No.
More.
Chemo.

It kind of ran up on me suddenly, with all the unknowns of whether I would be finishing my chemo or not. The ending was pretty anticlimactic I suppose. As it was chemo at home, it had been fairly easy. No pumps or 3L/day of water leading up to getting disconnected, no lugging all my things home from the hotel. In fact I spent my final night of chemo at the pub, drinking too much with my housemate and chatting to all the locals, making friends and planning post-chemo parties. Then I popped in to Ambulatory Care on the Sunday, saw Damien and Freddie, got disconnected, scheduled my PICC line dressing change for the following week and went home.

Yes, chemo is over. No, I wasn’t able to finish all the chemo I was meant to have. No, I can’t currently feel my hands or feet and they could take months to come back. No, I’m not feeling ‘better’, I’m actually feeling pretty dead, as expected. And the self-injections have been an interesting challenge with the current hand situation. Well at least the pain in my hand and the difficulty in holding the syringe takes away from any pain or fear for the needle. I’m so good about it now.

It’s a little difficult to really get excited when my mind is running straight on to this huge surgery I have coming up, plus lots more unknowns of when it’s going to be, what it’s going to be, etc.

But my goodness, once I’ve spent the next week feeling progressively worse due to the latest dose of chemo, then I can start actually getting better! My hair can start coming back properly. No more taking my temperature 6 times/day to see if I need to rush to the hospital. Yeah I’m going to have to face a lot of pain and a very long recovery with this surgery, but I won’t be regularly killing all the healthy cells in my body. I can start building up my strength, though I know that will take a long time. Years maybe. And once I know when surgery will be and about how long recovery times are, I’ll actually be able to see an end to it!

And after I’ve survived this week, I’m going to do some celebrating! Try to fit in lots of dinners and drinks with friends in the few weeks I have, maybe fit in a short weekend holiday even!

Most importantly, thank you for all the love and support you’ve all given me so far. I’m so glad I decided to write about it as I’ve been going and I’m so glad you all decided to come along with me. It certainly doesn’t stop here, there is plenty more to come on this ‘journey’. Cringe. It’s definitely not a journey, it’s just a shitty thing I’m battling through. But it’s definitely been easier with all your support. Thank you all.