caffeine withdrawal and SHOES

Ugh I am so over PET scans. They are BORING. Mother and I turned up at the Christie in Manchester nice and promptly this morning. Started off with the whole caboodle of "yes I am Rosalind White and yes that is my address and yes my date of birth is blah blah blah and NO there is no chance at all that I could be pregnant yes I will sign a document to that effect so that if I do end up giving birth to a grotesquely radiation-deformed creature it won't be the NHS's fault".

Then I had yet another cannula put in my arm, and after a quick blood glucose test I had to sit in a room for a whole mind-numbing hour by myself while radioactive glucose hummed round my system and got gobbled up by my brain/liver/kidneys. The only way I kept sane was by singing American Pie to myself in my head. (No reading is allowed because your arm muscles would take up the glucose instead). I could feel the caffeine withdrawal headache building and building. I was HUNGRY because I hadn't eaten for 12 hours.

(Seriously, even by my rather high standards of food worship, breakfast is absolutely sacrosanct. HOW do people skip breakfast without fainting before lunchtime and killing anyone who looks at them the wrong way??)

Then I loaded myself onto the PET trolley thingy to be jerked back and forth through the scanner for half an hour, trying to stay very still and also hoping that the picture they were getting was clear and cancer-freeeeeeeee. (Thanks to peeps who have been keeping everything crossed for me and wishing me luck - I hope it damn well works.)

After all this I was not exactly in the mood for shopping - in fact my main priority was to find caffeine, paracetamol and food and then possibly a bed - but fortunately things looked up after once we got back into Manchester city centre. Because I saw THESE:


and they are now MINE MINE MINE forever and ever. It matters not that I cannot walk in them (I can learn) and that am practically six foot in them (I will look thinner) and that they were £80 (they were substantially reduced). They are quite simply my soulmates, in shoe form.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but there seems to be a strong footwear theme running through my cancer experience: the brown leather birthday boots which I hugged and smelled for their leathery comfort when the thought of "a possible lymphoma" made my chest hurt; the new running shoes I bought as a promise to myself to keep fit through the chemo malarkey; the Converses Mother got for me on the morning of the first chemo. And now THESE. It's official: shoes are therapeutic. We should all buy them more often! Hurrah!

(Also, if you see him, don't tell Father the shoes were £80 - we're pretending they were oh, about £20.)

PET scan results should be in about 4 days apparently - will keep you posted.

PET scan #2, and wigs

Mother and I are off to Manchester tomorrow for my second PET scan - the one that determines if I still have cancer or not, and whether I need any more treatment. I am a little apprehensive about this - as you might expect - but am choosing to treat this as a day shopping trip, albeit one with a little more radioactivity than usual. (See this old post for more info on how a PET scan works.)

It's now 3 weeks since my 6th and hopefully final chemo, and I now feel pretty much back to normal. The week in France was an excellent opportunity to get away from everything for a bit and have some R&R. I'm eating normally now - to be honest, chemo never affects my appetite for long - and taking advantage of all the yummy summer fruit around. Mother and I have just been blackcurrant-picking in the orchard and there was blackcurrant compote for tea. Am also trying to get back into some decent running (now that I no longer have the niggling little voice at the back of my head going "bleomycin! bleomycin! your lungs are fibrosin'!!"). This means interval training and hills, which I hate but they do get results. My weight surprisingly hasn't changed after chemo but I have decided I need to skinny down a bit ... and stop eating so much ... and stop going on about food all the time. Ahem.

It's true that this really has turned into more of a food blog than a cancer blog, but surely that's better than "Ohhhhhhhh my god I feel terrible oooohhhhhhh i feel sick arrrrrrrrgh the painnnn the PAIN and the lumps everywhere I'm BALD BALD BALD ahhh I hate my life this is so unfair why do i have cancer whinge whinge whinge". Which isn't to say I haven't occasionally felt like that but I tend to squash it all down/scream into a pillow and go and cook something instead. POSITIVE THINKING AT ALL TIMES! :-D

