Janet's blog

 Missing the Devon trip may have been a  blessing in disguise - we'd probably have been travelling back on one of those very hot days. And there have been some compensatory amusements associated with staying in London: I saw two friends on the radioactive day during the longeurs necessitated by periodic blood sampling and the big kids came over for lunch on Sunday, coupled with a  search for fabric scraps for patchwork and some summer apple tree pruning. Both garden and allotment have been crying out for water for ages it seems. I manage to get to the allotment most days at least for a short while but watering the essentials seems to be all there is time for. Meanwhile the bindweed is running amok with flowers all over the shop and smirking at me. But I've been picking onions, ripe tomatoes, figs, french beans, some blueberries (although some are rather dried up), one courgette and lots of lettuce (mostly from neighbour who has overwhelming crop of really nice variety). I...

 Gemcitabine only day. Have done three days of filgrastim injections since 30 June, gave a blood sample  a couple of hours ago and assume I'm Ok for treatment neutrophil-wise as I'm cannulated and pre-medicated. Ah - neutrophils are 5.15 normal Hb 117 normal One of my Ladies of Leisure Zoom group once remarked that having cancer was like a full-time job. It has felt like it this last week. I've spent several hours in three sessions chasing stoma supplies which I was led to believe would follow a well-oiled path every time I ordered. Ok, so I've only done two orders as yet, but they've both required close monitoring by me and the Coloplast people. Difficult to really be sure but I think it's a failure to approve the prescription at the GP's which causes it to founder.  Then a text reminder to an appointment I didn't know about appeared on the same day as the hard copy invite letter  to spend the best part of a day in UCLH's Nuclear Medicine department...

 If you care to count, you'll find this is a delayed chemo day. Should have been three weeks or thereabouts, allowing some shimmying for bank holidays etc. At the three-week stage, however, neutrophils were very low so I was excused for a week to allow filgrastim injections to boost production again to prevent some horrible infection from getting a hold.  Getting the injections was a bit of a palaver - bloods hadn't been analysed when I saw a doctor in clinic, and I was toiling away on the allotment in the late afternoon when he rang me to say I needed to start the filgrastim asap and could someone collect them from the hospital before pharmacy closed. (This doctor was the first person who seemed to think that I ought to have a fever and I had to reassure him that I really didn't.)  I explained that we'd already done one drive in on a tube strike day and we could really do without another, but he was adamant, and arranging it for a local pharmacy would mean too much del...