Every cloud...

Well, a lot has happened since I’ve been here last, I had to read over the last blog I posted to see what news was in it and what I'd updated you with.  So, since then, I’ve had (and not necessarily in this order):

5 weeks of recovery from surgery

4 radioactive injections

3 hospital visits

2 lymph nodes removed

I lumpectomy

And a Partridge in a Pear tree!

4 Radioactive injections I hear you say?  Yes, one of the two delightful procedures that preempted surgery.  The other one was to have a piece of wire inserted into the tumor, under local anesthetic, through my flesh while I watched!  Honestly, I’m not making this up.

Having the wire inserted is to aid the surgeon when she is removing the tumor.  It guides her straight to the tumor site which makes the whole process of cutting it out easier.  Obviously, I was well prepared and knew this was all going to happen, but it still hurt!  I had a discussion (bet) with the surgeon as to how many cuts she would have to make to remove the offending article plus a couple of lymph nodes.  Naturally my preference was just one, but she said she couldn’t tell me beforehand and I’d just have to wait and see how good she was, and it also depended on where exactly the wire was inserted and where it led her.

As for the radioactive injections. Well!  The hospital I attend doesn’t have a ‘Nuclear Medicine’ department, so I had to go to the adjoining main hospital for this.  Myself and two other ladies who were having the same procedure, were rounded up, send down to the basement in a service lift, put into a golf buggy, driven through a maze of tunnels, put into another service lift and sent up to the NM department (funny how the Nuclear Medicine department and Nurse Mary have the same initials!).  On the journey over, despite being like three convicted criminals on our way to prison, we made small talk about the weather etc. I did say at one point to the driver of the golf buggy that if he stopped in one of the tunnels and let me off, I’d be lost forever as I’d never find my way out (if I'd realized what was ahead of me I'd have jumped!!).  On the way back however, it was a completely different story.  We were like Brothers in Arms returning from a Tour of Duty suffering from PTSD!  Not a word was said.  Also, by now it was lunchtime and having been fasting since 6.30am, we were all very hungry, which didn’t help.

Anyway, the NM department  was a barrel of laughs, as you would expect. When I was called in for my turn in the torture chamber I was met by a young male nurse holding a lead box with that ‘radioactive materials’ sign on it.  Jeez!

It had in it the four injections (yes 4) containing radioactive dye that were to be administered.  The purpose of all this is to highlight the Sentinel lymph node, which has to be removed at the same time as the tumor.  So, the nurse filled me in on what was going to happen, the Consultant would be along shortly to administer the injections, (I’ll spare you the details of where exactly they were administered) and I wasn’t to worry as he was an expert now at this and had the whole procedure down to 20 seconds.  20 seconds!  I wasn’t sure if I should be delighted by his proficiency or cry at his proficiency.  The nurse also pointed out to me that this hospital was a teaching hospital and would I mind if a student nurse observed (she had appeared as if by magic and was standing there smiling shyly).  No, I didn’t mind, sure we all have to learn, an I'm learning a lot here!  After a short time filled with awkward silences and me making bad jokes about being radioactive, the Consultant of Pain arrived, with another Doctor in tow.  He also explained that this was a teaching hospital and this Doctor had never seen this procedure done and she would like to watch and would I mind?  What could I say?

I deserved an Oscar for my stoic performance that day, and I was very upset that I didn’t get a standing ovation from my very quiet, wide eyed audience, when it was all over.

After the injections, I had to wait 40 minutes for the radioactive dye to reach the Sentinel (first) lymph node, this highlighted it for the surgeon so she knows which one to remove.  Then some photographs were taken of the 'green glowing node' by a very high tech machine. Apparently my photos turned out great, although I never got to see them.

When it was all over we were delivered back to our respective wards in the smaller hospital and we never saw each other again.  I did however see the catering staff, as they brought lunch to the other patient in my room.

2pm. I’m now in bed waiting to be brought to theater.

3pm. I’m still waiting. The catering staff had already made their second round offering tea/coffee etc.

4pm. I was still waiting.

