Fate lends a hand

Time is illusionary.

The days from Saturday to Wednesday seemed, at the time, to last a month. Now they seem like a bad dream from which I've woken.

I was sick. A lot. And when I wasn't being sick, I felt sicker. The anti-sickness tablets defected to the other side and were just sickness tablets, being throw into one of the two toilets in my flat, or sometimes, just for fun, the sink, as you can then play 'Push the Chunks' after. Not that there were many chunks after day two, just acid bile. Too much information? Go and read a blog about kittens then. Because cancer is mostly about puke, shit, sweat, tears and other 'hard to remove at thirty' stains.

And for a day or so back there, towards the end, I was stuck The Dark Zone. Where everything seems utterly pointless and futile. Where just thinking about another treatment in 9 days makes you want to reach for the [insert self-harming weapon of choice here].

And yet, today, with two days of feeling "not-sick", those dark times seem like a long way away again. Time is very strange.

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I had to see my Consultant on Wednesday. It was the first time I left the house for 5 days - only to travel back to the wretched hospital.

10:15 - Arrive for appointment. Wait.
10:45 - I am weighed. Just under 12 stone. Not bad, put some back on.
11:30 - blood test - but not taken from my PICC as I hoped, as these nurses are not qualified to use my new toy, so it's another shot into the other arm. Blood sent up for checking.
12:30 - see my Consultant. I start to talk about how sick I've been but start crying as I get to the bit where I plead for treatment every three weeks, as opposed to every two. Although tissues and sympathy are offered, she does not back down. It's important that I have treatment every two weeks, apparently. I do not accept this but I am somewhat powerless here. Fate may yet help her see reason. *knowing smile*
12:50 - My spleen is felt. A new drug is prescribed to help with the nausea - a sedative known as Lorazepam. I like drugs that end with the letters 'pam'. You know they warrant their 'don't operate heavy machinery' disclaimer. So, just to stop me feeling sick, during my next bout of chemo I will be taking Lorazepam, Cyclizine, Ondansetron and Domperidome, to be of course gakked with my normal breakfast of Allopurinol and Ranitidine, with a side-order of Codeine, Paracetomol and to be washed down with a Movicol juice to stop my bowels turning to concrete. On my arm is a tattoo that says "Drug Free". Oh how I laugh. On top of these extra drugs, I'm written the 'script for two more self-injecting 'white blood cell booster' needles, to be plunged at the weekend ...
13:15 ... to the hospital pharmacy to drop in my script and then to the ...
13:30 ... Cancer Ward to clean up my PICC line, which is coated in dry blood. I walk in to That Place that made me so sick only 6 days ago, take a deep breath, and ...
13:32 - puke in their toilets.
13:45 - PICC line cleaned.
14:00 - Back to the pharmacy
14:22 - Lose temper in pharmacy
14:30 - Get 'script items.
14:35 - Leave hospital. Punch air.

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Time passes

Friday morning. Phone rings whilst driving to work.

It's my Consultant.

"How are you feeling?"
"Better now, thanks. Not sick."
"Good. You know those injections you're taking..."
"Hmmm"
"Well, don't use them. There is a very slight chance it can cause a spleenal rupture when the spleen is enlarged, such as yours"
"Oh, cool. OK, so, er what happens when I can't have treatment because of my low-blood count then - which, as you know, has happened every time I haven't had the injections"
"We will delay the treatment for a week"
"Right. So you're telling me that there's no injections from now on and my treatment will probably be delayed for a week"
"Yes"
"This might just be the best phone call I've ever had"

And on that bombshell, I'm spending my weekend hanging out with people with bad colds, staying up way  too late and only eating raw eggs ... gotta keep those white blood-cells down at all costs.