Vinblasted

It’s probably about time I posted again, and excitingly there’s even a slight change to my medical routine to tell you about. The time for my three-monthly chemo arrived last Tuesday (6th), but one of the counts from my liver function was pretty high, and seemingly getting higher. The doctors decided it was probably a drug reaction, and though not ideal, wasn’t anything to worry about (medical readers might like to know it was my ALT, or Alanine transaminase). Apparently it would either be the fault of the fluconazole (antifungal, one tablet once a day) or the methotrexate (chemo, seven tablets once a week), so since then I’ve stopped the fluconazole. It seemed to work, as the count had dropped again by this Tuesday just passed, and an ultrasound of the liver showed nothing amiss. So I had my vinblastine on Wednesday, and am now just hoping I don’t have the same side-effects as I did last time… According to one doctor, the sore jaw, constipation and sore back amounted to ALL the side-effects, so I did well that time.

I also got to see my consultant for the first time in ages. This was nice because it reassured me that everything is pretty much going to plan so far, although my dosage is now going up again as my body seems to be coping very easily with the 50% dose I’ve been on since January.

I have been a little snotty, but not feeling bad at all with it, so hopefully my neuts will soon sort that out. It’s sometimes easy to forget that I am still having treatment, and do still need to take more care than usual, but generally I’ve been behaving. I blame my snottiness on the trains: I was stuck at a station for far too long the other night because a previous train had had a power failure… Eventually I gave up and went a very long route instead.

Various social highlights recently have included seeing Jess (hurrah! She’s so well, which is brilliant considering how unwell she was – you might remember me asking you to keep her in your prayers etc when she had a fungal infection in her brain), going to farewell drinks for a nurse (little Laura, who is going to Australia; it was lovely to see a few nurses in a social situation at last, not just in hospital), and the usual OMV meetings and reunions.

I’ve also been trying to sort out my future, which is both very exciting and a bit terrifying. I’ll share details when things are more concrete, but there are a few possibilities, some exciting!

I have a couple of other things to blog about, but this post is long enough already, so they’ll have to wait…