Rollercoaster ride....

Wow! This has been quite a roller coaster few days and I feel well and truely put through the spinner. As you all know from me banging on, chemo was Friday. It went smoothly enough, had the same nasty sensations as last time, the burning and the tingling etc. Just being there was traumatic this time as it was well and truely full of sick people. I know that sounds funny to say but sometimes you go and the people don't seem so ill, other times they seem like they are taking their last breath. This was one of those weeks and that always makes the whole experience much tougher as it is very difficult to reconcile needing to be in the same place and have the same treatments as those people. These are the days when I feel the fear. My bloods are all droping right down, they gave me a red cell transfusion and I looking at having platelets before my next dose. I have had a rough few days interms of aches and pains, night sweats, nausea, numb and tingly fingers, burning veins and general, overwhelming fatigue. I didn't move over the wk end as basically, I couldn't! I'm coping though and I can see the fog starting to lift so it is all good. My feeling of wellness have not been helped by having two sick kids to care for, one of whom  has a real talent for vomiting all over me. Not great when you are already nauseous!

                                                     My chemo, looks lovely right?!

                                                       My sisters new puppy Ashley


In other news I saw my old friend Adam, who happened to be my little girl sophies Dad in a nice family snap shot with his newborn baby. It surprised me how it took the wind out of me, of course there is no reason for me to imagine he wouldn't go on and have a family and be happy and really its great that he can. I just couldn't help feeling a little bit bitter towards his great big happy grin.... If that makes me a bad person, well so be it, sorry folks, turns out I am only human!

Then on Monday my step Dad (only bloke who really qualifies to be called my Dad) got carted off from work in an ambulance. After many tests, the MRI shows he has had a stroke. The doctors are not convinced that is the whole story and are still now running more and more tests. It seems he has been having fits and who knows what else is going on. So my poor Mum is run ragged trying to look after Evie and all the farm and on top of it an 8 week old puppy while trying to not lose her mind worrying about John and visiting him an hour away in Lincoln. It is so hard just watching from a distance and not being able to help in any real way. I am so scared about what might happen and so scared for Evie, she loves her Daddy and she needs him to be around for a lot longer.

So thats where I am now, back for check up tomorrow. I hope I can report happier events in my next instalment!

Oh yeah and I had some extra needles this week but more about that another time :)

Ready for round 2...

Its nearly that time again, these 3 weeks have flown by and now only 2 sleeps and its time for round two. Can't say I am looking forward to it, I'm just starting to feel a bit more human. I tell you it is bloody difficult to convince myself to go back each time, what I would do for this to be over! Mind you I nearly got my self out of it this week by attempting to burn my hand off lol! Got a hand full of steam blisters, the doctors weren't impressed when they realised my medical history, blood counts etc! Seems I am fine though and although they are bloody painful they are actuall going down really nicely thanks to the magic potion from the hospital. I have to apply it every 15 minutes and if I don't I can't bend my fingers!

Been feeling  miffed this week watching all the pictures and stories from home of people playing in the snow, all we get here is rain, rain and more rain. Evie has had a couple of snow days and revels in e-mailing me how 'orson' it is lol! I need a good sledging session in a winter wonderland to put a smile on my face and make me feel OK about being so bloody cold all the time!

So over the last three weeks I have had to go for weekly checks on my heart, kidneys etc, I go again tomorrow to make sure I am OK for the treatment to go ahead. Been getting terrible chest pains but I don't think it can be too much to worry about as they would have said. Probably just my poor old body protsting! My blood counts have been dropping and so I dread to think what they will be at tomorrow. Before this treatment started my Platelets were at 180, last week they were down to 60, I reckon I will be looking at platelet transfusions pretty soon and will definitely be due blood, not sure if they are doing that tomorrow. Hope so!

Anyways, just thought I would fill you all in quickly where I'm at. Will update post chemo.... Wish me luck!!!

Ding ding... Next round!

I last left you (on the edge of yor seats I am sure!) Having arrived in Ireland. I have now been here for nearly 7 weeks and have settled in rather well. My host family are lovely, the kids are (on the most part) sweet, my accomadation is great (I have my very own fire to play with!!!) and the people of Ireland really are warm and wonderful and helpful and hospitible. I really couldn't have asked for the move to go better. The icing on the cake is that I was eventually granted the magic little card that means my health care will be provided without any extra cost to me. In short, I can get what I need to stay alive, pretty big news!

