Periscope Depth

I seem to be heading for the surface after Chemo 4, nausea has subsided though I am still pretty tired and unfocused in my head, never the less I managed to do a fair bit of work yesterday including a 2-3 hr phone conference with some operations team colleagues and took the car out for a run to visit some friends. The latter turned out to be a bad idea as firstly I discovered that the water system had a leak (so another good reason to get the garage sorted as that will need to be fixed) and I got the wobbles in mid conversation and had to excuse myself and head home while I still could. So in the end I was only out of the house for about two hours or so but on a sunny spring night that was enough to lift my spirits.

My regular readers will remember that at this time after the last chemo I was still groaning under the duvet and in pretty bad shape, this time I have nearly recovered and am able to work. It seems that the main difference is that I was on combination antibiotics which themselves were affecting my system and then were also stopping me taking my normal dose of supplements and Eassic tea. Eassic tea is a native American formulation which seems to work mostly by stabilising your gut which takes a pounding from the chemo as the chemo attacks any rapidly dividing cells. This time round without antibiotics and with vitamins and the tea my symptoms are much much reduced as is my dependence on anti sickness medications.

This Thursday I have my first big consultation with the doctors on the progress of the treatment and the options going forward. Although the first course of treatment is six doses of chemo of which I have two to go, the usual route is a months of radiotherapy and then a further chemo on top of that six which would take me to about July. There is a small chance that the first six doses of chemo are enough and I will get a "get out of jail free card" but I do not want to get my hopes up as this is about a 1 in 4 shot. Anyhow I am looking forward to talking to the doctors about the next steps with four weeks or so of this treatment left (and another 2-4 of convaslence time I feel like I have the bulk of it under my belt and that the remainder is manageable. My two main fears, problems with the veins in my arm and the sickness both seem to be under control so that has helped my mood a lot, also the improving sunny weather and the atmosphere in the new bright and airy kitchen also help a great deal.

So I have to get down to the long list of follow up actions I have from the various pay reviews we have had over the last few weeks, after each of the reviews we have to let the associates know how they have done, how they can improve and what we need them to focus on for the next 6 months, in short lots of one on one phone calls for the next few weeks to keep the show on the road.

Best get on with it then

Cheers

Gerry