facing the shit

OK, after my last trip to the Chemo Clinic (that resulted in nothing happening to me at all), my nausea went into overdrive, lasted all day and made me feel horrendous. You can imagine that I wasn't really looking forward to going back there today for a simple blood test and a clean up of the PICC line ... I'd convinced myself that stepping foot near that place was now enough to send me into a merry-go-round-at-sea-after-a-dodgy-curry type state.

I arrived, I walked through the doors - took the first hit of warm air that fills that place and gakked it down, face curling into a ball. Count to 3 ... 3,2,1 ... no nausea.

How odd. I had to wait the best part of an hour to been seen, then had about 30 mins of faffing - taking blood, cleaning the PICC line, you know, faffing ... but no nausea.

So I just don't get it ... clearly my brain knows the difference between 'about to be poisoned' and 'not about to be poisoned'.

The proof, I guess, will come tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be poisoned.

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I went to see my consultant after the above. She is in a different part of the hospital to the chemo unit.

We had a chat about a couple of things - the anticipatory nausea, the new Lorazepam, my impending codeine addition but the real reason I was there was so we could discuss my spleen theory - that being, that the spleen is not getting smaller and we are somewhat pissing into the wind trying to reduce it. I rephrased that last statement for her, because she's a bit posh, like.

I got half-naked, laid down on the couch and she had a feel of Mr.Spleenerooney whilst measuring him with a tape and was in agreement - it hasn't reduced in size.

A C.T. scan appointment is going to be made, so we can see for sure and my consultant is going to discuss my case with her peer group of Very Clever People, but she all but told me that her original hunch was - and still remains - that the spleen will have to be removed.

There's no point jumping the gun about that now - but that's how it's looking at the moment.

I am due for Chemo Session 3b tomorrow (they go 1a,1b,2a,2b,3a...) somewhat stupidly, I wrote in a previous blog some time ago that I was on 4a or something ... I miscalculated ... I've actually only had FIVE treatments so far. It seems like this has been going on for ages now, and I've only completed 5 treatments - Christ.

Well, number 6 (or 3b) is definitely on .. my white cell count is back up. So bang goes a nice 4 day weekend. No Easter break for me. Jesus hates me, as I suspected anyway. It's because I use his name in vain (see above paragraph).

Tonight I start back on the Lorazepam - half a pill at night, half in the morning - enough to whack me out for the impending poison-fest I must face. Lorazepam nice, chemo evil. It's a bit like smoking a nice relaxing spliff and being forced to watch a JLS concert.

I'm running out of words to describe how I feel about having treatment now. You try to remain as optimistic as you possibly can - hopeful that this time it might not be so bad.

But, let's face it, it's always shit. It's chemo. Chemo is shit and cancer is shit.

But sometimes in life, I guess you just gotta stand up, take a deep breath and deal with the shit.

And here endeth the blog.