Once I got the good news I was immediately given an appointment at my new hospital, a dedicated cancer center with all the trimmings. It really is a great place and provides everything I need to make my treatment run as smoothly and easily as possible. I met my new consultant (a woman this time) she is lovely, no nonsense and a leader in her field so I feel in good hands. New scans were taken, blood checked, transfusion given and they confirmed that there had been minimal growth of my cancer during the delay period so this was the news I was looking for, a bit of luck on my side, about time! So from this my regime was confirmed and the date set for the 4th of Jan, meaning I could enjoy the christmas period before getting started, much appreciated considering the amount of Champagne that was being thrown at me by my host family! I was apprehensive about spending christmas in Tipperary with the maternal grandparents but in the end it was fantast (very posh though!). They were very warm and welcoming and the kids gave my the guded tour of the grand mansion, I spent the 1st couple of hours with my mouth open in total awe but I soon got used to it and settled in, lovely :)

new year was amazing, having Adi to come stay was just what I needed as christmas had made me a little home sick so her visit sorted me right out. Dublin was great and it was the best new year I have had in years!

So that leads me to now. It is Wednesday, I had treatment on Friday, the treatment went well, no nasty reactions which are apparently common with this drug. It was pretty quick. Only an hour for the actual infusion so including bloods, flushes, anti-his etc I was there about 3.5 hours, beats 2 days for the last course!!! It is one of those drugs you can feel going ito your vein and you can feel its path around your body, if you haven't experienced this feeling then it would be difficult to imagine. I can only describe it like someone is pouring acid into your vein and as it mixes with the blood a flows around it gradually burns the inside of every part of your body, its not agony but its enough to make you screw up your face and make it difficult to concentrate on anything but the feeling! No sickness to start with just that familiar feeling of being hit by a truck....

Saturday and Sunday I was not too bad but beyond that the scratchy feeling under my skin as become quite difficult to take, I also have a painful tightness in my chest that feels very constrictive. The nausea is kicking in but not too much actual sickness. I have numb fingers and toes, my head is banging and I have cramping pains through my back and abdomen. The night sweats have started, making it hard to sleep, despite exreme tiredness and my wee has turned a very toxic looking bright orange. On the bright side, all these things are tolerable, I can cope with them and I can continue to work, for now. Luckily I can easily take it easy in my job :) If this is as bad as it is going to get, I will be fine.

I have to visit the clinic on Thursday for checks on my heart, liver and kidneys, all are damaged from previous treatments and all are at high risk of further damage this time so need to be closely monitored. I will also ask if there is anything they can give me to alleviate the desire to rip my skin off!!!

Anyway, so far, so good. One down, five to go, please, please, please make this the last, at least for a few years. I will go through anything if that can be the end result!

Emigrating!

Hi!!!! Wow, it has been a little while since my last update and soooooooooooo much has happened in that time. I don't know where to start so here is a brief resume to start with.

As I am sure you will all remember I had been told that it was that time I look forward to again, chemo time! I was waiting for my appointment to get the regime sorted etc etc. That appointment came and we got a schedule sorted, drug decided and a date ready to go. As always happens in my life a spanner was well and tuely thrown into the works and that very same day I received a call from a lady in Ireland wanting to talk to me about a job in Ireland. That was me thrown into days of deliberation, back and forth with the decision. I knew sensibly that it was a crazy idea to head off to a new country and new job and that point in my life but I also knew deep on my heart exactly what I was going to do!

I spoke to friends and I spoke to aquaintances and I spoke to professionals and I got a mixed bag of opinions. None of those really mattered though because I already knew exactly what I was going to do! Still, its manners to ask lol!

So the first phone call came on the Thursday and by the Monday the job was mine, my notice to the job from hell was in and the wheels were in motion for my next big move. It was all a bit of a whirl wind, I had 17 days to get sorted and let me tell you when half of those are work days and when you have bloody cancer to accomadate, that aint many!

Anyway, I won't bore you with all the details, only to say I don't think my Boston consultant could have been any less impressed, ha, it made me laugh a little :) So anyway, the day came round very quickly when it was time to head off, of course I gave my self too much to do and no time to do it but with my life packed in the car, for the second time in less than a week I wet off, a few stops along the way and a night spent in Cov seeing the besties. Thursday I headed off to Wales, well I tried. The weather, fate, god, allah and a few others beside all conspired against me and made it as difficult as they possibly could for me to reach my destination of Holyhead. My easy 3 hour tootle turned into a mammoth 16 hour horror ride! Several hours sat on the dual carriage way and many more driving in the pitch black along what seemed to be a torrential river in a hurricane! So my luxury night enjoying a beautiful hotel was not meant to be but hey I was just grateful to make it there alive!!!