5pm. I was still waiting, but a nurse had come in and told me that she had heard from the surgeon and it wouldn’t be much longer.  By this stage I was starving and dehydrated.  I was like that lion in the children's movie Madagascar who was so hungry that he began having hallucinations and saw all his friends as food.  To me now the nurses were looking increasingly like ice-cream cones in their white uniforms, the catering staff were looking like mars bars in their black and red uniforms and the porters were looking like pints of Guinness in their white tops and black trousers.  I was very cranky...

6pm. I was brought to theater, where I was rewarded for my long wait with an intravenous bag of warm fluids.  My cup runneth over!

7pm. I was in my drug induced sleep, dreaming of food, while the surgeon worked her magic.

9.30pm. I was back in the ward, where to my delight I was promised tea and toast in a couple of hours.  That never happened as I promptly fell asleep and slept right through till the next morning.

After a light post-op breakfast and some after care instructions I was on my way home, and while I’m not much of a meat eater, I’d have eaten the partridge and the pear tree if they’d been there waiting for me.

Here I am now 5 weeks later, recovering as well as can be expected.  I’ve had some problems with the wound, but it is healing well now. The three hospital visits I mentioned included a post op visit to the surgeon who was delighted to inform me that I was now cancer free and that there was no cancer either in the lymph nodes that were removed and tested.  A silver lining indeed!

The second hospital visit was to the Radiotherapy Oncologist who informed me that I would be having 19 sessions of radiotherapy with him and his team. This is also good news as I was expecting it to be a lot more sessions than that.  I’ll let you know how that goes when it starts.

And last but not least I went to see my favorite grumpy man in a suit, the Oncologist.  I’ve come to realize lately, that for every silver lining there is also a cloud, and the professor sent me home with a huge black one hanging over my head.  While he too was very pleased with all the results, he explained that they (whoever they are!) have had very good results with the form of cancer I had by administering further doses of chemotherapy as it reduces the risk of recurrence.  As you can imagine, I was pretty upset by this.

Apparently this drug Capecitabine or Xeloda as it's commonly known, my new choice of poison, is administered orally and I can take it myself at home, and great news, it won’t make my hair fall out. This is actually good news as after five months my hair eyelashes and eyebrows have just begun to make an appearance again and it would be just cruel for them to all fall out again.  This new dose can also run concurrently with the radiotherapy so I don’t have to wait till one is over to start the other.  I don’t know yet when this extra treatment will start but it will take 18 weeks to complete.

So there you go, just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, when I could see light at the end of the tunnel, when I could see the finish line, when I had only one more hurdle to jump, (insert your own analogy here) I’m right back to the beginning again.  It's very frustrating, and I know it for my own good (insert your own encouraging words here) but it still stinks!!  Don’t worry, I won’t bring you back to the start with me.  I’ll just drop in here from time to time to let you know how I’m getting on.  I’m sure there will be a tale or two to tell and you’ll be wanting to know how Nurse Mary is I’m sure!

But its not all bad news.  Despite the fact that I’m still open to infection and still injecting myself every day with blood thinners and still have to have my wound (scar from the operation) dressed every couple of days, I managed to get away to London for a few days to visit my Family.  Not only did I catch up with my brothers, sisters-in-law, cousins, nieces and nephews, drank some champagne ate nice food and had some laughs, I also met the newest addition to the Brennan family, Teddy!

And what a silver lining he is.  He’s as soft as you would imagine a cloud would be and you couldn’t help but be cheered up by that little face (don’t tell Rusty I said that).  

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.

I'm still here!

In case you're wondering, I'm still here, although there's not much of me left as I've now lost the rest of my hair, part of my eyebrows and I have no eyelashes on my lower lids.  If I had seams, I be falling apart at them!

This will be a short one as I don't have the energy or brain power now to write too much, or in fact to do anything much at all.

I had dose number 2 of the double poison last week as scheduled, all went well, they are very pleased with my progress, so much so that they want to keep going with this heavy duty stuff for another 2 sessions.  Next week, as well as a good dose of poison, I'll be re-scanned, MRI'd (god help me, is there no end to the torture!) ultra-sounded and CT'd.  All in a good cause, to see how the tumor has responded to this horrible treatment.  Let's hope it has responded well.

