Holiday-a-go-go

Weekend fun times

After what was a totally brilliant weekend, full of.....

At the Worcester Wolves with our foam fingers!

Getting into the spirit of it singing at Worcester Warriors

All together now....

With an Exeter Chief, Sue and Christina pitchside

Yay, BUE fundraising and singing at the Worcester Warriors

My gorgeous girls at Cote Brasserie

• taking Scarlett to her first basketball match (and the Worcester Wolves won!!) on Friday;
• having a photo shoot with the fab Worcester crew (including little man, Lucas) at Sub Studio;
• singing with my brill choir (Got2Sing) at the Worcester Warriors to raise money for the Worcesteshire Breast Unit Haven whilst also indulging a couple of ales with Sue and Susie;
• a large night out, getting dressed up and drinking too much gin and wine and stuffing myself with three courses with the Worcester crew the same evening at the newly opened Cote Brasserie; and 
• spending a lovely Sunday with Timmy visiting our friends Nick and Jo and the newest addition to their family Conor, while having a gorgeous lunch;

......it was back to reality with a trip to visit Mr P for my first oncology review meeting and monthly jabs on Monday morning.

Well, when I say Monday morning, we arrived at 10.15 and didn't leave until 14.55 !!

Walkies

I was really proud of myself.

Instead of parking at the hospital I asked Timmy if we could park at Tescos and walk up to the hospital (it's just under a mile).  Tim was really pleased as that isn't something I would have suggested a month ago as walking has been too tiring and painful.

The walk was actually really nice, and, although pretty exhilarating in the windy conditions, was quite sunny and warm.

We arrived at 10.15am and headed up to Rowan Suite where we sat down waiting for my appointment at 10.30am.

As usual the waiting room was full of old people....

At about 10.35am out popped my fab friend Helen (see our Rowan Suite selfie below) and her ace husband Tony (part of our Worcester crew), who'd been in to see the hematologist today.  She told me what was going on with her (which sounds crap) and then we photo'd, hugged and she went off for more blood tests.  She'd got in 10 mins before her appointment time, so I was hopeful that we wouldn't be waiting for too long.... famous last thoughts....

Rowan Suite is where it's at on a Monday morning

At 11.05am, the waiting room was getting really full and as my injections were booked in for 11.30am, I thought I'd better let the receptionist know (as I wasn't sure if she'd booked me in for both appointments).  It was a good job I said, as she told me I needed to trot down the Rowan Suite corridor to check in with the chemo treatment team (where there is a separate waiting room).

I toddled down and checked in with one of the nurses.  I explained that I was 'here' but still waiting for my 10.30am appointment so I might be delayed for my jabs (as I wasn't sure when I was going to get in to see Dr P).  I headed back to the main waiting room.  I started and finished a medium sudoku puzzle while Tim was preparing for a job interview he's got this week making some notes and jotting down interview questions.

At 11.20 I went up to the receptionist again as I'd seen a sign that said 'if you've been waiting for 30 minutes, please inform reception'.  She took my details and went to find out what was happening. She came back and said I was in next.  At about 11.40 I got into see Dr P.

Can we?

After greeting each other, one of the first things he said was 'have you had your jabs yet?', to which I replied 'er no, as I thought I had to wait for my calcium level results', he said, 'are you having your Zoladex injection here or at the surgery?' and I said 'well here unless I'm told otherwise'.  I had no idea what was going on.  I didn't even realise I could have my Zoladex at the surgery.  He said, 'right, ok, I'll have to prescribe it, hang on a minute'... So he headed out of the room briefly to do just that with the chemo nurses.  He confirmed that my calcium levels from my Friday bloods were fine.

We then chatted about the pain, and I told him how it was still hurting but was way more manageable than before and that the morphine was helping.  What I didn't elaborate on was the horrendous constipation that accompanies all my drugs and the need for the gloved finger recently - but I'm not going into that detail as I'm sure you can imagine for yourself... Needless to say, it wasn't very pleasant, but my goodness, was it a relief!!!! NICE!!

Then Tim and I went through our list of questions that I keep in a little book:

Q. When would I have the scan to see if the treatment is working?
A. Not yet, as it will be too early to determine if it is working as I've only been on the hormone treatment for four weeks

Q. Do I need the 'back cement'? (vertebroplasty)
A. Only if I am still in a lot of pain as my collapsed spine should get used to its new position on its own (weird!) but if it's still giving me gip then they would look into this.

Q. Did you take a further look at my biopsy to try and determine if it is HER2+?
A. Yes, the sample was sent off for further investigation to the Birmingham hospital, but they confirmed the same, that there wasn't enough of the sample to determine whether it's HER2...

Tim said, 'there are now bits of you all over the West Midlands'....yep, interesting thought.

