Tuesday 27 September 2016

They just make you worse.

So what if I haven't written much lately, neither has Shakespeare.

But I thouht I'd better post a bit of an update for you folks who keep up to date via the blog rather than my Twitter wibblings. At the moment I'm on another chemo break and tapping this in whist sat in a cottage in The Lakes waiting for the rain to stop so I can go for a walk up a mountain. From this you can gather two things, vis:

(a) I am still well enough to go mountain walking
(b) The chemo has stopped working so they're giving me time off to work out what to do next.

The chemo hasn't stopped working as such but there is a bit of a problem with it. Well OK quite a big problem as it happens in that I've become allergic to one of the drugs in the cocktail. This isn't a case of allergic in the "I get a bit itchy and sneezy" it's more nurses hitting alarms, oxygen masks and so many steroids being pumped into me I could give Bradley Wiggins a run for his money going up Mount Ventoux.  You may recall that I started having issues of this nature earlier in the year with Oxaliplatin which was stopped in favour of Irinotecan and then I had the problem with the "infection"
during the first cycle of the Irinotecan.

Well that wasn't an infection.

Turns out the villain of the piece is the drug Calcium Folinate. Now this isn't actually a chemotherapy drug something they give you to make one of the chemo drugs, 5FU, work correctly. We originally thought Oxaliplatin was to blame as the Folinate is given at the same time and, well, can't be the Folinate can it. On the Irinotecan it's given separately but again we were thinking it's a delayed reaction, or an infection, or it's because you're a dragon; anything but the Folinate. 

Eventually after yet another crash in the day unit we are starting to home in on the culprit chemical and I get a load of steroids and anti histamines before we start which works for cycle 4 but come cycle 5 after 20 minutes I've fighting for breath and my oxygen sats are somewhere below the "Would you trust Donald Trump to look after a goldfish" poll ratings. Cue oxygen, loads more steroids and after a while I'm at least not looking blue.  Then I hear "The on-call registrar says give it thirty minutes and then start the infusion again."

"The poor bastard who keeps getting poisoned says you can stick your infusion where the sun doesn't shine!"*

So that was that. I am disconnected, no point giving me the 5FU and I can go.  Just to be on the safe side I lurk around the hospital for another hour which was a good move as I started to get that uncontrollable shivering thing again (which was making drinking my latte in the hospital branch of Costas quite difficult) but that went away quite quickly so off home I toddled.

But that was it I was told. No more Calcium Folinate and that means no more 5FU. Quite honestly I'm rather relieved as after 40 plus sessions I was really starting to hate that bloody 46 hour bottle thing but it does mean we've lost probably the best toy in the toybox for my condition. Current plan is to wait to see what last week's spin in the Donut of Doom reveals and then consider the tablet form of 5FU called Capcitabine which apparently doesn't need the Folinate stuff to work but does bugger your feet up good and proper.

Which is why I'm in The Lake District climbing up mountains now.

Or I will be once it stops pissing down.









* I was very polite really.

4 comments:

  1. If it stopped pissing down. Living just down the road, I can say, this is rare. Hope you got to the top. There's almost a metaphor or summat there.....
    ( I bet you are thinking, FFS leave my blog alone with your inane comments! )

    ReplyDelete
  2. GREETINGS everyone out there.. my name is (Robert Lora) I am from CANADA i will never forget the help Dr Ogudugu render to me in my marital life. I have been married for 8 years now and my husband and i love each other very dearly. After 6 years of our marriage my husband suddenly change he was having an affair with a lady outside our marriage, my husband just came home one day he pick up his things and left me and the kids to his mistress outside at this time i was confuse not knowing what to do again because i have lost my husband and my marriage too. i was searching for help in the internet, i saw many people sharing testimony on how Dr Ogudugu help them out with their marital problems so i contacted the email of Dr Ogudugu i told him my problem and i was told to be calm that i have come to the right place were i can get back my husband within the next 48hours, to my greatest surprise my husband came to my office begging me on his knees that i should find a place in my heart to forgive him, that he will never cheat on me again, i quickly ask him up that i have forgiven him. Friends your case is not too hard why don't you give Dr Ogudugu a chance, because i know they will help you to fix your relationship with your Ex Partner. Dr Ogudugu his the best spell caster around to solve any problem for you.
    {1} HIV/AIDS
    {2CANCER
    {3}HERPES
    {4}DIABETES
    (5}HERPERTITIS B

