Category Archives: cancer

happy monday…

05 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in cancer, cats, christmas, food & drink, friends, hospitals

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I mean, it started off okay. And nothing went horribly wrong. But things kept not going right. You know the sort of day I mean? Well, this was my Monday. At least until about an hour ago (it’s now 8pm).

I was actually supposed to have taken Luna and Loki to the vet’s for booster shots today, but one of Peter’s students changed her Friday class to this morning so I changed the appointment to Friday, because there’s no way I can handle taking two beasties to the vet’s on my own.

So fine. This freed up my late morning so I could go to the hospital to get my chemo port cleaned. I’d actually forgotten all about it – really should’ve gone last week. Anyhoodle, decided to make it a good morning and go to the gym before heading off to the hospital (new port cleaning hours are 12.00-1.00). And because Peter’s shoulder is causing him grief and he’s been complaining non-stop I thought it might be a good idea for him to go to emergency instead of waiting two months for the MRI… and this is when things started to go crappy.

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it’s official!

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in cancer, change, chemo, hospitals, sevilla, silly, weather

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Forget equinoxes and time changes, for me autumn doesn’t officially arrive until the first day I have to put on shoes. Which was today. Had to go out to the hospital this morning for the monthly chemo port cleaning and, while the heavy overnight rain had stopped, it was still a bit blustery and coolish. Dammit. I didn’t need to wear a jacket, but bare legs and mostly bare feet seemed like pushing it, so out came the dreaded tights and the (very dusty) purple shoes.

Not bad, I guess, but some years I’ve managed to keep wearing sandals until the last week of November. Basically it depends on if it rains.

Anyhow, I got a taxi over to the hospital. It’s different since they changed the port cleaning location – I used to go to the chemo infusion room in the evenings when they weren’t so busy and now I go to the blood lab building between 12-1pm. It’s actually a bit better not having to go to the chemo room, but it’s still a monthly reminder of THE CANCER and that the reason I have to keep this port in for five years is that they expect that I’m going to need it again…

But not today. There were two nurses on duty when I walked in and they immediately asked why I was dressed totally in black. I said I wasn’t, that I was wearing purple shoes and red earrings, but that didn’t satisfy them. Then I realised they must have thought I was in mourning, so I told them I was mourning the sun. Cracked them up. And they also relaxed, no longer worried I was a recent widow on top of having a chemo port in my chest.

So now that it’s autumn (it’s not officially winter until the Christmas lights are turned on) I need to go through my pathetic array of “warm clothing” and see what I can pull together. Even though it actually got up to 20º this afternoon. But I don’t want to buy anything new until I lose another ten kilos…

How’s the weather where you are?

biopsy results negative!

27 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals

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It was four weeks ago today that I had the emergency op – the one  that turned out to be an abscess on one of my ovaries and not anything related to my colon as the head surgeon had previously thought. I was told at the time that they didn’t think there was any cancer, but as a precaution they’d taken biopsy samples and said the results would be ready in two weeks. So two weeks ago I sent a text message to Isabel and Ricardo (of my nuclear medicine Team) to ask if they could check the results and when I didn’t hear back I reckoned that no news was good news.

But in fact good news is good news.

This evening I was over at Agustín’s getting him to witness my passport application and a message came through from Isabel that simply said “no describe nada de tumor” … my biopsy results in a nutshell! Right after that I had to go and take photos for my friend/client Maria at her shop and I forgot to call Isabel back, so she called me about an hour later and went over the results in a bit more detail. But the bottom line is that I’m okay! And although I was pretty sure someone would have called me before now if they’d found cancer, it was still a huge relief to see those words and talk to Isabel.

So I called Nog on my way home and he met me for a Cold Beer and some toasted almonds to celebrate.  A good day. 🙂

gastroenteritis or cancer?

18 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by in cancer, health & happiness, home

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On Monday evening I had a bit of a dodgy stomach, including a touch of diarrhea, but this does happen from time to time when you are a semi-colon. The next day I went out on that crazy lunchtime gourmet tapas tour, which I know couldn’t have helped matters. In fact, I went to bed that evening very early after having just a slice of melon thinking I’d feel better after a good night’s sleep. Yesterday I felt weakish but still made myself go to the gym because I’d missed ten days, what with going to Málaga and all. Stupid! I could only manage a bit of melon for lunch and had started to get cramping, which happened just before every “dire rear” episode. Unfortunately, I had a tapas tour booked last night and, although I really didn’t feel like I could do it, I went because a) I’m responsible like that and b) it was only a two-hour tour, so I thought I could handle it. I just nibbled on a couple of things and generally took things easy, but didn’t end up getting home until midnight – four hours later!

This morning I woke up feeling awful and have barely been able to get out of bed. I have a bit of a fever (37.4º) and the diarrhea and cramping continues, plus I feel achy all over, which gives me hope that this is just a bout of gastroenteritis and not a cancer recurrence. The symptoms are quite a bit different from that first time I went to the hospital over four years ago, because the only symptom I had then was the excruciating abdominal pain. This is bad, but not nearly as awful as that time. So I have spent today in bed except for a couple of attempts to sit up a bit. Like now. I managed to eat a little melon and some toast, but really don’t feel that hungry. And I am trying like hell not to WORRY. But if I feel the same tomorrow then I guess I’ll have to pop over to emergency.  😦

Okay, back to bed…