Drug regimen

Friday chemo day

4 little dexamethasone 2mg and 1Metoclopramide  10 mg

Some kind of antihistamin to stop my body rejecting the drug 

Half hour infusion of Carboplatin with a flush for a few minutes either side.

Saturday 4 dexamethasone 2 mg

1 apixaban for thining the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Sunday 4 dexamethasone 2 mg

1 apixaban for thining the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Monday 2 dexamethasone 2 mg

1 apixaban for thinning the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Tuesday 2 dexamethasone 2 mg

1 apixaban for thinning the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Wednesday

1 apixaban for thinning the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Thursday 

1 apixaban for thinning the blood 2,5 mg x 2

1 Valsartan 40 mg for lowering blood pressure

Friday oooooh its chemo day again. 

Two more weeks every Friday then hopefully a full blast with 3 weeks in between.

 

 

Three little words - "Its still working' - a pathway out of the doldrums !

 I've never been so happy to see a graph before in my life. How I love how the line careers towards the sky and is now coming down in leaps and bounds. My liver is recovering, an extraordinary organ that can replenish itself and heal itself. Apparently during June, July and August my cancer ran rampant everywhere but mostly in my liver. 50%of my liver is full of cancer at the moment, a particularily aggressive cancer she has now admitted to me. It grew a little in my original pelvic site and ovaries and some new stuff grew on my peritoneum. No wonder I have a swollen pregnant belly and am fatiguing all over the place.

I could see the relief in my consultants face as she tells me good news and has found a drug that is working for me now. After today's treatment I have 3 more once a week at 30% and then possibly a full blast every 3 weeks to finish the course off. It is a plan, a way forward.

I am so relieved to hear that as my liver recovers then my belly will go down and the fatigue will get less. I had horrors of hearing that the fatigue would stay with me the full course  for six months ! ! !

I have strangely swollen feet, a bit like Beryl Cook's paintings of buxom women with feet in colourful strappy sandals. I look at them and don't recognise them at all, they are not mine. I am wearing somebody else's feet !

Two little words - "its working" - a lifeline

 

An excited and positive meeting with consultant with some good news. The idea of a 30% dose of Carboplatin once a week to get  back on track and give my body a chance to recover for weekly sessions has worked so far. Finally some good news. I immediately felt better. Extraordinary how a few words can transform a situation. How my entire look out onto my potential future can turn in a second. After months of being in limbo, uncertain, unknown, this is such a relief.

I was shown a graph of my liver which was rocketing sky high but as soon as I had the first dose it dropped like a stone a definate v shape undeniably going in the other direction. Ha Ha How I love that graph. Ive been warned that this is a slow process back, I will feel pretty shit for a couple of weeks and then after that things should get a little easier. I can handle that I think to myself, so much easier to deal with than the unknown.

Meanwhile Fatigue is a new beast for me. Who would have thought standing up took so much energy or even sitting in a chair took so many muscles. Walking upstairs is a mission and a half. I feel so fortunate I did not experience this at all last year. My feet have swelled up and I have more protein in my blood than I should have. The theory is that the chemo will sort out these conditions as the cancer in my liver reduces and is contained.

So to patience and distraction to get me through the next few weeks after which I can walk out again into my life.

Mothership Earthsong

 

Here is a project I have been proud to be involved in. It is reaching for world wide  coverage ahead of the COP26 Climate Change Conference happening in Glasgow in November 2021.

Here are the details

https://mailchi.mp/03be22cda0d9/mothership-video-a-project-leading-up-to-cop26

Not out of the woods just yet

Tuesday 10 August 2021

Meeting with the consultant on Tuesday we made a plan. It was agreed that Gemcitabine was not working and demolished my platelets to much to be able to give me the correct dosage. We talked about Carboplatin and how it had really worked quite quickly on its own the first time I ever had chemo a year ago. I had mentioned this before but at the time they were thinking about a pill form of chemo. So because my platelets are struggling she suggested that she give me a Carboplatin dose 30% once a week for three weeks to enable my bloods to recover in between times and maybe we could get back to the place where the cancer is contained. I like a plan it, seems like a good one. 

I had another CT scan, the results of which I'm not really looking forward to hearing about but I understand that they need a marked at the start of a new treatment to compare previous scans. I also had another ultrasound scan to see if there was any fluid to drain but once again there wasn't enough to warrant the procedure.

The chemo on Friday went off without a hitch. They gave me a blast of antihistamine to stop my body rejecting the drug. Apparently the body recognises that it has had it before and may rebel and make nasty rashes and weirdness.  Luckily I was ok during the infusion. Apparently I might suffer from more extreme side effects this time round.

Since then I have been plagued by fatigue, swollen belly and nausea to different degrees. I really did not know what a sledgehammer fatigue could be. I was so lucky I did not experience that the first time round. I'm sleeping and snoozing loads and watching tv series and re reading books on my ipad.  A weird in limbo existence. Catapulted back to the beginning of my cancer journey. Strangely It never occurred to me that I would go backwards and regress.