home again jiggety jig

Sorry for leaving you all in the lurch back then - and on a rather negative note too. I then went on to have a migraine for the first time in 4 years that last Friday (GP reckons is due to stress and other factors, rather than chemo itself). So it was a bad few days all around. Fortunately I managed to calm down in Wales, with a few days of glorious weather sandwiching the week's very Welsh drizzle... and I ate a lot of Chocolate Utopia easter egg on Easter Sunday. Other Welsh activities include: walking, obsessive watching of Twilight DVD, obsessive reading of Twilight books, petting Tess the farm dog (see below), eating, taking photos, etc etc.


On Easter Monday after lunch the parents and I embarked on our epic journey up to Newcastle for chemo #2 - leaving behind Michael and Isobel (ALONE in a cottage in WALES - but they survived ok don't worry). Went in on Tuesday morning for chemo 2 and bloods. My white cells are back up to v. high numbers; total count was 14 I think. The chemo itself was pretty much the same as the first one - the dacarbazine took ~5 hours again. But BOY the cannula hurt this time!!
Returned to Wales the same day, getting back at about 1am....eesh we were tired. It was definitely worth it though to minimise the disruption to the holiday.


Side effects after chemo #2:
Nausea - much much less than before. Think we have the anti-emetics nailed now: intravenous Ondansetron before the drip starts, then metoclopramide willy-nilly on the first hint of nausea, then Ondansetron tablets for the next 2 days, before bed and on waking up. So I really haven't been feeling too sick, which is a relief.
Appetite - slightly lessened. Hard to describe but can only liken to being hungover: you want to eat to make yourself feel better, only to find you are slightly repulsed by food - Catch-22. Cravings more for savoury things e.g. green Pringles, pasta and tomato sauce, rather than chocolate.
Pain - in my arm veins from the chuffing dacarbazine. like an achey cramp.
Constipation - (sorry) self-explanatory; but I am eating prunes like there's no tomorrow.
Tiredness - slightly more noticeable this time e.g. not feeling 100% even after sleeping 10 hours. Resolved after a few days though; I even went for a run this morning! Still not running much better than a one-legged centipede but that could be due to general laziness yet again (and a week of lying around eating easter egg).
Hair loss - another post to come on this but I have now lost about 3/4 of my hair.

Back up to Newcastle on Friday for white-cell checking before chemo #3 on Tuesday 28th April.