So, aside from sleeping my way through afternoon TV, I am now adept at giving myself injections!  I managed to get over my fear of sticking a needle into myself and was able to do the necessary jabbing and plunging to get the immune system boosting drug into me.  When I was finished, the supervising nurse said "Congratulations! You've done an injection, you're now a fully qualified nurse!"  Wait till I tell Nurse Mary....

Once again I haven't been outside since I was at the hospital, but I haven't missed it yet, and the weather is horrible, so who wants to go outside anyway?

While I was confined to the couch, I was in the expert hands of two of my sister-in-laws Michele and Suzanne, who very kindly took it in turns to look after me.  The food was great, but they need to brush up on their bedside manner.  I never realized they were so bossy!  They've obviously been hanging round my brothers for too long.  I had to ask permission to get off the couch to go to the bathroom!  And I couldn't deviate on my return route either, or there would be questions.  One of them even pretended to have no shoes so that she couldn't leave the house and leave me alone in case I got off the couch.  (There was some story about a boot with a broken zip, replacement boots being purchased, which subsequently also had a broken zip, and no replacement for those pair to be found!  Several phone calls were made, a third pair were sourced, Tall Kevin was dispatched for them, only to have to pay over the odds, more phone calls then strongly worded letters of complaint were sent to the store.  All that just to make sure I stayed on the couch!!??  Exactly, I don't believe a word of it either!)

That's about all I can manage today.  So it's back to the couch for me.  Unfortunately, I never seem to be able to have it all to myself, I always have to share...

 

Undercover.

I’m back! And it’s not Tuesday.

Apologies for my short absence but I was actually undercover.  Either under the cover of my duvet, or under the cover of a blanket on my couch.

It’s been nine days since I had my last chemo session (sounds like I’m at an AA meeting!) and I haven’t been outside the house since.  Imagine!  I had round one, of four, of a new cocktail of poison called A/C, the abbreviated name for Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide.  Who makes up these names, and do they make them so difficult to spell on purpose?  I have chemo brain (according to my nurse it's well documented so I'll be using it as an excuse for everything now!), so it’s a challenge to spell my own name, never mind one of those far too long drug names.  One lot was bright orange color and one was the usual clear color, I don’t know which was which, but I do know, that unlike the Taxol, I felt the after effects as soon as I got home.  They knocked me for six. I did ask those in the know what do these drugs do to the tumor/cancer that the Taxol didn’t and the only answer I got was that they do the same thing but they work in a different way.  So I’m none the wiser. I can only equate it to what I know, an engine perhaps, you can have a diesel one or a petrol one, they both do the same thing, but work in different ways.

I had been warned that I’ll be very unwell after receiving these drugs but it still took me by surprise, and along with the surprise, I also have a whole new regime of anti sicknesses drugs and steroids to take.  Plus, on top of all that, I have to inject myself with an immune boosting drug 24 hours after receiving the chemo. Yikes!!  No rest for the wicked! I must have been very wicked....

So, this injection, the day after the chemo the hospital sent a nurse out to show me how to administer it. Apparently it’s easy to do and I should be able to manage it myself.  (NM told me she only ever had one patient who couldn’t manage to do it and she had no intention of having that number go to two!)  Yikes.  No pressure. The nurse was great, she had a ‘dummy’ needle kit which we practiced with and I was able to manage with no trouble.  I had to practice with the sharpsafe box also and I was able to manage that too.  But, of course, when it came to actually sticking the real shiny pointed very long menacing looking needle into myself, I just couldn’t do it. Epic failure.  Don’t tell NM, my name will be mud!!  Just as well I’m not really one of those investigative reporters that has to do all this sort of stuff, I’d definitely be sacked.  Anyway, the nurse did it for me and she has to come back next week and go through the whole process again.  Fingers crossed I’ll be braver the next time. I’ll have to be, 'cos she won’t come back a third time.