At this point I still wasn't sure if the ferry would be running, it had been cancelled that day and I wasn't too sure what the weather had in store for the next day. TBH though I was too tired to care....

Next day, it was like it never happened, the world was bright and beautiful and calm and so after enjoying a shortened version of my fancy hotel I set off for the ferry. Now as some of you know, ferries are not my favorite mode of transport, I don't trust them, I don't have see legs and I just generally dislike the whole experience. Well in line with the rest of the journey, the crossing was pure hell! Poor old Wally had to stay in the car while I went off upstairs, as if the 16 hours the previous day in the car wasn't enough for the poor boy! Anyway, as soon as we set off the captained piped up with his ever so funny repartoire of just how rough the sea was adn then the young man brought round the sick bags. well, that was it for me, off I went and threw up twice, nice! So I took my self to the centre of the ferry, curled up on the floor and made my self go to sleep, I figured if I was asleep, I couldn't be sick. It worked and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in Dublin!

To be continued.....

Back to where we started...

It has not been a good couple of weeks for me. I am used to a certain amount of pain/discomfort and generally I can handle it without too much trouble or moaning! However over the last few weeks, the pain has become much worse and much, much harder to tolerate until Tuesday night when I was literally on my hands and knees all night crying out. Not like me at all. It got to the point where I just felt I couldn't take it for a moment longer and so I took myself to casualty. Well, what an adventure that was! Seemed to me they didn't know their arse from there elbow. I was kept waiting for nearly 3 hours before I even got to see a doctora and in that time I was offered a paracetamol for the pain, hmm, if only I had thought of taking one of those, could have saved myself a journey!

Anyway, once I finally did get to see a doctor I think they did slowly start to register an understanding about my condition and things started to happen. I managed to get onto a morphine drip (yay!) hospital is always way more fun when you are on one of those babies lol. I was then thouroughly examined (in the way only a doctor can get away with) and was scanned, bloods taken etc. They couldn't find anything out of the ordinary for me but decided to get one of the consultants who knows me to come say Hi. This meant a long wait as he wasn't on shift until the afternoon but at least I was reassured I would be seeeing someone who knew what they were talking about.

Once I had been visited by the consultant I was sent home with an outpatients appointment for the Friday and a bag of drugs that would have been worth a small fortune in jail! Up to this point the dreaded chemo word had not been mentioned but somehow I knew it was coming. So friday came round and off I went to the hospital feeling very apprehensive. You must all know that feeling when you know what you are about to be told but you don't want to hear the words out loud. I swear I had to sit on my hands so as not to put them over my ears! So it turns out not only have the ascites got worse, my CA125 score has suddenly gone through the roof. this is a fair indication the cancer is active and there may well be something going on that is not showing up on the scans. So the big boss man feels it is time to get started on another chemo course, get things blasted before they get out of hand.

So thats me, off to see the oncologist next week to get a plan and then back into the awful cycle of chemo. I am so sad and dissapointed that I am here yet again such a short time after the last lot. Its about 10 months since I finished the last couse and about 7 months since my radio. No time at all really. Its not like during that time I have enjoyed the freedom of good health. Oh well, onwards and upwards.I can't change anything. The ony option I have is don't have the chemo and take my chances with a disease which by all accounts has been quite determined to get me. I think we all know how that would work out!!! So I will be a good girl and will put up and shut up. I am also gonna have to go back and get my abdomen drained and possibly a further proceedure to fix my ever growing mass of granulated scar tissue. Wow, life is full of fun treats!!!

hop along...

Hello folks, thanks for coming back to catch up with me. It has been ages since my last post, truth is I have not been in the right frame of mind to be writing about my feelings or about the happenings in this crazy life of mine. I have struggled over the last month or so to really see anything in a positive light and have found life a bit of a drag. However, I think I am starting to see the light and although nothing has actually really changed I am starting to feel more myself.

