Mini blog

I hope you've all noticed that I am getting a liiiittle better at blogging more often - more than one in a week - WOW!

Today I went to have blood cultures done which means blood taken from the Hickman line so that they can try and grow bugs in the Pathology Lab. It has been decided that as the cultures will take about 72 hours to produce results, the chemo will be postponed until Tuesday of next week. This is good for me as I was planning to do some work for a friend of mine over the weekend and now I will feel OK to do that. Also, it means that at least one weekend this month I will feel OK and not grotty.

There are a couple of things I wanted to blog about but I forgot:
One is that I spoke to a lovely and very encouraging lady on the phone yesterday from Alliance & Leicester re: financial stuff and I gave her my blog address so if you are reading Angeline - I hope you enjoy it! (It was one of those phone calls to a call centre where you end up having a chat with the person, I do it all the time when I call my bank (First Direct - they really are lovely people too!)).

The second thing is that I have a friend (hello Sally!) who works at the House of Commons and she sent me the most amazing message - she said she had shown her boss my blog about how I wasn't entitled to any sick pay (well, not much) and that he had asked how I was getting on and that he was trying to change the system but it took time. Intrigued, I read on. It turns out her boss is only the Secretary of State for Health (The Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So for the record - congratulations on your (relatively) new post and thank you for trying to make the system better.... and can I have more sick leave please?? ;)

I haven't blogged much about how I have been feeling recently - there's so much else to write that I forget about that sometimes. Mostly I have been OK. I was upset at the prospect of going into hospital and having an infection during chemo but my immune system is holding up pretty well at the moment. I'm in no more danger than a normal person.
I'm starting to feel like I'm missing out now. I've had to cancel a couple of social events (sorry Nicky, Darren, James, Lindsay and Hazeley) and I really miss being carefree and being able to go out and have nothing more to worry about than whether or not I'll have a hangover the next day.
I'm not really worried about hangovers as I am pretty much totally off alcohol. I feel too headachy and sicky to drink even a glass of wine with dinner or an early evening gin & tonic (shocking, I know).
The one thing that has been surprising is that I get really out of breath easily now. I asked Dr Harries (oncology) about it last week. He said that it's perfectly normal and that I will lose all my cardiovascular fitness as I am not doing anything. Now, I'm not fit by anyone's standards but I have stamina and I can hike and climb up mountains! Now it wears me out to walk from the bus stop to the hospital. Dr H said yoga was the best thing to do as it is gentle but strengthens your core muscles.
I would love to go swimming (can't do that as potential for infection in the Hickman line is HUGE - just think of little kids and all the pee that is in a public swimming baths... ugh!), I wouldn't mind even going to the gym and just walking gently on a treadmill or using a cross-trainer but that's out as it's far too expensive. When the weather's better I can walk around the park etc but it's been too rainy and cold recently (OK that's just my excuse!). I have a couple of yoga DVDs so I'll probably try those, the problem is, of course, that I still have slightly restricted movement in my right arm.
Speaking of which, I was supposed to do these exercises for like, two years but I haven't done them at all. The movement is pretty good so I reckon it's OK. I think the exercises are for people who get scared of using their arm again and then don't try to use it. It was difficult at first because I couldn't reach properly but I am getting better at carrying shopping again and I can do housework (boo!) so it can't be that bad.

Right, this was supposed to be a short blog but I am rambling now.

Love to everyone - keep reading!

Liz
xxx