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Tuesday 10th January

Isn't it worrying just how normal all this seems?

This update is a bit late as I didn't go along yesterday, working I am afraid and so had asked Tash to write about her day. Things didn't really turn out as expected as she handed me a picture of her feet (metaphorically as it was on the computer) and one of her eye with the following information 'I thought that I would say that the picture of my feet is all I had to look at yesterday until I got a gamy eye at lunchtime, what do you think' - I thought that this was a quite funny, if a little short by way of a description of the day but left her to write it up, and waited, and waited, and waited, and then ER came on, so we left it in favour of some earnest medical trauma.

We both slept fitfully last night, I thought that I was snoring a lot and Tash never sleeps well on a Chemo night, as all the other drugs that she has to take before and after the chemo disrupt her sleep. Unless of course she mistakes a steroid for a Senakot as happened shortly before bed last night, in which case she is then simply awake half the night.

Steroids you appreciate are used to suppress nausea and vomiting, or if you are that way inclined, to build up muscle or bulk. Senakot, as our pregnant or older readers appreciate, 'help the flow' and is a replacement to the 'unsticking medicine' that gave Tash the 'puffer-fish' reaction way back in Cycle 1.

Consequently, due to the 'Steroidakot' mishap I was woken by the sounds of the wife exiting the bed several times overnight, fortunately I note, there were no sounds of her weightlifting in the front room, though curiously she did enquire if I liked the Irons before leaving for work today.
Most memorably on her 3rd or 4th return to the bedroom, I was treated to a virtuoso performance of 'slow closing of a creaky door'; our bedroom door squeaks occasionally and if you close it really, really slowly, ignoring the ear-splitting noise emitting from the tortured hinges because 'I was trying not to wake you', it will creak all the way until closed. I suspect that I responded with another snoring rendition of 'The destruction of Krakatoa'.

Tash and I have been cheered by all the shameless attempts to get onto the Tao we received over Christmas, be it beautiful Robin Redbreast cards, a 2006 Calendar containing our friends partially clothed, or a slightly creepy time capsule masquerading as Christmas presents - you know who you are! They were all appreciated, even if in some cases they may be followed up with a restraining order.

If you want to know what you have to do to get on here, it is simple, see...

We tried to stop her, but when Kate wants to do something for her friend, there is no stopping the girl ....except when it involves any sort of technology.

....Michelle and Kate did their 'shave 4 Tash' at the same time, no rush Kate, take your time getting them to us. Newly weds eh!

And now a message from my sponsor.......

Well, as Mark has mentioned it was a quiet day for me yesterday at the LOC without him, although Maria, the new tea/coffee girl did do her best to interrupt me from my magazine as much as humanly possible during the first two hours of being there. I started my morning with a magazine, as the nurses have to pop in and out regularly to change over the several "pre-med" drips that I have to have before the big boy goes up. 'The Slev' also popped in and gave me a quick tap around the abdomen so a magazine is the quickest and easiest thing to put down with all this faffing that goes on.

The threat of the tube strike seemed to ward off all the other patients and I ended up being the first one to arrive. This meant I had first pick of the pods, so I parked myself up near the nurses station for a change and as well as hearing all the gossip, we got through part one in record time, this meant that the Taxol went up at 11.00am which I think is a record for me. I then had the next 3 hours to myself (along with Maria of course, who was very disappointed that I didn't take her up on the soup and sandwiches she had on offer for lunch..) and I decided to get stuck into my current knitting project which is an overdue Christmas present so I was quite keen to get working on it.

Somewhere in all this, my eye suddenly started weeping which was very strange, so I tried to take a picture of it so I could see what was going on. It definitely needed a wash out though so I then had to untangle the wool, the drip and the nurse call button from my chair to get to the bathroom to resolve the situation. Don't know what it was but a few blasts of saline sorted it out. Before setting myself up again, I thought I better try and find something to take a photo of for the day. I'm sure you'll appreciate our attempts at trying to keep this as interesting as possible but thank goodness the next cycle is the last one as we are seriously struggling now!! It had to be my view for the day, the curtain, the knitting and my new trainers... sorry!

