Pain clinics and cottage industries

I’m excited. I’m off to hospital to the pain clinic where for the first time in ten years, I might be able to have my knee pain managed in an effective way! That’s exciting. I’m going to ask that they refer me for complementary pain care as well. Acupuncture or some such. I’m not leaving until they help me! Ok, so it’s not exciting in an ‘ohhh look I’ve found five crumpled tenners in an old pair of jeans way’ it’s more of a hopeful excitement. There’s less squealing and jumping around for a start... but then my jumping about days are generally behind me anyway. But I need to believe that they can help me otherwise what’s the point?

We sold 12 eggs yesterday and made £4. What we’re hoping is that we make enough to significantly contribute to food and straw...or towards buying a farm in Cornwall. Whichever is cheapest...

Now, what’s £4 from half a million?!

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…

Update...

Last week we had two appointments at the hospital; one on Thursday and one on Friday. Mum had a CAT scan on Friday and should be having a bone scan in the next couple of days. Meeting with her consultant on the Thursday was really helpful, she is a very knowledgeable and calm woman and we both came away feeling that we were in very safe hands. In fact, with the exception of mum’s first cancer nurse who moved on due to promotion, most of the team have been with her from day one and most have done an excellent job. Now we just wait and see...