Talking of BALD BALD BALD: I still have a bit of hair but it's started falling out from the last chemo now. For me the hair loss tends to start about 2 weeks after a chemo treatment and goes on over the next week/10 days or so. I will shave it all off at some point, I reckon - just so I can say I have once been bald and shiny and proud. Wig-wise: the NHS pays for a wig for cancer patients, and I tried on a LOT of wigs:

before I picked this one......which unfortunately I have now realised makes me look like Peggy from Eastenders ("Get aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhht of maaa pub!!") and so I am eschewing it in favour of the GI Jane look, complete with aviators (when sunny). Although Jess and I have now concocted a plan to go out looking hot in bright blue and pink wigs, just for the hell of it.

a much-needed holiday

Have been quiet for a while - mainly because was being a whirling packing dervish and feeling very frazzled from CT scans, chemo and the like. Turns out a week in the South of France is exactly what every cancer patient needs - it should be available on the NHS.


The NHS was a little worried about my holiday and wouldn't let me go without some Neupogen injections and lots of antibiotics and antivirals just in case I got some bacterial infection or shingles etc etc. Fortunately none of them were needed, although I did get slightly concerned about the possibility of cellulitis after 11 mosquito bites.

This was a very last minute holiday - I must thank the other Caroline (my godmother) for telling me to just book the flights and see what happened with CT scans, rather than waiting. So I booked the flights in her kitchen and did some jiggling of CT dates (and begging). Thus I ended up on a fantastic sun-soaked week with Caroline and Julia! True to form, we ate LOADS of yummy food: below is steak with chips and mushroom and ratatouille. And red wine - of course.


Other food of note is gluten-free pizza (below), garlic bread, lots of risotto and an abundance of salad and fruit.

And a lot of frappuccinos...


To look at these photos you'd think we did nothing but eat.... SO NOT TRUE! We also sunbathed (with suncream - and I wore my hat all the time so no scalp-burn) and swam and read lots of books - Caroline even finished her ECG book *cough*geek*cough*. We went for a walk AND we did sit-ups and press-ups (I am pathetic at these). Fortunately we got out of doing anything too much like exercise by using the chronic fatigue and cancer excuses, phew. Seriously - LOOK at this improbably long swimming pool:

So thank you very very much to the two Taylor ladies for a wonderful week which I really needed :D am now tanned and chillaxed - and miraculously no fatter. Odd that.

(and this is the state of my hair at the moment - falling out a bit but still there)

I shall do a proper blog post later about - erm - Hodgkin's and PET scans, but right now I am supposed to be meeting Jess in town (for yet another visit to Chocolate Utopia) so au revoir mes petites choux-fleurs! (as Minti would say). Mwah mwah.

Tim is coming home today...

...from Japan where he has been for the last 3 months! Am very excited to see my wee brother!!! :D :D :D

Also the lovely Gaita has come to visit me this weekend and we have been revising - it feels rather good to be using my brain again, properly, for the first time since March. Oh and we have eaten lots too - steak and chips last night which turned into one of those occasions where I was just cramming mouthful after mouthful of pink steak and crispy chips in without pausing for breathing because it was so DAMN GOOD. Mmmmm hoo boy.

I got another lovely parcel, this time from some German friends who know the way to my heart is through Erdbeernektar.... here it is, looking as though it has just descended from heaven. (Which indeed it might have; food of the gods I tell you, especially on vanilla icecream with strawberries...)
That's strawberry syrup to the non-German speakers amongst you (well the only German I know is Erdbeernektar, so I can't really take the linguistic moral high ground here). Danke schön to the Jesse family - you are so kind! :D
I also hear I have a few other German blog readers which is very exciting: Hallo!! Wie geht's? (Is that right? Fabia??)

The hammock has arrived too, so when the weather is good - quite often of late - I go and lie around in the dappled light, reading books.
The chemo side effects are resolving as usual (except for the constipation which only lifted this morning to my great relief... well you try not pooing for a week and see how you feel...) and I went for a run this morning. I was very slow and stopped a lot, but I've come to regard the first run after chemo as a breaking in for the next run: i.e. I never run well, but it makes the Tuesday run easier.

