news. He has requested another MRI scan for before my next treatment so that they can check the progress of the tumour - it also can see blood flow, so hopefully they'll be able to see a noticeable change to show that the chemo is working. I'll see him next time round as well for the results.
Then it was back to the chemo suite for the treatment. Simon and Kate were with me, but apparently I'm only allowed one person accompanying me, so Simon said he'd wait elsewhere and Kate stayed with me. I was quite worried that because my veins were still sore in my hand that it would be more painful than last time out. However, they put a warm heat pad on my hand to help bring up the veins, and used the other side of my hand to insert the cannula. It was still painful, but not as bad as last time round. I also kept the heat pad on my arm through the treatment to stop my veins from contracting, and extra saline was pumped though to try and preserve my veins as much as possible. I also decided against using the cold cap this time round, which means that the rest of my head hair is likely to fall out over the next few weeks. It was pretty uncomfortable last time round, and as I'm not too bothered about being bald, I decided it wasn't worth it. Other than that the treatment passed without incident, and we were all done my about half past one.
We headed into Windsor for lunch and a little shopping. We found a nice Thai place doing a 2 course lunch for £7, and had a little wander around town until I started getting tired. Unfortunatly, I'd forgooten to take my sterois with my meal, so took them when I got home, which may have contributed to how sick I felt once I woke up from my nap. I took some more anti sickness tablets, but they didnlt seem to have any effect. By 8:30 I was feeling really sick, despite 3 lots of anti-sickness tablets, and I soon found out why. I was pretty violently ill, and given that it appeared that I hadn't digested lunch, so its likely that the anti-sickness tablets weren't absorbed either. After that I felt abot better, but couldn't manage any dinner. I have some tablets that go under your lip rather than swallowing, so I took those just before I went to bed, and as such I managed to sleep through the night.
This morning, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm enjoying feeling less tired thanks to the steroids, and I feel a lot less sick than last night. I've even managd to have a little breakfast.
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