So last time I posted I was still waiting on my latest results and was starting to feel quite worked up about everything, patience has never been my strong point! Well the day finally came and I headed off to the hospital for my appointment with the big boss man. The news really was that there was no news! By this I mean nothing had changed, no growth or spread but no reduction either. According to the powers that be this is positive news. Now, I understand the theory behind this, it means that the drugs are keeping the cancer at bay to some degree. However, I find it difficult to walk around day in day out aware that there is cancer still in my body and that despite the drugs I am taking on a daily basis it hasn't gone anywhere. It feels to me like I am walking around with a ticking time bomb inside me and all I really want to do is cut it all out. I understand the rational facts but they don't always over ride the deep emotional reactions.

The last month I have had a couple of hospital admissions, I have had problems with my potassium levels and had to have this as an IV and my heart has been an ongoing concern. The blood transfusions are still a regular event and that doesn't seem like changing any time soon. It seems there are more and more bits of me starting to go wrong but I suppose that is understandable considering everything my body has coped with up til now.

On top of everything else the stooooopid horse took a big old leap in the air and landed nicely on top of my foot resultin in broken metatarsals 2,3 & 4!!! No plaster luckily just a weird 'air cast' boot which I am supposed to use fro walking (supposed to being the operative word!!!).

The Aspire channel swim is going well so far, I am nearly nine miles accross now out of a total of 22 miles. My best swim to date was 74 lengths so well over a mile, very happy with that :)

http://www.aspirechannelswim.co.uk/lucyfahy

Check it out!

Wally dog is totally awesome and is doing really well with his training. His repotoire now includes sit stay, down stay, both paws, roll over, splat, comando crawl, leave it and many more.... Such a genius puppy :)

 

 

 

So, next up is repeat scans in November... Hoping and praying for a change in the right direction. I need a break from the worry!

 Watch this space!!!

The waiting game

I haven't written in my Blog for ages, for one I haven't felt inspired and for two I was hoping to be able to report good news in my next posting. Trouble is I have had to wait ages for theis next set of results. I went about 3 weeks back and had all me repeat scans and a repeat colonoscopy done but due to me being away etc I have not yet had the results. The colonoscopy was a joy, as ever. I swear these doctors have not noted the one way sign at that particular entrance! At least this time I feel I was properly sedated and I remember very little about what happened. I remember being picked up and vague flashes of discomfort etc but no where near as much detail as last time. This time it was tough though because everyone was away so  when I got home I still had the ponies to muck out and feed etc, all the watering to do, the chickens to sort out and hardest of all the puppy to entertain. Plus having not eaten for 24hrs I needed food but was so tired cooking was the last thing I wanted to do! Unfortunately, being coeliac, takeaway is no longer a realistic option so I just had to take a deep breath and get on with it.So I did and it was fine but I have to admit to having a little cry that night, mainly through discomfort, exhaustion and frustration. Don't worry, it was only a little tear and the X-Factor soon sorted me out lol!

The thing now is, the longer I wait, the less I want to hear what they have to say! The whole thing has started to grow legs in my head and I now feel like it is going to be bad news. If it is bad news, I really don't want to hear it, I'm happy in my little bubble and don't wish to have it burst! I have a new job which I am terrorfied I will lose if I end up on treatment again. Plus, I don't think I can take any more emotionally. I am done with this roller coaster, I want to get off and that is that! Anyway, doesn't really matter what I want, it aint up to me at the end of the day so I guess I will just have to suck it up and get on with it, as ever!

Next week I get a blood test re:coeliac and if it comes back negative then I can start re-introducing oats to my diet, very excited about this as porridge season is nearly upon us!

My Aspire channel swim starts next week and I have done 0 training, I did one swim several weeks ago and nothing since, haven't even been in the gym. I have just been feeling so tired, can't seem to get going but have decided tonight is the night and am heading back to the gym to see what I can do. I really need my old gym buddies back to help motivate me. It is so hard when you have to do it on your own! Oh well, all that swimming will soon start upping my fitness again. Just need to find my mojo....

Wally has settled in really well, he is the best puppy ever (OK so I am biased but he is pretty well behaved!). He is getting so big now, in fact, in 4 weeks he doubled in weight! It is so lovely having him and we had a great time on our little jaunt to the Lakes and Scotland. Was also nice to catch up with lots of friends, we had a really lovely week away. Good times!

Right, well Friday is the day so I will update you in due course. Hopefully I will be able to come back and say I am cancer free. Wouldn't that be nice?!