Cancer, The Crafty Bugger

You may remember my jubilant post about the good news we received following my mid-way PET-CT scan. Turns out things may not be so clear cut as we were first led to believe.

December 4, 2018 8

PICCed Up An Infection

Last week, the labs at the RUH took a blood sample for culturing and managed to grow the bacteria and identify it; I'm harbouring something called Roseomonas...

November 25, 2018 1

Am I A Vampire Yet? Getting A Blood Transfusion

After four days in hospital thanks to my second bout of neutropenic sepsis (sigh) I was feeling pretty rotten. As well as my neutrophils sitting at zero when admitted, my haemoglobin levels were also low and resulted in a lovely spell of anaemia. I was weak, dizzy and even my eyesight was being affected.

November 19, 2018 2

“Complete Metabolic Response – It’s Gone”

UPDATE: Sadly it seems it’s not as clear cut as we thought.

In the last blog post I bemoaned the feelings of scanxiety around my first check up PET-CT scan since my chemotherapy began. Well, I'm not worried anymore. We have the results.

November 17, 2018 5

Is My Chemo Working? Scanxiety Attacks Incoming

Tomorrow, I will have my first PET-CT scan since chemo started. It will tell my doctors whether or not my chemotherapy is working.

What if my chemo isn't working as well as it should be? What if it hasn't had any effect? What if my cancer has gotten worse?

November 13, 2018 6

Insert Lewd ‘Prick’-Themed Joke Of Choice Here and Small Victories

It might seem like a small victory, but I'm learning that small victories are immensely powerful and transformative when you're facing a long-term battle. Bite-sized wins to perk you up and push you on, whereas the 'big picture' right now can simply feel too overwhelming to deal with

November 9, 2018 3

Orange You Glad This Isn’t You?

This morning I’m attempting to learn how to give myself my daily G-CSF injections (under the careful tutorage of Dr Tracie Miles, sharps extraordinaire). As someone with a phobia of needles, even looking at the damn thing is making me wobbly! But it’s way worse for the orange...

November 8, 2018 0

Navigating Other People: A Rant

What I am getting my knickers in a twist about that I am constantly wracked with a festering combination of guilt, frustration and resentment about the level of work I have to put in to helping others navigate my current situation. The seemingly endless placating and stroking of bruised feelings. How much of my currently very limited energy, emotion and willpower I'm expending on this shitty game of 4D top trumps that I'd rather be putting into oh, I don't know, literally anything else right now.

November 7, 2018 9