Hair update: is falling out some more, and I have been shaved again - this time a number 3 and an even shorter number 2 at the back. The back is where it's thinnest, probably because I lie on that part and rub all my hair off. Apparently I also did this when I was a baby - thanks to father for providing this reminiscent story...

I now look quite ridiculous. At least I have a nicely-shaped head.

Off to do some more revision with Gaita on our splendid Infectious Diseases spider diagram...

an unexpected and beautiful parcel

oh my gosh. ohhhh my gosh!!
I do not normally post on here the day after chemo due to being too busy feeling bleh, watching Disney films and popping anti-nausea pills - BUT have just been moved to do so by THIS:

This is a beautiful, beautiful, utterly stunning (well I don't need to tell you - you can obviously see it for yourself) quilt made by my extremely talented Aunty Joyce. She claims she is just a beginner and it's not perfect but to me it most definitely is! Thank you SO much Aunty Joyce you've made my day! a more traditional paper thank you letter will be on its way shortly but felt that the internet needed to see evidence of your talent :D Am putting it to good use already:


Chemo #6 yesterday was OK - in at 10.30 and out by 5.30ish. Plenty of banter provided by Mavis, Beth, Christine, Ruth and Ed (though the prize has to go to the last two for being so spectacularly rude about the size of my bottom: "If you fell over you'd just bounce right back up because of your bum" - Ed. Though to be fair I was equally rude about his love handles so I deserve it).

I came back home on the train by myself last night. I was slightly apprehensive about this but it was much better than having father nobly drive up to get me and arriving home at midnight. I made it home without vomiting on anyone or getting feverish, thank goodness. Had some chicken soup and some of Isobel's cherry cake, then bath and bed. Been popping the usual pills, though now I take them together the morning after chemo. Ondasetron takes about an hour to start working and metoclopramide is faster, so I want that double-whammy.

Today I am rather tired and my chemo arm kills. You can see the inflamed vein tracks all along my forearm - ouch. Been applying hydrocortisone liberally. Not sure if it's working but what the hey.

I would write more but I want to go and watch another Disney film in my lovely new quilt, so au revoir for now! (Though Isobel wants to drag me outside to play on the swings...dagnabbit! Someone really should explain the principles of chemo to her....)

poems and parties and belated injections

This is the last photo my old camera ever took. Felt should put it up in sentimental tribute, as it is oddly pretty....awww the poor little thing tried so hard in its final few minutes! (Remember its watery death on the day of chemo #3?) The new camera (a Canon Ixus 85 IS) is now here - with a new WATERPROOF case - and has been put to good use this weekend at Romeela's and JennyCescaSana's birthday parties, which were both lovely evenings. Happy Birthday to you four!!

But first I went to Alnwick. (Or rather, made Georgina drive me to Alnwick...) Barter Books, if you haven't been, is the best second-hand bookshop in the North East, if not the country. It's in the old Alnwick railway station and they have a toy train going round on a track on top of all the bookshelves! And they have poems down all the aisles! Here is my favourite poem in the place:

(click to make larger and read the whole thing)

I took 2 bags of books mother had cleared out and got £13 credit for some of them (the rest will go to Oxfam). Then used that to buy some more books...including Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters as part of my self-improvement plan: Read More Poetry.

In the afternoon Gaita came and made me a delicious lasagna di verdure with aubergine, courgette, red and yellow pepper, onion, spinach, carrot - and cheesy Bechamel mmmmm. In fact was more of a rainbow lasagna than di verdure... Good stuff. (I ended up attacking the remnants with a spoon when I arrived back a bit tipsy from the birthday party - was just irresistable.) Here are some party photos...

Kissing Janet Planet.
Felt this was a good hair photo - look how much is still left! Though you can see a lot of my scalp...hmmm.

sepia experimentation with one of the birthday girls - Jenny

and with chief lasagne-maker (Gaita)

a slightly tiddled DELTA huggy photo with Becci and Ed - note am only one not pouting...

