Chemo #4

Well Chemo #4 actually happened last week, but I forgot to report on it.

Lowlights:
1) My Brain Tumour Buddy died this week. Such a great guy, I will really miss our conversations. He only had 1 week where he was in pain and realised he was "down to the wire". So it was very quick and the pain was manageable with morphine, so he didn't suffer. Obviously this gave me a big fright - he was told he had 3-6 months, just like me.

2) My niece Julia is still in hospital (along with her Mum) which means 6-weeks in jail. I must say they handle it well, I struggle with 5-days each fortnight let along full time, although they did get to spend Saturday night at home, until another temperature spike! The doctors are still trying to figure out what's wrong.

3) I have a 24/7 headache now. It started 10 days ago requiring no painkillers and built up till yesterday where I took codeine, panadol, tramadol and panadine and it still took 7 hours to get on top of. Overnight I slept for 9 hours and its back to requiring no painkillers - weird. Trying to figure out what it is, hopefully the doctors can pinpoint the source, hopefully it's just poor posture pain!

Highlights:
1) Was released on Thursday - a day early - because I was healthier than everyone else. Fine by me, sleeping at the hospital is never good.

2) Came off the steroids on Wednesday, so now it's just a case of some dieting and get this extra weight off. I forgot to have lunch today, which is amazing - haven't missed a meal since the 20th of May, let alone feeling hunger pains.

3) Julia is still in hospital which means I have someone to hang out with each day. Mind you she's back to hospital school tomorrow, so I'll struggle to catch up with her. Her school buddies are much more interesting than Aunty Unu (me).

So I've been resting up today, preparing for Chemo #5 tomorrow. The hospital is a very busy and tiring place to be. Hopefully they'll let me out early again, but I suppose the depends on the headache.

Brain Tumour Buddy

The strangest thing about this brain tumour complication of mine is that there are three of us Non-Hodgkin's patients with the same brain tumour complication - all came in the last month.

They think that is just because more of us a surviving quite aggressive Non-Hodgkin's with the R-CHOP treatment. Anyway, I met one of my Brain Tumour Buddy's (BTB) this week, so we spent the wee hours of the nights talking about our treatment, plans for the time we have and that we will beat the 3-6 month time frame. BTB is going for 10 years :o)

It was good to have someone that understands that it is terminal - most others in the ward are Leukemia patients and although some won't make it, they haven't been given a terminal diagnosis so generally don't think or talk about it.

BTB has a great attitude - full of energy, chomping at the bit to get out of hospital to sort out all his affairs so he can relax and concentrate of his treatments and enjoy his hobbies. He has teenage kids (which adds a stress I just don't let myself think about) so will be spending as much time with them as possible with them.

BTB lives close by (my soon to be completed) house in Mt Eden, so it'll be good to keep in contact.