Keep up, keep up

Well, the vinblastine has been fine so far - possibly because we forgot the steroids (prednisolone), which I was meant to have at the same time as the chemo (for 5 days)... It's delightful not to have a sore jaw etc, because I felt really rubbish last time. I'm now on the second day of the steroids, after some debate about whether it was still worth having them. My intrathecal chemo (cytarabine) is on Wednesday, but I'm not too worried about that. It all depends on the doctor, and how quickly they find the gap.

I had a great night out last week to celebrate/commemorate one of the nurse's leaving the Day Unit (she was only on a 6-month contract to cover maternity leave) - I get on very well with Sophie and will miss her on Ruth Myles, but fortunately now we've connected socially I'm sure we'll be meeting up in the Real World... The evening involved dinner at a Wagamama-esque restaurant in South Wimbledon with plenty of other Ruth Myles staff, and then a very amusing trip to Inferno's with some of Sophie's uni nursing friends: I had a great time, possibly because Sophie matched my lunatic dancing!

Otherwise I've been very busy finishing off 'The Malteser' and doing some more research work for Jim Naughtie - some trickier stuff this time, but it's interesting, and will at least bring in a little money! I also need to prepare properly for an interview on Tuesday, and have been sending out a great many OMV emails. There are lots of OMV activities happening over the next few months: I'd love to get involved in all of them but life looks pretty busy nowadays:

• Edinburgh (from 30th March til 3rd/4th April) chez Harriet
• Downside (5th - 8th April) for the Easter Retreat
• Italy (12th - 19th April) to see Mariacristina and Freddie
• OMV Health and Safety Meeting (19th April) and AGM (22nd April)
• Chichester Observer (23rd-27th April) for work experience

So there's lots going on! After all that, I'm hoping to move up to London, though that isn't confirmed yet. I'll need to find a job of some description to pay my rent, but a lot depends on my interview this Tuesday.

It's all very exciting, and I continue to think how wonderful it is to be able to do all this.

Vinblasted

It's probably about time I posted again, and excitingly there's even a slight change to my medical routine to tell you about. The time for my three-monthly chemo arrived last Tuesday (6th), but one of the counts from my liver function was pretty high, and seemingly getting higher. The doctors decided it was probably a drug reaction, and though not ideal, wasn't anything to worry about (medical readers might like to know it was my ALT, or Alanine transaminase). Apparently it would either be the fault of the fluconazole (antifungal, one tablet once a day) or the methotrexate (chemo, seven tablets once a week), so since then I've stopped the fluconazole. It seemed to work, as the count had dropped again by this Tuesday just passed, and an ultrasound of the liver showed nothing amiss. So I had my vinblastine on Wednesday, and am now just hoping I don't have the same side-effects as I did last time... According to one doctor, the sore jaw, constipation and sore back amounted to ALL the side-effects, so I did well that time.

I also got to see my consultant for the first time in ages. This was nice because it reassured me that everything is pretty much going to plan so far, although my dosage is now going up again as my body seems to be coping very easily with the 50% dose I've been on since January.

I have been a little snotty, but not feeling bad at all with it, so hopefully my neuts will soon sort that out. It's sometimes easy to forget that I am still having treatment, and do still need to take more care than usual, but generally I've been behaving. I blame my snottiness on the trains: I was stuck at a station for far too long the other night because a previous train had had a power failure... Eventually I gave up and went a very long route instead.

Various social highlights recently have included seeing Jess (hurrah! She's so well, which is brilliant considering how unwell she was - you might remember me asking you to keep her in your prayers etc when she had a fungal infection in her brain), going to farewell drinks for a nurse (little Laura, who is going to Australia; it was lovely to see a few nurses in a social situation at last, not just in hospital), and the usual OMV meetings and reunions.

I've also been trying to sort out my future, which is both very exciting and a bit terrifying. I'll share details when things are more concrete, but there are a few possibilities, some exciting!

I have a couple of other things to blog about, but this post is long enough already, so they'll have to wait...

My Celebrity Look-alikes

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.