Parisites on the home front as well....

The recovery from IVE Chemo 3 is proving to be, as expected, a deeper dive than before. I have managed to eat reasonably well, our stalwart lamb stew thrown in with a mix of smoothies, fruit, youghrt have kept me going however I probably needed more of the latter, at least according to lees magazines, as I have managed to grow both a bacterial infection of my nose/throat and thrush in my throat. Not a specially pleasant situation as the combination of the infections kept me awake all night, despite me being really tired, so this morning I am back in ward 5 getting treated for the infections while blood and swab checks are done to ensure no nasty parasites or bugs are lurking behind the known ones. I am finding that climbing up the stairs to the study leaves me out of breath and needing to sit down as my blood counts drop, when I lie down I feel like I could just jump up and run around like I would have done in the past, its only when I try to actually do anything like that for more than a minute or two that I realise how far from fit I am and begin to understand why the doctors are giving me four weeks to get my strength back before BEAM chemo.

During this whole process I experience the opening and closing of the circle of things I can focus on. Before the treatment I would think about plans for the future, how different colleagues could be coached or developed, how we could reorganise to release more of our potential while thinking about weekends away, holidays or plans for the house - while driving to work or jogging around the park. Now I can only focus on one thing at a time and even then often its things that did not require focus, like eating dinner, walking to the shop to get a paper etc. It must be odd for Lee, or perhaps a relief, for me to be this closed in. I can assure the readers that earlier claims of planning or global domination Gerry returning in the near future are much exaggarated. In fact Lee who is hob-nobbing with the great and the good at the scottish parliment is much more on that course than me, and has been heard to say - Member of the Scottish Parliment seems like a pretty cool life, over the last few days (now that they have let her in!).

So medicine in hand I am heading back to home, just been given the all clear by the very capable Dr Brenda who looks after the walking wounded here with great incisivness and warmth.

Cheers

Gerry