    Email: GREATOGUDUGU@GMAIL.COM
    Call/WhatsApp:+27663492930

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you have Herpes in your whole body such as fever blisters, hsv, or roofing shingles you know what it is like to stay with the pain and discomfort that herpes delivers. I don't need to tell you how awesome it would be to find something that works so well that you no longer need to fear about stress or outbreak,Dr Itua herbal medicine cure my herpes in two weeks of taking it.is genuine and natural herbal medicine it has no side effect, The reason I'm writing this is that I promised Dr Itua I will share his herbal work to the world to see Herpes is no more a big deal.also Dr Itua can as well cure the following diseases...HIV,Hsv 1/2,Hepatitis B,Cancer, Diabetes, Men/Woman Infertility, Scoliosis,Fibromyalgia,Fluoroquinolone Toxicity
    Syndrome Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva.Fatal Familial Insomnia Facator V Leiden Mutation , Lottery Spell,Copd, Shingles,Fibroid, Fibromyalgia, Liver/Kidney Inflamotry, Epilepsy, Coeliac disease,Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease,Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Ataxia,Arthritis,Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis,Alzheimer's disease,Adrenocortical carcinoma.Asthma,Allergic Asthma. Here His Contact...drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com/Whatsapp Phone.+2348149277976. I paid for his herbal medicine and sent it to me through Courier Service which I pick it urgently and used.

    ReplyDelete
  4. How I became a happy woman again
    With tears of joy and happiness i am giving out my testimony to all viewers on line, my problem with Stomach Cancer stage IB  has caused me many pains and sadness especially in my family.
    I was so afraid of loosing my life, I suffered the embarrassment of visiting
    therapy hundreds of times, unfortunately they did not find a definitive solution to my problem, I cried all day and night, do I have to live my life this way? I searched all true the internet for care, I was scammed by internet fraudsters times without numbers… until a friend of mine who stays in the UK introduced me to a friend of hers who was cured of the same disease, and she introduced me to Dr Itua who cured her from Breast Cancer by this email/WhatsApp +2348149277967,  drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com. I contacted him and he promised that all will be fine and I had faith.He send me his herbnal medicines through Courier servcie and i was instructed on how to drink it for three weeks to cure,I followed the instruction given to me and Today am a happy woman again. He cures all kind of diseases like__Brain cancer,Gestational trophoblastic disease,Head and neck cancer,Ovarian cancer,Hodgkin lymphoma,Herpes,,Liver cancer,Throat cancer,
    Syndrome Fibrodysplasia Ossificans ProgresSclerosis,Alzheimer's disease,Chronic Diarrhea,Copd,Parkinson,Als,Adrenocortical carcinoma  Infectious mononucleosis.
    Intestinal cancer,Thyroid Cancer,Uterine cancer,Fibroid,Angiopathy, Ataxia,Arthritis,Amyotrophic Lateral Scoliosis,Brain Tumor,Fibromyalgia,Fluoroquinolone ToxicityBladder cancer,Hiv,Esophageal cancer,Gallbladder cancer,Kidney cancer,Hpv,Lung cancer,Melanoma,Mesothelioma,Multiple myeloma,Neuroendocrine tumors
    Non-Hodgkin lymphoma,Oral cancer,Sinus cancer,Hepatitis A,B/C,Skin cancer,Soft tissue sarcoma,Spinal cancer,Stomach cancer,Vaginal cancer,Vulvar cancer,
    Testicular cancer,Tach Diseases,Leukemia.

    ReplyDelete