KiwiCat's updates

3 medications, 2 sunburnt cheeks, and 4 hours of insomnia.

Day 3 is proving rougher than day 2.

Yesterday I worked a little in the morning then needed a rest. I would then have been fine to go back to work for a bit but it was getting too close to my district nurse appointment so there seemed no point.

The 4th medication is a syringe and is to be taken 24 hours after chemo. I can self administer but for the first time the district nurse has to watch to see I’m doing it right, and then give me a secure disposal bin for the needles.

I had had a txt exchange and landed on 11am as my appointment time. I arrived 10 minutes early to discover that they now work out of the medical centre, no longer out of the old hospital where I saw them earlier in the year. Thst was okay, I had time, but of course the medical centre was busy.

The receptionist had a list of district nurse patients but my name wasn’t on it. She said she’d let them know. At 11:45 the nurse came out to see me and said I was booked at 11 but for Thursday, not Wednesday, and while she could squeeze me in she wasn’t able to do this particular procedure I needed to see her colleague who was currently out doing house calls. By now I needed another lie down so I rang and left a voice message and went home.

She rang back and booked for 3, back at the old hospital, though she insisted it could wait a few days. I rang the chemo nurses who agreed it would be okay to wait an extra day if I had to but they had put through the urgent referral because the oncologist had scripted it to be given on Wednesday.

I went at 3, and apart from another argument over the urgency, it got done in 5 minutes. I think the problem stems from the terminology. When I had surgery, that was Day 0. Same if you test positive for covid, the first day of symptoms is Day 0. But for chemo it appears that treatment day is Day 1. I reckon the referral said Day 2, i.e. the day after, but the district nurse was counting from 0. Anyway it got fone, and I still had the energy to do some quick grocery shopping on the way home.

Back to today, one of my medications is nicknamed ‘Tyrannosaurus Dex’ by the chemo nurses, and they recommend taking as early in the day as possible because it causes insomnia. Well I took it early yesterday but still lost 4 hours sleep overnight. No nausea in the night but it turned up while eating breakfast which I must do before taking Dex.

The sunburn is a side effect of the chemo itself. I’m not likely to get a tan but I’ll be rosy cheeked.

It feels like I’ve had a long day already and it’s only just coming up to 9am, but I’m going to try working for a bit, resting when I need to.

It seems treatment week is going to play havoc with my leave balance but oh well, health comes first.