Friday adn I am the first awake and making warm drinks, downing my morning meds and fishing out my blood form. While the house slumbers I walk down to the GP surgery noting that autumn is in the air and smug that I have worn a vest. I have to admit I am a convert to the vest, that cosy close layer of warmth is welcome on such mornings and I am hoping will delay the dreaded turning on of the heating system. Anyway I arrive at the GPs, log in and wait to be called. The nurse soon appears and beckons me in. I hand her my form and she asks if my bloods have been done to monitor my Apixaban intake. I tell her I’ve never had bloods done but someone did ring me up and ask me questions. “Ah” she says and runs off a form and gets out two more blood vials. So in goes the needle and out goes four vials of blood. Its all done quickly and efficiently and in no time at all I am sporting a white fluffy cloud taped to my arm. I walk home via the co-op to gather strawberries, a paper and my monthly cash allowance it being the first day of September.
By the time I get home the house has stirred and I am made toast and decaf coffee. I clear the kitchen and then return m partners car manual to her car glove box but not before I wrestle the cigar lighter adapter from behind the compartment where it has got itself lodged. Its the small moments of over coming the nuisance phenomena that are sometimes the most satisfying. I help change the bed and then do my vitals. They are all good. Chore done I set about transferring the results to my data base and calculating my average blood pressure so far on this third cycle of chemo. I know that I have called this era of my blog CHEMO II but it is not continuous, within it there are 28 day cycles and I am onto the third of these cycles. Unlike my first chemo which had six discrete 28 day cycles and came to an end, these cycles will go on until the drug stops working and my body finds another clever way to stop it. How long that will be I have no idea so I could go in cycling till I die. It feels like I am locked in to a franchise like Fast and Furious, Rambo or Bond. “My name is Roland, Double digits cycle Roland, licensed to blog” .
I lunch on jam doughnuts and decaf coffee and draft the blog before I ease in to the afternoon with another Harvard philosophy lecture. My partner and I go shopping for presents at our local shopping centre and whilst there take time out for a coffee and tuna melt. Back home we move into the evening with a treat. No one feels like cooking so my eldest daughter and I walk over to the village chippy. Normally you put your order in and then have to wait around while the fish gets cooked almost as if the chippy is taken by surprise that anyone wants fish, tonight I am surprised as there is fish available immediately. I’ve never been served so quickly. Back home we sit down to eat before spending the rest of the evening finishing of The Tower and watching a couple of boxing bouts while finishing off the blog for the day. I take my evening meds and post the blog before going off to sleep knowing that tomorrow my new grandson is coming. One last thing to do, check to see if my blood results are in. They are and I look anxiously for my PSA score, it is relief, my PSA has dropped to 1.7, a fall of 0.6 and I still have 6 days to go in this third cycle. I go to bed feeling that I am still in the fight. My eGFR has also gone up to 62,back in the normal range so my kidneys are firing as good as they can. I am more than just in the fight.
