My Unplanned Sabbatical

Black bags

Day two is over.

Arrived at around 11am and the ward was a flurry of activity. Most of the chairs were filled with patients sitting calmly with IV lines in and black bags suspended above them, their contents being slowly infused by the machines that go bing.

I asked the nurse what’s with the black bags, I mean I know it’s nasty stuff but the visual makes it somewhat worse. She smiled and advised that most chemo is light sensitive so the black bag is necessary to block out the light. It would be good if another color was used to block out the light I thought.

I said hello and smiled to those I recognized from yesterday. I thought they all looked a little bit more weathered, listless and pale. They smiled and greeted me, probably having similar thoughts.

Strange club this is.

Today was short and sharp. Less than 2 hours and I was on my way leaving most of the club members behind.

Feeling ok at the moment. New, stronger drugs keeping some of side effects at bay.

Resting.

A longish day

What a great post by Petra today.

I am sensing some blog envy here and I would not be surprised if plans are afoot for a mirror blog site hosted by her. Stay true to the original people!

Today started with school drop off which was fine and then a drive to Monash Hospital for a pre chemo blood test. Have to make sure I have enough red and white blood cells to nuke!

Traffic was horrid and the relatively short trip took well over an hour. I was a little anxious as I had made a commitment to be in the office mid morning to work on something so this delay was starting to stress me out somewhat.

Having finally arrived at the hospital car park I managed to drive up to the only boom gate that was out of order. Maybe the absence of any other vehicles in that lane may have been a giveaway, but I just thought I was being clever and entitled! Let me say that as soon as I approached the boom gate there was a flurry of activity behind me with a string of cars also lining up to beat the traffic. Pushing the button for service I am sure I was redirected to a call centre in Hyrdrabad where the call center operator proceeded to confirm the obvious that the boom gate was out of order and for me to call back at 10.00am. That was really helpful. After some waving and reverse gear chicken the string of equally annoyed drivers managed to reverse out and join the long line of cars approaching the only operating boom gate.

It was all working beautifully so far.

After a few calming deep breaths we approached the research haematology unit who are running the trial to give blood. Unfortunately, no one was there who could take blood so another slight delay. Whilst I was waiting the Professor running the trial appeared and we had a brief chat. I told him the vein in my left hand was sore and he confirmed rather casually that, “it had collapsed”. “Most patients on the trial have experienced collapsed veins” he said. “Its nasty stuff that chemo” he said with a smile.

“Really, how nice. Good to know I am consistent” I replied.

“What do we do tomorrow” I asked. He said “find a vein further up your arm”. “Great strategy” I suggested, “Perfect”.

Anyway, the lady with the needle arrived and I gave my donation and we were free to go.

Managed to get to work just before 11.00am and in time for the first meeting. Worked to about 4.30pm and then left. It was far more draining than I expected but I was glad that I made the effort.

Met the family at the pool were the girls swim and we decided to all go out for a pre chemo dinner. A nice big steak at Squires Loft and a good hearty red.

Arrived home to a message from the Doctor saying my blood work was perfect and to be at the hospital at 9.00am.

All primed for tomorrow.

insiders return by petra

Well I know you have all been waiting for the follow up blog by the insider… I too would like to think I have a fan club like Serg.. not that we are competitive in any way.

So four weeks has passed and we are knocking on the door of another few days in the hospital. Understandably Serg is apprehensive about the next chemo and I am ironing my nurses uniform and getting ready to go back on duty. Serg has been a great patient infact better than if he has the flu. We have assessed the last cycle, had a team meeting [serg, me and the dog], taken minutes of the meeting , identifying the positive and negatives!!! and come up with an adjusted game plan for this treatment. I have stocked the fridge with powerade drinks, organic ginger beer, pickled ginger, strawberry jam , bread and oh of course bannanas to met the dietary needs of the patient. I have placed the recommended reading books by the blog audience at bedside, charger at hand so ipad can be charged to check blog and organised the children pick up drop offs. I feel ready for game day tomorrow and hopefully we can improve on our performance from last cycle. Who knows my 360 performance review may improve.

The one thing that is much better prepared, is the BLOG… can I say Serg checks the statics like the profit and loss report. My inside tip is he know who has been naughty and nice so start commenting on the blog if you want a Christmas card. He is really enjoying reading people comments and I wonder if soon we will be printing tshirts saying “”…i read my sabbatical to me, do u ??”

A great Sunday

Feel fantastic. Normal which is a wonderful feeling. Its been a great weekend. Had a family dinner on Saturday night and managed to stay up till 1.00am! Heaven forbid way past my bedtime.

Got up and had an early morning walk, played tennis, watched a movie, helped the girls on home work project and then out for dinner with the kids!

Happy days.

Another thing, there is an ad running for Kangaroo Island that has a song by Eddie Vedder that has me hooked. Its called “Rise”. I will try and insert it here so you can have a listen

Work tomorrow for the day which makes me happy.04 Rise

Friday nights with the Pelusi’s

I have felt really good all day. Peaking just in time for next week. Watched a good movie the Descendants in the afternoon. Powerful and bit quirky. Well worth it.

Trained hard and then the Duchini and the Pelusi family’s met for dinner at the local pizza place. Good meal and a few laughs.

Sneza then offered coffee and red wine. We watched poor Thorpey swim 6th and have a rather unfortunate nose issue during the post race interview. Hard to live that one down.

Shared plenty of family stories ranging from disappearing chain saws to the art of making rather full some insurance claims.

It’s been a great day.

Flat

Today has been an incredibly flat day. Maybe a result of to much activity over the long weekend.

Went to bed feeling like I had the flu and woke up much the same. Tried to get myself going by getting out of bed and crawling to breaky, but that has largely failed.

Fatigue and lethargy. I guess given I am 8 days out from the next chemo cycle that this is normal. I read that somewhere. My experience is that big swings in how you feel is the new normal. Much like the financial markets I guess.

Which brings me to another point. If you have time like I have to watch countless hours of the news or the business channel (my strategy to promote sleep) you realize how deeply no one really knows what they are talking about or more to the point how often they contradict themselves completely during the course of a week.

Time to grow tomatoes.