The rest of the afternoon went fairly quickly and I was out getting a cab home at about 14.45 which was a nice change. The evening's events as Mark described were interesting as I felt extremely tired quite early which I think is how I managed to take the wrong tablet only to find myself still up at 1.00am due to this silly mistake.... nightmare.

Anyway, this morning at 6.30am Wapping Tube station was evacuated and the Fire Brigade called for the second day in a row, so I had an early start. Today I have been mainly:
1. Talking to my Uncle Paul in Oz... he did his best to try and break Kate's record by managing a 2.5 hour phone call with me, little does he know Kate and I did 4.5 hrs a couple of months ago!!!2. Eating chocolate biscuits.
3. Sorting out my father's trip over here in June... yes everyone Ken is coming... for those of you who know him, you know what this means.....!!!! The Hayes do Europe - Part II.... For those of you who don't know him yet, you will do by the time June comes around, don't worry!

I'll keep you posted.
Tash

 

Monday 16th January

More Tash Update

Well it's one week since I last wrote as I sit here in front of ER again... I spent each day last week here in the house having little contact with the outside world. I did however become very clued up on Qantas Award Bookings and I am confident I could get a job in their telesales any day.... Ken is now booked in and Mark and I are trying to fathom what we're going to do with him for a month during the summer!

The knitting progressed, as did my chocolate biscuit survey. I've noticed that my intake of all things sugary and sweet dramatically increase on chemo week... I usually justify this to myself by blaming the steroids but as I stopped taking them 4 days ago, I don't know how to explain today's chocolate bar feast....! Thank you to everyone who sent over Aussie biscuits and chocolates to us for Christmas, you'll be pleased to know Mark hasn't seen any of them!!! (yes I have)

Saturday night Mark and I attended a colleague's wedding party. It was in fact our first invite to a gay wedding celebration and it all went off very well. For those non-UK readers, this has only just become possible here in the UK due to recent legislation changes, so there has been much coverage about all the couples who have been waiting years to tie the knot, a la Elton and David... Anyway, it was also the first gay wedding that the reception venue had done as I discovered whilst overhearing the catering manager calling Chris and Jamie the Bride and Groom...!

Strangely on Sunday work called. As usual, everything had fallen apart unexpectedly so I headed in to help out. I've worked out that I have gone in to work almost every weekend after each treatment I've had... I'm not sure if this is bad khama or if someone there has it in for me... Anyway, Mark kindly drove me in and sat and waited the 2 hours while I sorted everything out so he could drive me home again.... (everyone together... ohhhhhh) (editors note - these are the things that you have to do for your wife when she has only enough energy to walk to the car and back) As a thank you, I treated him to his favourite pizza from our local Italian last night which was a pretty big night out for me on chemo week.. we even managed a bottle of Wine, wahoo! With all that excitement, I am now looking forward to going back to work tomorrow...!

 

Sunday 29th January

Lazy Moi?

I would love to give you a good reason for the lack of updates in the last two weeks but unfortunately, or fortunately, we have been busy doing things... As well as being busy, we have also been dealing with tomorrow, or more importantly, what tomorrow represents, so haven't felt like sharing 'stuff' with you all.

The New Year appeared and for a while it seemed like everyone was happy to get on with things as usual, and to a small degree some people were a little put out that Tash was still having treatment, 'Come On' one friend said to me 'How long is this going to go on?'. Ohh well we thought, it was bound to happen... (Chemo boredom?); however this also caught us on the verge of starting to deal with the end of Tash's chemo. Though it is the end of this part of our life, it is far from the end and Tash will continue to have her Herceptin every 3 weeks. I have to say that I prefer it when she is receiving treatment, as there is less of a weight of worry on us than the times that we are now about to embark on. At least in the last eight months we have known that all that could be done, was being done. From tomorrow however, it is all back down to fate, luck, or as I am often reminded, guardian angels and good fortune.

So we have been a bit preoccupied......