Q. What does this mean then?
A. Well, if my liver 'lesions' (ie tumours) don't react to the hormone treatment I'm currently on, then I will have to have a liver biospy to look at its constitution (eek)

Q. What sort of exercise can I do with my current bone issues?
A. Anything you want as long as it doesn't hurt.... (hmmmm)

Q. Will my monthly blood tests keep monitoring my CA135 levels (which is a breast cancer marker)?
A. My CA135 will be looked at for the next couple of months as sometimes it moves up or down, but, apparently, my CA135 levels weren't raised much in the first place so this might be a good indicator for me

Q. Would physiotherapy help with knowing what sort of position I should 'hold myself' because I have aching pains across the top of my back but I can't tell if it's because of the cancer or the way I'm sitting/standing to counteract the chest pain
A. Er, no, basically as the resources are already pretty stretched in the phsyio teams and they don't really assist with that sort of thing

Statement: I've got terrible hot flushes, worse than when I was previously on Tamoxifen
A. Yes, well you've gone from 'normal' to basically 'menopausal' in a short space of time and will feel the menopausal effects.... SIGH.

In fact, my flushes are so bad at the moment that we've had to change back to our summer duvet as I get incredibly hot at night and can't handle the winter duvet with jersey duvet cover!! Scorchio.  It also means that my sleeping has been very on and off which isn't great.  And what doesn't help with hot flushes, spicy food or alcohol - SIGH AGAIN!!!

Last question....

Q. Can we go on holiday at the end of March?
A. Yes.....

YIPPPPPEEEEEE...... Spain is looking likely (we loooove Spain) and possibly somewhere we've been before so we don't feel that we have to 'see everything' and 'do everything on offer' as we will have done it before and can just chill.  The only trouble is I will have to stay covered due to my radiotherapy as those areas will be super sensitive to the sun.  I can see a new hat coming on.

So that was that, I have to see him for another review in four weeks (when I will have my jabs again as well).  We were out by 12pm and headed down to the chemo waiting room ready for my jabs.

WAITING room

I mentioned to the nurses that we were now 'there' and available for the jabs.  The waiting room was really busy as they had lots of people in and a lack of chairs for people to sit having their chemo.  For those of you who (thankfully) don't know, a chemo session can take up to five hours as the drugs are administered over a slow period of time, mine usually took between three and four hours when I had it before.

A lovely nurse called Helen came into see us about 10 mins after we'd been sat there and said, 'Kate your injections aren't up here yet, they'll be about 20 mins or so'.  As we were starving we asked if we could pop down and get a cuppa from the hospital Costa, and she said yes.  Little did we know when we got back that the chemo nurse came round the waiting room with hot drinks and biscuits!!

Anyway, it was nice to get out of Rowan suite temporarily and have a hot drink and some cake.  We didn't go full lunch as we thought we'd probably be home for 1pm... We had been planning to the go to the Bull Inn (our local pub) for a fish goujons lunch, oh, but the hospital had plans for us...

So we headed back upstairs to the chemo waiting room (again) at about 12.35pm and sat there (again).  At about 1pm we were called through into the little room where I had my jabs before, we sat there for 15 mins or so and the nurse came in and said 'your Zoladex injection has arrived, but we haven't got any Denosumab in stock, so we've had to order that and it will be about another 30 mins'. !!!  Helen did say that I could have the Zoladex now and have the Denosumab later, but I just wanted them both at the same time.

At this point we decided to go and have some lunch in the hospital cafe (which is a lot cheaper than Costa!).  Had we known, we would have taken our own lunch with us.  On the plus side, we did get to see Juney as she had started her volunteer shift on the Worcestershire Breast Unit Haven charity stand at the entrance to the hospital at 1.30pm, so we were filling her in on everything that had been going on.

We went back upstairs after about 30 mins or so, and were eventually called through and the jabs were ready.  I had to confirm my name, date of birth and address and the two nurses did the checks between them to ensure they were giving me the right jabs and also rechecked my calcium levels from my blood results.

The larger jab (with the implant), the Zoladex, wasn't too bad at all this time, but the other one which is just a usual liquid injection really stung.  Both went into my stomach, but so far don't appear to have caused too much bruising.  My previous injections caused terrible bruising which only went down at the end of last week, just in time for these new ones.

It was about 2.45pm when we left Rowan suite (after I had picked up some more calcium medication and booked my next appointments in a month's time).  The nurse was really apologetic and thanked us for our patience.  But there was nothing that could have been done and we didn't really have any other plans for today.

We went to speak to mum again on the charity stand and I gave myself a big, brave sticker, this time, a rainbow (it was that sort of day), then we left the hospital at 2.55pm.  In there nearly five hours.  It's a good job Timmy isn't working at the moment so he could spend all that time with me.

Paint the whole world with a rainbow

Needless to say, after missing out on lunchtime cod goujons, we went the whole hog and ordered fish and chips from the Bull's takeaway F&C shop for our dinner.  It was lovely.  We even split a Worcester Sourcer ale!

The next thing will be booking the holiday....WAHOO!

Until next time my lovelies. xxx