Mine's a large one please...

So here we go again. As mentioned in the last blog, I am halfway through treatment and it has been a challenge at times. I thought the second half would be similar to the first half but the treatment is completely different.

During my PAC meeting with the Consultant he advised that the chemo would double in strength. There was to be no immunotherapy to allow time for the thyroid treatment to work.

As I turned up for the appointment I was expecting just chemo. What I was not expecting was how it was to be delivered. During the first 12 weeks, the chemo was delivered weekly in bags hung on an IV pole and fed directly into my PICC line drip by drip. This also explains why each bag took an hour to empty into me.

Through the second half the chemo is delivered every 3 weeks. The first part of the treatment is similar. Anti-sickness for obvious reasons; antihistamine to help reduce allergic reactions; saline to flush the Picc line and ready the body. Then my nurse turned up with a tray of very large syringes full of red fluids.

Good grief I said. What on earth is going on?

This is different now, she said. I deliver these manually and slowly through the Picc line.

I have seen this size syringe before I said, but it was full of vodka jelly and it was injected into my mouth by a very handsome and beloved 6ft4 rugby player whilst I was standing on a sloping hill in Lan Kwai Fong in Hong Kong!! In fact I had quite a few injections then!! It was a night I shall never forget!

She laughed. I laughed and then I remembered how absolutely awful I felt the next day having overdone the joy of vodka jelly, hoping that the red stuff she was about to give me would not deliver the same level of hangover.

My hopes were dashed the next day. Even though I am still not back on the immunotherapy, the new chemo hit me like a sledgehammer (or like I sucked down a bucket of vodka jelly).

It is difficult to know whether my reaction is just due to the chemo, or because my thyroid is still not behaving. I won't know until the next plethora of blood tests.

In the meantime, the first 6 days following the new chemo was just dreadful. But....and it's important to share the good news not just the ugh news....the last few days have been significantly better. The nausea has diminished as has the significant fatigue.

In the meantime, a new side effect has surfaced (also previously advised by the Consultant), I have weeping eyes. Or in his words, ' your orifices may seep ' . Whilst this is only a minor issue, it is weirdly off-putting as it lasted for 3 or 4 days and I looked like I was constantly crying. I was not.

My other orifices are out of bounds and not to be mentioned in this blog!

In theory, my next appointments for the next few weeks should be simple. Line care for the Picc Line and bloods along with a PAC appointment, and Endo Consultants appointment, and then back to chemo on 21st December, just in time for Xmas.

In theory.

But not for me. I have been back in hospital again this week, undergoing more tests. But that is for another blog.

I am generally OK. Feeling so much better than I was which is the most important thing and the thyroid drugs seem to be working.

Keeping strong....