Halfway done

Well the chemo is done, it's amazing really that such a huge dose of chemo (which will wipe out bone marrow, leave me sick for two weeks, make my hair fall out, but I must remember could also leave me well for a good long while) was delivered to me in 30 minutes in a ridiculously small bag (maybe the size of a Gideon bible that you got in school) of clear liquid. I have been given anti-sickness medication and loads of fluid via IV which means I'm up to the loo loads and I will continue to get fluids dripped into me all night.

Then tomorrow I will get my stem cell infusion around lunchtime. Currently I feel the same as I did this morning, which is fine. I have been assured this will change in the next week. 

I have had my hospital tea which was ok considering my choice was cottage pie or vegetable noodles with baked beans or mashed potato. You may be surprised to note I didn't go for that all time favourite of veggy noodles and baked beans. I don't want to be too down on hospital food I've got two weeks of it left. That was another thing: I found out I could be out in 16 days rather than 3 weeks which I thought was the minimum, which is good news. Better news than finding out my recent bone marrow results showed the myeloma on the rise again, which is disappointing but really neither here nor there considering they are killing it all off anyway. Would have been nice to see it lower than 30% though when they were aiming for around 10% plasma.

Yesterday when I was walking back from Tesco a youngish lad maybe 20-25 was walking ahead of me on crutches. He stopped quite a way in front of me then as I approached started to tell me how much he hated his crutches. He then continued to moan about his cast and dislocated knee. Now, I have pondered before what I would do if someone (particularly someone I didn't know) started to whinge about a health issue which was significantly less of a problem than my own, in a slightly self important way that suggested that they were so much worse off than me. Would I say 'yes I completely understand last year I fractured my neck and had to have part of my spine replaced and I'm going in to have a stem cell transplant on Friday to tackle the cancer responsible, byeeee'? That would get 'em.

Well, in 100 yards I found out that he has had three casts (one was too tight, one was too loose and this one was just right), the cast goes above the knee which means he can't bend his leg, he has had the cast for 6 weeks and there is still another 3 weeks to go and he has to go to a different hospital now because the department at his current hospital was too busy (both hospitals are equidistant to our place of residence). What did I say? 'Oh that's awful...does it get itchy underneath?', 'Ooooh yeah' he said, and I shook my head, wished him luck and made sure that at the next available opportunity I walked a different way to him. He was a nice fellow but just a bit boring.