Chemo update

Chemotherapy port a cath

I’m not having much luck with the port inserted in my chest all those months ago that was supposed to make the chemo infusions trouble free. The last two times I have been to the hospital to have my 3-weekly drip, the port played up and wouldn’t work. It has always been a problem child, but now it has totally refused to work at all. It seems as though it has a kink in one of the lines and this stops the chemicals from passing through. What this means in effect is that I haven’t been able to have the last two intra-venous doses of oxalyplatin and avastan, which is a bit scary because these two toxins are the front line chemo weapon used to knock out the tumours. Instead of these, I am relying on the oral tablets, capecitabine (xeloda or similar) to do the job.

The port is also causing blood clotting, so it looks like I will have to have it out, and maybe a new one in. Ouch, I don’t like going under the knife – the doctors talk about it like it is as simple as having a nice cup of tea, it really rolls off the tongue easily, ‘Yes, you can just have the port replaced’.

Despite this, the oncologist believes that the latest scan results were really good and the tablets must be doing the job, so keep them up for the time being, and anyway, I probably had two thirds of the planned treatment regime, so that’s not too bad.

On the positive side, I won’t have the dreaded very sickly side effects of the drip over the next week or 10 days, the awful nausea, constipation, and that feared dexamethasone (the steroids that make me a live wire for a few days, talking a lot and having trouble sleeping). My body tolerates the tablets reasonably well, which is another good thing, so I can take these for a while longer.

Generally speaking I am feeling fairly well, engage in a couple of hours of physical activity a day, get tired easily, am fairly week and lacking in fitness, but generally quite good. This cancer journey is not too much fun, none of us choose to walk along its pathways, but when we must, well, we must, and do the best job we can at managing it, and if we are lucky, weeding it completely out of our system.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any sure fire formula that guarantees success, like, say, you know that if you use roundup on the weeds in the garden it pretty much knocks them out, although they usually return next season or even sooner. It takes a very diligent gardener to keep the weeds totally out of the garden, and it takes a very vigilant (and lucky) person with cancer to knock out the cancer and keep it knocked out. It is a powerful force. Yesterday, even the oncologist said that we’ll do all we can and “hope for the best”. So with all the tricks of her trade at her disposal, it still comes down to hoping for the best. Mind you, hope is one of the great virtues we learned about in my Catholic upbringing – the three virtues were faith, hope and love, and love is to be considered the greatest of these. It was St Paul who spoke of these, and although I have a strong negative reaction to St Paul, I acknowledge that some things he said are reasonable.

Hope is something I still have

So, hope it is.

I am feeling quite lucky at the moment in a manner of speaking. Last week I went to a funeral of my dear Aunty who died of cancer, which had racked her whole body for some time now. Her death is a tragedy for her and the whole family, who are extremely close. My heart goes out to them. I am lucky because I have been diagnosed for over a year now and things are improving – my symptoms have got much better, the metastases are shrinking, and I am feeling reasonably well. I have now had 2 much loved aunties, in their late 60’s, die from cancer since last Christmas. Both of them did not have much chance or much time between diagnosis and death; it was so sudden, unexpected and sad, and reinforces how indiscriminate cancer seems to be, how unfair life is.

 

Tasmania is a beautiful place

I am feeling so optimistic that M and I are planning a month long holiday in the spring with some close friends of ours, travelling to South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. I’m that confident in my health that I’ve begun to book flights and accommodation for the trip, and started a savings plan to try and have some $ set aside to make sure we can afford it, albeit not in 5 star style, but in our own kind of way. It will be terrific, and hope is the order of the day, so bring it on.

Herbs and supplements

Meanwhile, it’s almost time to take my chemo tablets, so yum yum, these poisons are helping to make me healthy. In the picture above is a snapshot of the many things I am currently taking – herbs, supplements, vitamins, needle (twice a day for blood clots), and chemo tablets. I’ve also included some blank capsules as I fill these from bulk supplies of some things; coming back to hope, I’m hoping that all of these things are working in synergy with each other and the chemo to help me regain my health. Pretty much all of them are specific to cancer, strengthen the immune system and mitigate some of the nasty side effects of chemotherapy.

So, let’s keep hoping.