The Fat Lady Sings!

Well I haven’t been here for a couple of weeks, that’s because surprise surprise, I’ve been on the couch recovering from the 3rd round of chemo two weeks ago.  Whilst being infused that time I noticed that one of the bags of drugs was kept covered by an opaque purple bag while it hung on the drip stand.  The nurse explained that that particular drug was sensitive to the light and exposure to it caused this particular drug to do funny things, she said the nurses nickname for it is the ‘Red Devil’.  Really?!  Well that explains the week of hell that I spend after it’s been shot through my veins.

But it wasn’t all all bad days.  There were some good one’s and yesterday was definitely one of them.  I made the most of it while I was feeling good and here I am sitting in a friends garden, having coffee (and cake) in the sunshine.

Yes, the sun was shining, and we were sitting out in it, and it’s still February, can you believe that?  This time last year we had a snow storm.  (I believe it’s snowing in Arizona!)

Today is another great day, and I’m not talking about the weather, and you may have noticed that the title of my blog this week is not very PC, but you know what, I don’t care!  I don’t care and I hope that Lady sings at the top of her voice, I might even join her, because today is my last day to have my bloods taken, my last day to have to sit in this chair, my last day to be on this ward, my last time to answer all the nurses questions, my last time to have the poison administered, my last time to have to listen to the endless clicking of the pump on the drip, my last time to visit the grumpy man in the suit, and my last time to see NM.  I might miss her a little bit, but despite the expert care, attention, advice, encouragement and support that I received on the Oncology Ward, I certainly won’t miss anything else about this place. Tall Kevin says he won’t miss having to drive through the traffic to get me here for 9am.

Actually, I might miss the poached eggs that they have in the canteen downstairs.

So, after that last session two weeks ago, I was re-scanned as promised with every possible machine from every possible angle and perspective, to see how the tumor reducing process was coming along.  After a week on the couch, getting over the poison, being expertly cared for again by my sister-in-law and my sister, I was just about well enough to go to visit the surgeon, Ruth.  She apologized for the horrible process that they had put me through but was delighted to tell me that even though it seemed cruel, it worked, as she was very pleased by the results of the scans.  I’m now the (not-so) proud owner of a reduced in density tumor, hurrah, and a surgery date, towards the end of March, to have what’s left of it removed.  

And I won’t be one bit sorry to see it go!

In the grand scheme of things, this is all very good news.  But the bad news that goes with that is that I still had to have one last dose of poison today.   Just one more bad week to get through now.  One more week of wondering will I need the vomit basin, one more week of coming in and out of conciseness, one more week of having no energy and struggling to do the smallest of tasks, and then I’ll be finished with all this chemotherapy stuff.  Oh yes, and one more injection to be administered.  I managed to do that all by myself without the aid of a nurse the last time.  I’m still waiting for my superhero cape to arrive in the post.

I told the nurses looking after me today, that when that last drop of the Red Devil was infused and they were finished doing their checks and when they finally disconnect me from that annoying pump, for the very last time, I was going to dance out of here with my arms outstretched turning around in circles singing like Julie Andrews on the top of that mountain in the Sound of Music.  They did laugh, because we all know that in reality walking out of the ward, I will actually look more like Bruce Willis in Die Hard when he had to walk across that room full of glass without his shoes....

In other news.  

I’m not the only one under the weather round here as my poor little doggo and couch companion is also not the best.  He has conjunctivitis and a bad cough.  Unfortunately, he also has cataracts.  They are in the early stage, but according to the Vet, he will eventually go blind.  Poor Rusty.  He is 13 so I suppose we can’t complain, and he certainly doesn’t!  Tall Kevin has been saying for a while that he thought Rusty had trouble seeing in the dark, because for example, he had to put the light on so that Rusty could see the bed before jumping onto it in the middle of the night.  Imagine the inconvenience of that!  So to help him out, Tall Kevin has has installed motion sensor lights all over the upstairs of the house.  So now, in the middle of the night when Rusty decides that the might like to change beds, on making his approach to his bed of choice, his pathway is lit up like a runway and it ensures that he makes a perfect landing every time.  What can I say?   

Don’t worry, none of Rusty’s ailments will hinder him from joining me on the couch, which is where I am heading now.  

There were a few sequels to the Die Hard movie, so as I’m the hero in this film and as I beat the bad guys (the poison and the tumor) I’m sure there’ll be a sequel to the ‘Chemotherapy and Me’ blockbuster, so watch out for ‘Surgery, the Musical’ and ‘Making Waves with Radiotherapy’, coming to a blog near you soon.

The Fat Lady is on stage now.