Indeed, yesterday was so hectic that I only realised at 1am that I'd forgotten to do my Neupogen injection - 12 hours late! OOOOOOOOOOOPS... I really do fail at this organisation-of-life malarkey. Did it when I remembered and will try to stay up till 1ish tonight too to jab myself. Hopefully it shouldn't matter too much what time it's at, as long as my count is high enough for chemo #6 tomorrow. And hopefully this will be the last time I have to remember to do the injections - if this is indeed my last chemo. OH dear lord please let it be the last one!!!

I was just thinking how much my life has changed since March - I have gone from a busybusytiredtired medical student to someone with a LOT of free time and party weekends in Newcastle every fortnight (and yes chemo when the weekend's over but shh shh). It's also very strange how quickly you get used to change: I've become accustomed to the travelling, the needles and the enforced chilling-out, and yet it seems like only yesterday I was going "OMG what if I have lymphoma???" and crying by myself in panic, using up nearly a whole loo roll with soggy paper tears. The idea of chemo and of taking a year out was just unthinkable because I had no idea what it would be like. But I'm here and I feel normal, still. Thank god we humans are so adaptable...

At the same time it seems a very long time since I did any medicine. I feel very out of the loop. Don't get me wrong: I really appreciate this opportunity to take a step back and take time for myself, but the flip side is a lot of boredom sometimes - and the slow decay of your history-taking skills. Then again, you can be SO BORED as a medical student on the ward... so I suppose we should make the most of whatever we have, because you never know what tomorrow brings... hubba hubba!! (no idea why "hubba hubba" but felt was getting too serious for a moment there.)

And now I shall FINALLY tidy my Newcastle room as it's been yonks. Been inspired by Mary Queen of Charity Shops to take some decent stuff to Oxfam, along with the books, so here goes the big clear-out!

goats cheese nirvana

Just realised I forgot to say a BIG THANK YOU to all my visitors from the last chemo! Lay awake last night paralysed with horror at this omission, so thank you very much to Jen, Matt, Jenny, Sophie, Shal, Dave, Laura, and Emily (and anyone I've forgotten but I think that's everyone). Also a massive thanks to Laura for bringing not one but TWO magazines, and Dave for bringing Green&Black's chocolate...oh my. Mille grrrrazie my dears.

Also I think I forgot to mention that I received 200 smackeroos from the wonderful CLIC Sargent as a care grant for having cancer and being under 25...this was very well received and is now in my holiday piggy bank! As I am going to the South of France with the lovely Caroline and her mummy - SO EXCITED! Just for a week from the 19th to 26th June, as I have nothing else to do whilst waiting for PET scans...

Now then, I hope you all ran along to Jesmond Methodist Church to sign up for the Bone Marrow Register if you were within a 10-mile radius of it! hmm hmm. If you couldn't make it then don't worry, I'm sure there will be lots more clinics to go to next year.

Right, now I can talk about some food, which I'm sure is what you were waiting for. I have been extraordinarily blessed in that I got to eat goats cheese not ONCE but TWICE in the last two days - oh yeaaah. With two Carolines! The first time was on Monday with my friend Caroline (she of the upcoming France trip SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE) and we decided to make a goats cheese soufflé from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. Oh I love that man... Here is the recipe because it needs to be spread worldwide and eaten joyously. Great for coeliacs because it needs no flour.

a little butter
65g freshly grated Parmesan
2 large eggs
150g soft English goats cheese
50 ml/a splash double cream
1 tbsp chopped thyme leaves

1. Set the oven to 200°C and lightly butter 2 shallow ovenproof bowls - pasta bowls are ideal, or soup bowls. Dust them with a bit of the Parmesan.
2. Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a bowl big enough to whisk them in. Mash the goats cheese into the egg yolks, then stir in the cream, chopped thyme and a seasoning of black pepper and a teeny tiny bit of salt.
3. Whisk the egg whites until almost stiff, then fold them "firmly but tenderly" into the cheese mixture, using a large metal spoon.
4. Lastly fold in all but a couple of spoonfuls of the grated Parmesan.
5. Divide the mixture between the 2 buttered bowls and scatter over the remaining Parmesan. Bake for 10 -14 minutes, by which time the centre should be lightly risen and creamy inside, and the top golden-brown.
6. Serve immediately with a green salad to accompany. Caroline and I made one up and dressed it with pistachio oil from Vom Fass at Fenwicks - yum yum.

