... is a joy to behold!
I drove through the drizzle to the hospital, to find three people ahead of me and no consultant... not a good start. But once he arrived he got going in his usual manner, and I was down the corridor only half an hour later than my appointment time. The hospital is full of posters explaining the cost of patients not turning up for their appointments - I wonder if anyone has ever examined the cost to patients of consultants running late? That half an hour extra on my parking cost me nearly a pound, last time it was more than an hour late. It does mount up over the weeks and months.
Anyway, I will stop bleating. He asked me how I was - why do we always say "Fine" when actually we mean "recovering after a really rotten couple of weeks"? After a short discussion of mouth ulcers and the various mouthwashes available, he said "So, are you all ready for the next time, the really bad stuff?" "What???" "Docetaxel, the bad stuff". This wasn't too encouraging a start, I thought...
So we retired to the side room where he groped my right boob again. He didn't even get to use his little micrometer this time, said it (the lump) was much reduced and he couldn't really measure it now. And how is this a problem? He's very pleased with progress, says that it is all going very well indeed, which is exactly what I was hoping to hear.
Going back to the "bad stuff" - I was wondering how different the side-effects would be. He tells me that there should be much less nausea this time, but I could get seven to ten days of backache which could be severe - IF I am the unlucky one in ten. Nine out of ten people don't suffer much at all but if I am the odd one out and suffer it can apparently be controlled with paracetamol or ibuprofen. He also said that I might see some hair growth starting after a couple of cycles!
So hopefully I will be one of the nine - but if not I will just have to take things easy for a while.
Radio 4 has a documentary about vertigo at the moment - and apparently there's a video on the Beeb website demonstrating the Epley manoeuvre which a completely different consultant has promised to show me next time I get an attack of screaming vertigo... He said it was BPPV - Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo - and next time I get an attack to go and see him and he would show me the magic way to move my head to tidy up the debris in my inner ear and stop the symptoms instantly. The next attack occurred when said consultant was on leave, and the next one the same day I had a chemo session booked... so I haven't managed to see him yet. If I can master it from a video that will be good!
On another note, I had the message from work this morning that they would like me to send their laptop and phone back... reminding me that I join the ranks of the unemployed at 5pm on Friday. Hey ho.
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