Week 4; a Chemotherapy week


Ahhh, Chemotherapy. This week brings good news and bad news. The bad news it's a chemotherapy week, and the good news is that on Wednesday I celebrate half-way in my treatment journey! 

It's also an exciting week as my eldest daughter Elizabeth and husband Andrew moved into their house in Box Hill North, and our son Tim has also moved in to get a taste to living out of home. I'm really excited for all of them. Elizabeth and Andrew preparing for the arrival of their baby (and my first grandchild!) in March, and Tim for taking on the responsibility of adulthood and exploring the world outside the home he grew up in.


So, chemotherapy was at 11:00am this morning with a quick check-in with Jane, a St. Vincent's Cancer Centre doctor. She reviewed my bloods (I donated 12ml to science last Friday) and said I was PERFECT. We have a little family joke that Claire's Mum, Di, called me Mr. Perfect one day. As you'd imagine, I don't let gold like that ever be forgotten. Here I was being told I was PERFECT again. More proof that whenever Claire gets annoyed at me I can refer her not only to her Mum, but to a doctor about how I am PERFECT :)

I was then placed in the great care of Ashleigh, my chemotherapy nurse for the day. Just like Week 1, I took a combination of steroids and other tablets given to me, then hooked up to an IV line and was then flushed with 1 litre of liquid to hydrate my system and flush my kidneys. This took just over an hour. Then it was time for the "good stuff" Cisplatin, my cocktail chemotherapy drug. After about 1 hour and 15 minutes on that, I was then switched over to another 1 litre to flush the excess Cisplatin from my system. During this I munched on chicken and mayo sandwiches, Tim Tam's, shortbread, lemonade and other high-calorie foods.

My dietician also came and had a chat to me. Over the past 5 weeks I have been eating like a horse, as advised by June, all the nurses in the St. Vincent's SURC, and my dietician. To those of you have have known my weight-loss journey over the last 18 months, this has been very hard, and indeed, counterintuitive to me. I have been encouraged to absolutely smash my eating and eat whatever I want, especially foods high in calories. 

After 5 hours at the Cancer Centre, it was time to visit the tanning salon for session 16 of 35 of Radiotherapy. All happy campers there at GenesisCare. If you ever need radiotherapy, I couldn't recommend them highly enough - lol. Must remember to give them a 5-star Google Review.

So, it's all going well, weight is still hovering at 78 Kg and I'm very positive and happy with how it's all going. Tomorrow (Tuesday 10th) I have another review with June so hopefully it's a "Tumor shrinking" conversation and there's nothing but good news. Sometimes it's a bit anxious and like going to see the school principal!

Once again, thank you to everyone cooking dinners and helping with driving. It is SOOOO helpful and allows Claire to be well supported.

Thanks everyone!




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