It’s not all bad news though, I’ve finished work for the foreseeable future, so I’m a full time patient now and I have an army of carers lined up to look after me over the next few weeks.  Just so they know in advance, I got one of NM’s score cards and I’ll be marking them on their performance, for example, who makes the best coffee, who makes the best soup, who makes the best dinner, who makes the best cake, who picks the best stuff to watch on TV and of course who entertains me with the best gossip.

My big sister, Deirdre, headed up the first delegation of carers aided and abetted by a visiting from London brother, Ciaran.  A big thank you to them.  Between them they were able to cater to my every demand, which were many and insistent. Score cards have been updated and the next lot of carers be warned, the bar is set very high for your shift.  Although Deirdre said she wasn’t coming back again unless I stayed where I was supposed to, as in, on the couch! 

Rusty would like to thank Patrick, my nephew also visiting from London, for taking him round the park every hour.

In other good news I managed not to have to use the vomit (too much information, sorry!) basin that was my best friend for the first few days.  It was a very good friend and followed me from the couch to my bed and waited patiently by my side, even though I ignored it and then casually tossed it aside when I knew I didn’t need it anymore.

And speaking of being cared for, I am the recipient of yet another lovely care package.  This one came all the way from the Black Forest in Germany (thanks Gabrielle!), I only hope I’m not too sick to eat all the goodies inside.  I wont be cold either with the also enclosed Dr Who Tom Baker style scarf! I think you have a challenger for the knitter of the year title Deirdre.

There’s no denying it was a tough few days, so tough that I hadn’t the strength to write, but I got through them, I’m here to tell the tale and I’m still in good form.  Hopefully my immune system will have recovered enough to go thought the whole process again next week! I know that sounds mad, wishing to be well enough to be poisoned all over again, but it’s one step closer to the finish line, so fingers, legs, eye, wires crossed for good blood results on Tuesday.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been so undercover that I haven’t been outside for over a week, I’m really looking forward to going outside again, even if it is only for a trip to the hospital, but until Tuesday, I'm staying undercover(s).

Rogue reporter.

Good evening.

This is the editor of the Toxic Times.  Our normal Toxic Tuesday reporter hasn’t arrived at work today, so there will be no piece by her in todays publication.

No need to panic, we did get a garbled message from her, something to do with a rogue nurse, a double dose, a couch and a basin at the ready.  As she is on an undercover assignment we’re not fully up to speed on all the details and not quite sure what she means, so we can’t comment, but she did assure us she was OK and would be back at her desk next week.

We’d like to thank you on her behalf for your continued readership.

The Editor

A not so bad day.

Well reality has finally hit home. I’m definitely feeling the effects of the build up of the chemotherapy in my body now. 

As you may know, I can’t drive myself to or from the hospital, so that’s Tall Kevin’s job.  When he’s unable to, for some reason or another, I have a group of reserve drivers on standby.  Dad is on this list, and was the designated bring me home driver for today.

The last time Dad collected me I didn’t have any treatment because my bloods were too low.  Well, he’s officially off the list for collecting me now as, yes you've guessed it, I didn’t get any treatment today either!

I got a very bad score today in my assessment.  The questions I usually answer yes to, I answered no to, the questions I usually answer no to, I answered yes to and the questions I usually answer sometimes to I answered all the time to.  But I suppose I shouldn’t complain as I’ve gotten far without too much trouble.  My fingers not working properly, not my bloods, were the catalyst today.  The little bit I could do around the house is getting harder and harder to do and I keep dropping things, so I had to admit this to the nurse today.  I’ve already dropped the lid of my butter dish and broke off the little bird that sits on the top which is actually the handle.  Luckily Dad is handy with super glue (I’ll keep him on the list for those sort of jobs) and had it back together in no time.  But the most annoying thing about having butterfingers (ha!) is that I can’t take the wrappers off the sweets I’ve become addicted to.  Once the nurses heard this, that was it, I was marched straight in to see the grumpy man in the suit, and after answering all the same questions that I answered for the nurse, he declared that I’d had enough!  Enough Taxol that is, not sweets.  Phew!

