After the weekend's footballing disappointments, my focus shifted to the last couple of days stay of my sister-in-law and her family, and then a visit by some friends holidaying in the UK. 3 of them came over to the house, braved a walk in a drenching storm, had a few ciders at the local, and stayed over after a lovely dinner cooked by my MIL. Always good to have people come to visit.
Then it all got serious again, with the upcoming 3rd chemo cycle. I had the pre-assessment meeting and blood work on Wednesday. The blood tests all came back normal and were it not for the need to sign a consent form for a clinical trial I don't think they would have bothered sticking me in a room with the oncologist. So a wait of a couple of days and then back into the day unit to be hooked up. Like the last 2, the worst bit of this visit was the atropine injection before starting the IV. Grit teeth, clench arms of chair, await the sting. After that, it was plain sailing: watched another couple of episodes of Peaky Blinders, had a cup of coffee, and generally relaxed. After the session, I headed home with the pump attached, and got some rest before we had friends over for dinner.
I spent Saturday shuttling about trying to decide on a car to purchase: after 3 months it was time to give the loaner back to my friend, however much she protested that it was no bother. The benefit of driving about meant I didn't have to suffer our stumbling draw at Birmingham. Quality equaliser, but we really didn't do all that well. Ultimately the car was sorted, something else ticked-off the to-do list.
On Sunday it was back to the hospital to remove the pump. The sight of the chemo-port spooked the nurses and it took a while for them to find 1) someone able to do it and 2) a stash of heparin to use. After a bit of a wait, all good, done for another session. The good news was that for the 3rd cycle, I had no nausea or other adverse side-effects. Other than a bit of general tiredness, there is really little to report. One hopes the drug cocktail is working somewhat more viciously on the cancer cells than it is on the rest of me. 3rd time lucky I had shaved my chest properly, and thus avoided this.
On Monday I basically rested: I had slept badly over the cycle and was wiped out (still not found the sweet spot position to avoid rolling on to the pump). Tuesday brought the the job of driving my friend's car back up to London, get it cleaned and to hers. In the UK in recent years there has been an issue with car wash slavery, and the place I visited looked a bit iffy, but didn't meet the criteria laid out: it cost more than GBP6.70, the people didn't look fearful, and I didn't see caravans etc. That said, I can't believe the 8 or 9 people who contributed to the cleaning are getting London-weighting wages from the 8 quid I was charged. After dropping the car, I went into London to meet her, and had a lovely lunch on the side of the Thames, with a view of The Tower of London and Tower Bridge. London on a sunny day, with space around you, really is pleasant.
I got the train back home, had tea, and then listened to our penalty capitulation in the League Cup 1st round. Time to dig out the "now to concentrate on the league" line.
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