Well as always on a Methotrexate week I had my blood test at midday and was waiting for the all important result to say I can actually get to go home today. It was a bit touch and go today, my levels on the previous days hadn’t been low enough. But my kidneys must have known and worked extra hard because I was all good by Friday! When I got the call I told the nurse I love her. She laughed. Always a pleasure, Naz.

But I am now home, and at the end of cycle three, which means half way through the chemo bit of this adventure! Wow! Can you believe it? I can’t. How has it gone this quickly?

I think it’s probably time I tried to explain a bit more clearly how this chemo goes. The grad student I met last week who is using me as a case study (oh, did I mention that already? Haha thanks Lukon, I love being a case study :D) set it out quite well which gave me an idea.

Ok.

This will involve a table. I quite like a good table.

Each number underneath a chemo drug heading is a number of weeks, and where that is greater than one (i.e. methotrexate), everything going to plan I get the weekend at home. Each row is a cycle. Each week with a drug also gets assigned an a. b. or c. (Which I haven’t added, I couldn’t quite work out how to get that in). So for example, cycle 1 gets 1.a, 1.b, 1.c., cycle 2 gets 2.a, 2.b, 2.c., and so on, they go from left to right on the table. You can imagine they’re there. There is no break between 1.c and 2.a, other than (hopefully) the weekend. Halfway (hello! We there!) is at the end of Cycle 3c! Also, the best bit, from Cycle 4 on, Cisplatin (the meanest, grossest, yuckiest, nicknamed un-fondly by me as Vladimir Cisputin) goes bye-bye. Hence why the recovery week is shortened! SO ONLY ONE MORE WEEK OF CISPLATIN! Omg I hear the voices singing for me somewhere off in the distance. Maybe a little string quartet. Yeah, that’s nice.

And don’t forget that when I’m in being treated, I am hooked up to some form of backpack, with or without various bumbags etc. at all hours of the day and night. They never stop pumping until I’m disconnected on the Thursday (for Cisplatin/Doxorubicin), or Friday (for Methotrexate weeks if I’m lucky and clear the chemo by Friday – might be getting harder to do so as I progress) and get to go home. Carrying around 3L of water every day is heavy! I’m sure you can kind of imagine some of the relief I get from being disconnected from that. And let’s not even start on the tablet alarms or the very constant bathroom trips.

Everything going according to plan hopefully the chemo bit will be over by March (but any thousands of factors can mess that up). Then we have surgery, which I know nothing about. I have no ideas about dates, extent, length of time in hospital, length of recovery, nor any idea of what happens. I’m guessing they cut out and reconstruct half of my jaw. So… As always lots of unknown. But I’m hoping by mid next year this will all be successfully becoming a memory and life will re-continue as it was supposed to.

And gee will we celebrate. Just you wait.