Two days of freedom

Well its two days until IVE chemo 2 is administered on Thursday and it feels like I have just about got over chemo 1, I feel a bit like that guy in the song "I get knocked down...but I get up again" and then get chemo 2 ! However I am feeling pretty positive about chemo 2 emotionally as I think I am unlikely to get the head inflammation problem again and the meds have all done their tricks so my infected line is now fine, IV antibiotics are finished (two days without hospital yippee!) tummy is OK, hair is still falling out in a patchwork pattern which will require the full razor later tonight as patchy stubble is not a good look. As Poppy said "Dad this is going to need some good hats".

Lee has lit a fire with her decision to put a team together for the monster challenge, the original squad of Jim, Lorna and Lee has been added to by my brother Kevin and my brother in law Johnathon from Ireland, not only that our good friend the builder Tim Kennedy walked into the Maggies center tonight to sign up himself and some mates to do the challenge as part of the team. He has been working on our house, and done a great job with his team, over the last months but he just got the blog address and has caught up with the story of the challenge. Lee was at the Maggie's center to hear more about the race and is very positive about the challenge and very pleased to see Tim there. It seems the challenge will take them about 20-24 hrs, I am jealous and would like to enter myself but our estimate is that I will only be four weeks out of the "bubble" of stem cell replacement so I will need to be content with being in the support team jeeps and perhaps walking a little with the team. The team plus associated friends and family will make for a good party in Inverness on the Sunday night, Lorna is looking into accommodation for the team so I guess we will need a headcount soon. Lee has already set off power walking last night as her first bit of training she is really motivated and determined by this challenge, I think part of that is that its something she can really do to help - even though she looks after me and the kids, and works, she sometimes feels frustrated that the things she can do to help directly are limited and really in the hands of the skills of the doctors and some luck.

Although the MG still languishes in the garage, I am not going near it until its warmer and my blood counts are higher as I should not risk scraped knuckles and associated infections ( and I have never done a job on that car without scraped knuckles). The Aston has had some good runs since its service Lee and I went in it to a country pub on Sunday as it was our wedding anniversary and she took it to work today to show the boys and to take them to lunch. Her team have been great, once it was clear how neutrophenic I would be they banned Lee from parasite work in case she carried an infectious disease home to me - in reality that meant that work which would be split three ways has fallen on her two team mates. As Steve is a fellow car nut ( in his case Citroen's ) a run out in the Aston was a good treat to say thanks. The car fits in the garage with an inch to spare on both sides so Lee still has me put it away on her return.

Yesterday I did too much, you feel fine and hence you just work away, in this case installing my new home cinema amp ( yes the one with the 200 page manual ) after I had been to hospital, done the grocery shopping, cooked a chicken in the pot, and picked up the speakers. The predictable outcome is that half way through running the cables I felt wobbly and had to sit (lay) down on the sofa before I fell down. Straight to bed for me with the stereo in bits on the living room floor, but I had managed to get it to play some music before I wobbled off to bed. I slept right through to noon today, and even then felt like I needed more sleep, but forced myself to get up to take my medicines and to eat to keep my stomach stable.

The rest of the day was spent with the rest of the assembly which is now complete (did manage to prepare some chicken stock for the freezer as well Jim) and I am sitting on the couch playing with switching from ipod to DVD to TV to turntable - yes I bought a turntable so we can now play our old vinyl records - Poppy came in and asked what the records were, why they were so big, how come we did not just buy Cd's when we were younger ect. She had never seen a turntable, ever, just shows how the world has changed since the early 80's when CD players became available.

I had a bit of a sobering experience when I was in the hospital, I met a patient who had been in the same ward as me, actually the guy who called the nurse when I collapsed on the way to the loo, and asked him how things were going. He told me he had been up to the transfusion unit but they had not been able to get enough stem cells from the procedure for a transplant.... He was waiting to see what the doctors were going to say about the next step and was off to Amsterdam with his partner for a few days holiday ( supposed to be pre-isolation but now just a break). Just goes to show that the stem cell thing is not a certain thing. Despite this I am lucky enough to have no spread of my cancer to the bone marrow and with Hodgkin's the success rate of generating stem cells in the blood is very good so fingers crossed.

So tomorrow will be a day of preparation for the hospital, packing my bag and the DVD's etc to keep me amused during the stay, I have a list of minor things to get done including making my now patented lamb stew, and plan to have plenty of sleep before I am off into the next adventure, one of the things is to get a card for the PC so I can blog from the hospital this next time and specially during the long six week isolation stay which should be in about 6-9 weeks time depending on stem cells, scans and the complications of the next chemos. At least the TV and sound system are working well so I can be entertained while I crash out !

Tonight I am allowing myself two glasses of red wine as I am at the peak of my blood counts today and it will be out of my system by thursday, so my ending salutation is for real for a change.

Cheers !

Gerry