But I suppose that would have been the worst thing that could happen, not eating sweets that is, as I don’t want my teeth to fall out from all the sugar in the sweets and as I’ve already lost my hair, if I also lose my teeth I may as well change my name to Healy-Rae and move to the Kingdom!  

I’ve no idea how quickly the feeling will come back into my fingers, so the next person that comes in and asks if there is anything they can do for me I’m going to get them to take all the wrappers off the sweets.  Priorities!  And of course it’s always better to be prepared for emergencies.

So the upside to this is that now I will be getting the A/C combination drug two weeks earlier (which doesn't cause peripheral neuropathy), and all going well, this means I’ll be finished with NM earlier than expected.  Result!  By coincidence I bumped into her while I was waiting for the lift.  She was very concerned that she got it so wrong with my skin, which has erupted fiercely over the last couple of weeks with psoriasis, and she’s gone off to see how/if she can fix that for me.  So I suppose she’s not the worst after all.

I’m also going to have to think about reducing my working hours.  The nurse in the dressing clinic, where I go to have my port connected and my bloods taken, was amazed that I’m still working and gave me a dressing (sorry!) down and a stern talking to about ‘looking after number one’.  I was too tired to argue with her and I suppose she does have a point.  So having the A/C a couple of weeks early is also good from this point of view as I had told my work colleagues that I probably wouldn’t be able to work whilst getting this much stronger combination.  I’m struggling with fatigue too, and it’s going to get worse over the next few weeks, so cutting down my hours or stopping work altogether will happen sooner than I expected also.  Apparently everything else is going to get worse too, nausea, mouth ulcers, pain, so it may seem crazy to be happy that the A/C is starting earlier than expected, but I am just happy that it’s going to be over earlier than expected.

An other side effect of the A/C that doesn’t happen with Taxol is the small chance that it can effect your heart.  So I was trotted off today to have an ultrasound on my heart.  I found this fascinating.  I would have stayed there all day asking questions and watching the pictures of my heart working away.  The radiographer doing the scan was great and explained everything as we went along.  It reminded me of the lesson we had in school when we had to buy a pigs heart from a local butcher and bring it in and dissect it.  My one overriding image memory of that day is the Nun (I can't remember her name but no doubt Irene Kenny will!!) with her hands dug into the arteries of the pigs heart and rummaging around to her hearts (ha!) content.  Yikes!  My imagery for today is way better, and much more hi-tech and everybody's hands were where everybody could see them!  They will never give you results while doing the scan, but she did indicate that everything ls looking good and my heart is in good shape.  Lets hope it stays like that!

So all in all, what could have been another disappointing day, turned into a not so bad one.  

And, as an added bonus, it's Cian's birthday today, and he is here, so we had cake.  A perfect ending!

A good Guide.

I’m here again, even tho I said I would take a break, but I keep finding things to tell you about.

No. 10 done and dusted.  Although my treatment plan is to have 16 treatments, the drug I’m getting at the moment is called Taxol, and I am only getting 12 doses of that, then I will move on to a mixture that they call here A/C, I don’t know the clinical name for those drugs yet, but I’ll fill you in on that when I’m finished the Taxol and know more about it.  It will be administered bi-weekly and will finish sometime in March.  (There will be celebrations!)  All this will be featured in my upcoming novel, 'A reluctant users guide to the Chemo Cocktail entity'!

I think I explained in a previous post about some of the side effects of Taxol, one of them being tingling or pins and needles in your hands and feet, the clinical name for which is peripheral neuropathy.  I'm getting good at these names, that what happens when you ask questions.  I don’t suffer from the feet bit of this, but I have had trouble with tingling in my fingers and lately it has become worse and the tips of my fingers now feel numb.  This is all normal for anybody on Taxol and they assure me that the feeling will come back.  When something like this is raised in my initial assessment by the nurse of the day, I’m always checked over again by a Doctor before the treatment and if they think it will be a problem for me in the future, then they won't treat me.  They treated me today, so nothing to worry about for now.  

