12 September 2005
In the morning the district nurse came to change my dressing and do a blood test to check that my white blood
cells will be high enough to start chemo this week. In the afternoon I had my pre-chemo check up with Dr Bayston.
I am now 77kg, so I now weigh more than what I did when I started treatment. At one stage my weight was below
70kg during my treatment. I asked about the possibility of having the Luer plugs on my Hickman line changed
to CLC plugs, the reason for this request is because it would mean I would only need to flush my Hickman
line once a week instead of twice a day. Dr Bayston said that she would need to check with Christchurch
Hospital first as I am still a Christchurch Hospital patient. After looking at the results of the
blood test done in the morning it appears that I am still Nutripenic but my levels should be
safe to start chemo on Wednesday. As a result of my white blood cells only just being high
enough to start chemo I will now start having 10 days of Neupogen instead of 7.
15 September 2005
Chemo started today once again a day later than originally planned due to the fact the wrong drugs were
sent down from Dunedin. It is one year today since I first went and saw the doctor about the lump on my
shoulder, there is no way a year ago that I expected to still be going through treatment I honestly
thought it would only take a few months and everything would be back to normal.
I had no problems getting up to start chemo this morning and felt fine for the remainder of the morning.
I did start to feel tired in the afternoon after reading the paper. This evening, while up in the
medical ward, Mum and Dad came to visit and we all then went downstairs to visit my Grandma was in
the Rehab Ward after having a fall earlier in the week. After visiting Grandma I started feeling sick
and ended up vomiting as soon as I was back in my room. I was given a Cyclazine and this put me to
sleep right away, this was pointless because an hour later I had to be woken up to have Mesna
pumped into me.
16 September 2005
I stayed in bed until about 5 minutes before I needed to go to Oncology to start chemo. I didn't even bother
having a shower. Most of the morning I spent resting on the bed and reading the paper. I was given Losec to
take as I had been having problems with indigestion but I couldn't get this down.
In the evening I just lay down and watched TV and ended up vomiting several times during the night.
I believe that stopping the Losec may be a result of this.
17 September 2005
I was discharged at around lunch time and on the way home I voted in the 2005 General Election.
I spent most of the day just resting on my bed and not feeling like eating or drinking anything.
I found this time it took me longer to recover from the chemo I guess this is because we are getting further into the treatment or it could be because I was getting more active during the last cycle. This time round I stayed in bed pretty much every day until lunchtime as I always seemed to feel tired and I didn't go out for walks as often, the reason for this was also due to the weather at the time.
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