Waiting for chemo (as opposed to Godot)

I’m panicking about getting everything done before I go on leave, so what do I decide to do? Blog. Because that makes sense…

Anyway, it will all get done because that’s what I do. I get things done but it’s going to be a hard couple of days and I may need to buy some emergency chocolate to have on stand-by.

Yesterday was pretty harsh. Guy’s have a new chemo unit on the 10th floor. Fantastic views over the city, but somehow it felt a little more impersonal because it was bigger and much busier. But I’m sure it’s much more efficient getting lot’s of people in for their treatment at the same time, because the thing with chemo is that once you have the drip in, you just sit there. A couple of people are very ill and so need more attention but really, most people just sat back and read or snoozed – a very undemanding bunch.

We spent time talking to a woman who has terminal cancer and it tore my heart out. She was supposed to die last September but sheer bloody mindedness means she’s still fighting. She’s going to do a college course because she’s bored waiting to die. Afterwards I felt claustrophobic and angry and so I went for a long walk and pulled myself together.

They gave my mum massive doses of herceptin and chemo. Normally herceptin takes about half an hour, yesterday it took an hour and a half, and I think chemo is about an hour but it took two hours. We were going out of our minds by the end of it. Sometimes I watched the bags drip whatever it was (different things for different cancers) through the long tubes and into the back of people’s hands and each time I said, that’s it, that’s the drop that will make the difference; that will turn the tide. That’s the one right there. I hope I was right.

I had a pizza and a cry when I got home and then we sorted out laundry and packed our bags for Scotland. I didn’t sleep very well last night and at 4:16 this morning I was wide awake listening to the racket the birds were making…