Wednesday 14 February 2007

Taxotere 4


Today, I had my 4th lot of poison, alongside my 14th lot of Herceptin.

My appointment at the chemo suite, was 12 noon. It was all pretty timely, and I got in at 12:15.
Half an hour, and four attempts later, they found a vein.
Four attempts isn't bad going for me. I think my record's eight.
But todays attempts really seemed to hurt. I thoiught I might feint at one point, as they were poking around with a canula, on the inside of my wrist. They gave up on that vein, eventually.

I've been asked today, if I think knowing the Taxotere's "saving my life", will make the side effects of chemo more bearable.
First, I feel the need to say that it's not technically saving my life. Hopefully what it is doing, is prolonging it.
Secondly, I don't know if this will make the side-effects more bearable. I'll let you know when I'm feeling awful, over the next couple of weeks!

I'm not meaning to sound ungrateful..
I'm grateful for having access to these treatments. But in all honesty, I'm really not all that grateful for any of what's happened to me over the past 20 months.

I'm feeling really tired at the minute, and fully expect to start feeling rubbish over the next couple of days.
This will be the time I struggle to lift my head off the pillow. It's a great achievment, just to be able to get out of bed and get dressed!


I just hope this stuff keeps the cancer at bay, for longer than I've been having chemo.
One of the reasons I'm struggling to get excited about it, is that if it comes back soon, I'll have spent longer feeling like rubbish on chemo, than the chemo's kept it away for.
It's a quality of life thing, I suppose.

So bear with me if I'm not around for a couple of weeks..


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