For someone who is normally an avid reader, I haven’t been reading at all since my treatment started. I did receive quite a few books as presents when I was diagnosed and made some initial attempts to get started but so far I can’t seem to focus on anything in any of the books and have left them aside for now.  Instead, I am trying to knit a bit and was in the process of sewing something I knit together on Saturday when I noticed that my fingers just wouldn’t work as I wanted them to.  I realized too that they were actually hurting me.  For the first time I was starting to get really pi**ed of about this peripheral and chemotherapy thing, when in walked Tall Kevin with this bag.

My peripheral vision jumped into action, nothing wrong with that!

One of Tall Kevin’s colleagues in work, Arlene, is also a leader with the Buion Naomh Pol Rangers, Eastern Region Girl Guides in her spare time and she sent this package home with Kevin for me.  Once again I’m completely overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of people, especially by a bunch of young girls that don’t even know me.

Never having been one myself, I know very little about the Girl Guides and what they do.  My one and only experience of what they do was last year when my niece, who is a Girl Guide, was going for one of her merit badges and needed some help from a family member with attaining it.  My brother (yes, Fergus again!) called me and asked me would I be free to help as he and Michele were both busy on the night that assistance was required.  Of course I didn’t hesitate to say yes as I'm always happy to help, nor, at the time, did I question why neither of them were available on a school night to go with their daughter.

As it turns out, Rachel was going for her ‘Helping the Aged’ merit badge!  Suddenly, the fact that Fergus and Michele were not available all made sense.  I really must remember in future not to agree to any requests for help without first getting all the information on the task involved!  Anyway, turns out the joke was on them, as I was (despite being the youngest ‘aged’ person there) royally treated by not only my niece, but by every other young merit badge contender who had all made cake and were eager to make sure that everyone tried every type of cake, biscuit, bun, flan or tart that was on offer.  Some of the cakes were so brightly colored I needed my dark glasses to shield my not so bright any more eyes!  Needless to say, merit badges were awarded left right and center, and I didn’t bring home any cake for Fergus or Michele.  

The Guides from the Buion Naomh Pol Rangers certainly deserve a merit award, or several.  The bag was full of everything a chemotherapy patient could ever need.  I suspected they had done this before, and after consulting with Tall Kevin, I was told that they do do this for other cancer patients, but this one was specially put together for me.

Just look at what’s in the bag:

Tissues for my nose problem.
A super sparkly toilet bag for the 'far too many pill bottles I now have to carry with me everywhere' problem.
Sweets for the dry mouth problem.
Lip balm for the dry lip problem.
Hand cream for the dry hand problem.
Soft mittens and cosy socks for the cold hands/feet problem.
A cushion for the ‘my neck is always at the wrong angle when I’m lying on the couch’ problem.
A water bottle and a coffee cup for my drinking problem!Love hearts, cos they fix any problem!


And these!

Anti-Stress Coloring books.  They will fix my 'I don't know what to do with myself whilst lounging on the couch problem'!  What a thoughtful thing to give to me.  I will really enjoy coloring myself calm.  And if my Girl Guide niece really wants to put her ‘Help the Aged’ merit badge to good use she can visit me and give me advice re color combinations etc. as she is really good at this sort of stuff, and I could use the help.

I just hope the numbness in my fingers doesn’t stop me holding the pens, or making mistakes and going outside the lines.  

I now also have a 'where am I going to put all this stuff' problem! Ha!

Lastly, I want to extend a HUGE HUGE thank you to each and every one of the Buion Naomh Pol Rangers, Easter Region Girl Guides who helped put this pack together.  You don't know me at all but you got everything in it so right.  I’m absolutely delighted with the pack and you made a cranky (not so) old, dry handed, numb fingered, stuffy nosed, always thirsty chemo patient very very happy.  If I can be of help to any of you in achieving any of your merit badges in the future, count me in, I’d be more than happy to help, and of course, I do have previous experience, especially if any of the merits involve eating cake!

Is there a merit badge for sitting on the couch, eating sweets?  I'm good at that too...

Is there a de-merit badge for brothers?

**Disclaimer: Rachel's merit badge may not have been called the ‘Help the Aged’ badge,  I think it's title was actually 'Hostess', but that's just a technicality.