*hic* chemo #3 *hic*

dear lord I have hiccups!
I just hiccuped 10 times in the last minute. I kid you not.
That's 1 hiccup every 6 seconds. ENOUGH ALREADY!!

*holds breath*

This synchronous diaphragmatic flutter (whoo for Wikipedia) is due to Ondansetron - which means it might shortly stop being my new best friend. So far, though, we are very in love: I have had practically NO nausea this time!

Chemo #3 on Monday was pretty smooth, probably because of all my lovely visitors. Thank you Georgina, Beth, Bianca, Christine, Shal, Claire and Ruth! thank goodness you didn't all come at the same time or there would have been no room for the chemo patients! Also the dacarbazine drip wasn't as painful this time, which I think was because they got a good big vein. To give you an idea of timings: I arrived at just before 10am and had to wait - it was BUSY - until about 12.30 for my cannula, then my dacarbazine came up in its attractive lime green bag and went up on the drip at 1pm. Actually I think the dacarbazine preparation was the hold-up: they like to do it as late as possible so it doesn't irritate your veins any more than it has to. It breaks down in the light and the breakdown products are even more irritant than the original drug. yummy!!

That infusion took about 4 hours this time which is pretty good going. The other 3 went in quite fast too and we were away by 5.30ish.

Here is my drug dose info for any geeky medical students out there (you know who you are):

Ondansetron 8mg IV

Dacarbazine 690mg
Doxorubicin 48mg
Bleomycin 18750 units
Vinblastine 10mg

Ondansetron 8 mg (4 doses)
Metoclopramide 10 mg 3 x daily (if nauseaaargh recurs).

Don't try this at home though kids - all the cytotoxic doses are calculated on surface area! Though I imagine that this would be the least of your problems if you had decided to try chemotherapy at home....anyway.

Mother and I got the train home and I was HUNGRY by the time we got back. Grandma had made us a fantastic chicken sausage casserole which smelled great, but it tasted a bit different in my mouth and I found my appetite went quite quickly after the first few mouthfuls. I had a metoclopramide pill on the train and then an Ondansetron after dinner, which kicked in about an hour later. I had a lovely cup of ginger tea to tide me over in the meantime. Ginger tea is also great for nausea - I use lemon, ginger and ginseng teabags and grate fresh ginger in too - mmmm.

This time I noticed I got shivery and achey again like I did after chemo #1. I have a theory about this: my muscles (particularly my arms and back) were hurting from yoga on Sunday morning, and since they must have been rebuilding themselves they must have been quite metabolically active and gobbled up the chemo just like the cancer cells. I went for a run the day before chemo#1 and noticed that my legs KILLED that night. By contrast, I was in Wales before chemo#2 and only walked as far as it took to get to my next bit of Easter egg, and was in much better shape after chemo. Oh the irony!

This is all probably a load of b*******, or pure coincidence, but I shall try to take it a bit easier before the next one, and report back. Any other chemo experiences/theories out there?

Despite the muscle aches I felt pretty good the next morning - though lolled around for most of the day. And Grandma and I DID THE TELEGRAPH CRYPTIC CROSSWORD. I am actually stupefied at our genius. Well, her genius - she let me write in the clues, and I did manage to get 3 Down:"In this form, two sides are perfectly matched (9)" ---> ISOSCELES!! Finally, a use for Geometry!

Hair is starting to moult again - delayed effect of second treatment as I thought. May go for a mohawk or a total GI Jane this week.....

No pics today because my beloved camera died a horrible watery death on chemo day. I may well sue Buxton for making stupid leaky bottles. Am hunting down a replacement so the blog should be restored to its Technicolor glory soon enough.

Oh and in case you were worrying - I have not been holding my breath for the entirety of this post, because the hiccups stopped about half an hour ago. Thank the little lord Jesus.