Treatment 24

Last week, technically, I did not receive chemo. Cetuximab may be delivered in hospital, on the oncology ward, and the nurses may 'suit up' to administer medicine through my port, and it will upset my cancer cells and give me some fun side effects in the process. But as I think I've mentioned before, chemotherapy is a word that only applies to 'cytotoxic' drugs. Not all drugs delivered in the same style are cytotoxic, so not chemo.

My appointment was booked for 2pm. If I'd arrived at 2pm I would have still been in hospital at 7pm. Luckily someone noticed this and asked me to come in 'before 12pm' today instead. Of course, I said. No problem.

We got there at about 11.59pm.

So very early by my usual standards.

Another lovely spring day. More awesome street art. 

The date was 11th Nov. Remembrance day. Always a day touched with sadness. But we still find joy in each day too, as I would hope the fallen would want. Today while listening to the radio we also learnt that musical poet legend Lenard Coen has died. More sadness, but more celebration too. 

Irinoteken means an injection. It means we were there until just after 5pm.

I wore my Laneway Sydney 2016 T shirt. I've actually worn it to chemo before but I was featuring the skirt I was wearing at the time, not the T-shirt. Laneway in Sydney is great, we've been a few times, and make a little holiday out of it.

When I have chemo (by which I mean, treatment) I also get given antihistamine to help against reactions, anti-nausea to help against nausea and steroids to help with fatigue but also other side effects. And when I have treatment in the afternoon instead of the morning I'm then up for a good chunk of the night thanks to the steroids. Tired but totally unable to sleep. I have many good strategies (and drugs) in place for difficulty sleeping, which of course hits me from time to time for various reasons, but on a late treatment day nothing seems to cut it. So I've been going with it. It's gone 1am and I have sent an number of long emails. Facebook is quite dull at this time of night. I still make more comments and longer ones. And then I generally don't get back to my computer for a number of days as I recover from treatment and fatigue. It's OK though. Perhaps even an opportunity to get some bits done. Not that I fully trust myself or what I write during these strange steroid buzzes.