Last Chemo

I have been looking forward to this week for a long time as it the last week of Chemotherapy medication. The number of tablets that I have to take daily will dramatically reduce, as I won’t have to have the Chemotherapy tablets; from now on it will just be the supplements to help with digestion and nutrition which are all much more manageable. The week has been pretty good with a family filled weekend where my wife’s sister and family came to visit. On the Saturday we were due to take part in the rearranged Rosemere Cross Bay Walk which was to walk across Morcambe Bay from Lancashire to Cumbria, unfortunately this was cancelled yet again on Friday due to safety reasons. In part I was quite happy with this as the last week I have felt much colder than usual and having to walk through water would have probably caused me to take a couple of steps backwards in regards to my recovery. I went to see my oncologist on Friday and I was weighed again and although I am eating plenty and keeping it down much better, I still continue to lose weight and am nearing my lowest weight again, which was 7 ½ stone back in September/October last year when I was experiencing the worst symptoms of my Coeliac Disease. I am quite a thin person anyway, but my weight is usually around 8 ½ stone, so I am losing a couple of pounds each fortnight. This is slightly worrying and I am trying to eat more to manage to maintain my weight, but only time will tell. Hopefully as I finish Chemotherapy this week, my appetite will stabilise and a more normal diet can be eaten. The weekend continued in a good vein and as it was pleasant on Sunday (although a little chilly) we went to Blackpool Zoo with Leonie’s sister and my parent in laws. It was a good day and all the kids loved seeing all the animals. Oscar has a project at school to learn about endangered animals and going to the zoo he leant a lot which will help him with his homework. We saw the tiger cubs and they were very playful, and I like seeing the big cats, the lions were also on form and we managed to see them up close. The orang-utans were good to watch as well. We also sat and watched an impressive sea lion show where the performed lots of tricks for us and the kids found them funny. It reminded me of our honeymoon when we went to the Dominican Republic and enjoyed a similar show at the water park, but that time we were able to sit with the sea lions and their personalities showed through as they gave us each a hug and a very fishy kiss. This week I have increased the number of days at work and I am back doing four days as part of my phased return. The work is piling up and we have a lot going on the moment so it is good that I am spending more time at work, although it can be tiresome. I am still napping in the late afternoon when I can. Unfortunately a good week suddenly turned bad when the boiler packed in on Monday night, so we are currently living in a cold house with no hot water. We have a small electric heater to keep us warm but now the temperature has dropped, we are really noticing the difference. I am having trouble staying warm, even at work, so it has been a bit of a struggle. Cuddling up to the boys has been good as they don’t notice the lack the heat and are like little hot water bottles. We had a local Gas Engineer come out on Wednesday and he has agreed to fit a new boiler for us within a week, as he said the 20 year old boiler would need several parts to work and it would probably be cheaper to have a new one, so we are now waiting in a cold house for the work to start. Wednesday I went back to hospital to continue my Avastin treatment; this is the trial drug which I will continue to have via and IV drip until the end of January. This is nowhere near as long as having a full chemotherapy session, and will only be a half hour session every three weeks. As the chemotherapy treatment has now finished, this will continue and I am now almost all done with the cancer treatment as a whole which is fantastic news. Although the last couple of months has been a struggle with managing the symptoms, I hope I will see an improvement in myself over the next couple of week and I will be able to start training again by running and cycling. I am looking forward to getting back out there, but need to make sure that my body can cope and that I fuel myself right before I head out. Within the next couple of weeks I hope to be back running, even if it is a short distance, but I am excited about getting fit again.