Was only just recovering from just how good this was when the second Caroline - my godmother - had me round for lunch. She roasted cherry tomatoes in olive oil and assorted fresh herbs, then grilled 2 rounds of creamy chalky chèvre and served it all with bread (gluten-free for meeee) and salad. And she puts balsamic vinegar on the goats cheese. Mmmmmmm. I'm never going to get bored of this stuff....

No pictures as a) I STILL have no camera even though Father said it would arrive yesterday fo' shizzle and b) I eat my goats cheese too quickly. SO instead I shall just put up all the Interrailing 2008 goats cheese salads. (I wish I was interrailing right now instead of waiting around for chemo #6 and poking my neck lump anxiously.)

Stockholm, Sweden
the £15 salad...never go to Sweden unless you're rich.


Amsterdam, Holland - #1


Amsterdam, Holland - #2
in Puccini's cafe


Bruges, Belgium
this might have been the best one - bacon and caramelised apples....mmm.


Leuven, Belgium

Now you realise what Georgina had to put up with for a whole month: a travelling companion with an irrational obsession for goats cheese who insisted on taking photos of every meal... well she bore it stoically and is an angel.

Onto chemo side effects! Same old, same old to be honest. Now I feel pretty much normal again - went for my second run (4ish miles) this week last night and kept up a reasonable pace the whole way round. My first run on Sunday was really quite slow and I stopped a fair bit, partly because my lungs were about to explode and partly because my legs were turning to jelly. I blame bleomycin - I can practically feel it fibrosing my lungs eeek! Some of this is psychological I think - the sergeant major part of my brain is yelling "GET A MOVE ON YOU LAZY FAT LUMMOX", then the pathetic part thinks ooooh I'm having chemo, I shouldn't push myself...and I end up stopping and the sergeant major shoots himself in fury.

That worrying insight into my schizoid runner's brain aside, I feel pretty fine and dandy. My mood gets better as the side effects improve and I'm not such a little madam to be around. hurrah for non-grumpiness! Oh good, the grandparentals are here - will sign off now as have burbled on for long enough.

OOH one last thing - 3 of my fellow Hodge-fighters (Lorraine, Brooke and Diana) have had awesome news this week so congrats to all you guys! I hope I can stay as positive as you have!

plug time!!

HELLO all of you peeps in Newcastle reading this when you should be revising/recovering from the NMDSC Ball/end of exams etc etc - how would you fancy going along to a Marrow clinic tonight? For those of you who don't know, Marrow is The Anthony Nolan Trust - a wonderful charity that helps save lives from leukaemia by finding healthy bone marrow donors and matching them with people whose immune systems have been shot to bits by high-dose chemo. (A bit like mine, if you think about it - though mine manages to pull itself back together with Neupogen, and anyway ABVD is only moderate dose chemo.)

I knew a bit about Marrow before the whole Hodge thing started - mainly because I live with the Marrow President. Never live with the Marrow President - Marrow will try to TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE! She tried to get my bone marrow but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to join the Bone Marrow Register because of my coeliac disease - anyone with autoimmune disease is automatically excluded. (It's probably not the best idea to give someone with leukaemia some mildly schizophrenic bone marrow that might well decide to start attacking its own body...) But if you would be able to donate bone marrow to someone who really really needs it, and you are in the Newcastle/Jesmond area, could you PLEASE consider popping down to Jesmond Methodist Church tonight from 6:00 - 8:20pm? You will have a chat with a counsellor and then a small sample of blood will be taken to see if you are a match to save someone's life! Free biscuits and juice are provided. The clinic is open to anyone so spread the word and take along your housemates and friends. For more information see the Facebook event. If even one person reads this and goes along to join the register I will be CHUFFED.

I used to give blood too but found out that if you have ever had a blood cancer as an adult, you're automatically barred from giving blood ever again. If you've had it as a child you are allowed to donate after 10 years in the clear. I was v. irritated at this but have vowed to pester other people to donate theirs instead.... watch this space! (When I find out when the next few blood clinics are on in Newcastle.)