Category Archives: hospitals

three years ago…

04 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by in cancer, change, chemo, death & dying, fitness, health & happiness, home, hope, hospitals

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May 4th 2008 was the last day I ever felt “healthy and normal”. The next morning I woke up with excrutiating abdominal pain and the rest, as they say, is history.

Three major operations and two bouts of chemo later, I am in remission and have been since September 2009, but of course the risk of recurrence is always there. This was seriously brought home to me when my friend Gaelen was recently diagnosed with new metastasis after three cancer-free years. Around the same time another friend – my power twin Jed – got sick again and is now facing a treatment-without-cure situation. It’s made it harder for me to go along in my usual state of semi-denial, which makes for a lot of sleepless nights and general emotional upheaval. But mostly I’m okay. Because, as far as I know, I’m still okay.

Anyhow, not trying to be a downer, but anniversaries are always a bit poignant in that “will it be my last??” kind of way. As I’ve said here before, perhaps if I’d made more of an effort to do all The Right Things I’d be feeling less, well, annoyed with myself right now. Every day I wake up determined to eat broccoli and forego wine and spend two hours at the gym, and then … it’s not that I can’t be bothered, but things are never simple and I’ve had lots of stress in other areas of my life and I can’t seem to get it all together at once. As if I have all the time in the world to get it right…

One thing I’ve learned these past three years is to be less judgemental about people who can’t seem to get it together. Well, except for me. Are you very hard on yourself, or are you able to just go with the flow?

monday, monday…

22 Tuesday Feb 2011

Posted by in cancer, change, home, hospitals, life stuff, work

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A curious day yesterday as things got fixed, some loose ends were tied up, and other projects continued to grow. I realised when I got up and sat down at my desk in the living room just how perfect that set-up is as a work space, especially this time of year. In summer I’m sure I’ll often be bringing my laptop up to the terrace to enjoy working out in the sun and fresh air, at least in the mornings.

Things started well when the Movistar technician came back to fix the stuff he’d installed on Saturday, thus ending the awful saga of trying to get my service reconnected. He’s the same guy who put in my internet connection a couple of weeks ago and remembered me (and my cats) from the old place. Anyhow, at one point I mentioned complaining about Movistar on Twitter and he said – “Oh yes, they know about you!” – and explained how he was told to be careful with me and be extra nice. Ha. And later I got a private twitter message from Movistar asking if everything was okay and saying “if there’s anything else, you know where to find us”. So of course I told them about the iPhone 4 fiasco… still waiting to hear about that one.

Later in the afternoon I had to go and see my oncologist. At first I thought I’d have to go alone, but Nog had some time before his evening class and came with me. And when we were called into her office just 15 minutes after arriving it seemed like there’d be plenty of time to get through the appointment before Nog had to leave, but no…

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fingers crossed!

21 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in cancer, chemo, hope, hospitals

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Today at 8am I’m having the third PET scan since I got the all-clear in September 2009 after my last chemo finished that summer. Will my luck hold? Will I be okay?

I’m always nervous, if not downright terrified, just before a scan (scanxiety!) but this time was only given two day’s notice, so at least that cut down on the usual anxiety build-up period. Just two nights of lost sleep rather than a week or so. But the really extra anxiety-making thing is that this time I have to go all on my own. Nog has a class and I couldn’t find anyone else to come with me. We’re talking about six hours of scary hospital time with nobody else to talk to.

By the time most of you read this I’ll probably be either in the machine or still at the hospital awaiting the results. I’m really lucky that I don’t have to wait a month after the test for results as my nuclear medicine Team always tell me straight away. The scary thing about that is – if they do find more cancer – they will probably insist I start chemo next week, which would really bugger up my moving plans, as well as the two tapas tours I have booked the first week in February. Of course the even scarier thing would be them telling me that chemo is no longer an option…

Hope I’m back with good news later on!
I know you’re all rooting for me, and that helps.

holter heart monitor

01 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by in chemo, health & happiness, hospitals

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Things haven’t been quite fun enough lately, so you can imagine how thrilled I am about going to get this contraption attached to me today. Will have to wear it for 24 hours (not sooo bad, I think the last time back in 2007 it was for 48 hours). Anyhoo, this is all a result of the 4-hour tachycardia thang last July, but this time my doc at the hospital seems determined to get to the bottom of why I’ve been getting tachycardia for more than 25 years. And although it’s an annoyance, maybe she’ll actually find out and be able to stop it from happening. The other reason is because chemo can damage your heart (along with everything else in your body) so it is prudent to make sure my heart is sound in case I have to go back on chemo in January.

It’s always something…