Chemo failure

I should have had my second dose of intravenous chemotherapy on Wednesday at the Cancer Centre, but my white blood cell count was too low so they decided not to go ahead with it this week. I now have to wait until next Wednesday for my next session, which is definitely a bit of a bummer, even though it does give me a free week, it does mean I won't finish treatment until the 21st of May, and then only if there are no further delays. Peru is disappearing fast.

I seem to spend my life waiting for something to happen, all out of my control, a kind of suspended animation. I've been getting treatment for cancer now for nine months, spent five weeks in hospital, two weeks in bed at home, had five weeks of combined chemo and radiotherapy, numerous hospital and doctor appointments and now in the third week of an eighteen week course of chemotherapy and there still seems to be no end to it.

Looks as if 2014 is going to be given over to ridding me of this cancer, just like 2013. I almost said that the year would be lost but that sounds too negative. And I don't like using verbs like fighting or struggling in relation to cancer, they don't seem right somehow.  I'm not at war with myself. Yet.

So here I am trying to cope with the ups and downs of living with cancer and it sure is difficult sometimes to keep a positive frame of mind. Speaking of which if anyone else tells me to think positive thoughts I shall scream and scream, like the good lady said, until they hear me across the water. I do stay on top of things but sometimes it gets almost unbearable and a tear or two is sometimes called for.

The nurses at the Cancer Centre were their usual lovely selves. But they took four attempts before they successfully fitted a cannula for my chemo. This was a painful business. They then used it to take a blood test and came back an hour later to tell me that I'd failed the test so the cannula was not needed after all and could come out. This made me cry. I felt a wee tear was justified in the circumstances.

Thats all for now, just wanted to do this update on my treatment to keep you all in the loop. Life goes on. I've just had a call from my good friend Mike and I've forgotten to meet him for lunch. Fortunately he is a good man and forgives me and is coming round to visit me tomorrow morning instead. Sorry Mike for being a twit and thanks for not giving me a row.