Hi everyone, hope you have all had a lovely Christmas, mine had been a bit mixed. It was exactly how I wanted it but side effects of tablets have caused a few issues and I wouldn’t say ruined it but made it a bit more of a challenge than it could have been. The build up to Christmas was grand. I had everything in except a couple of things, one I knew won't arrive till the new year and the other should arrive a couple days before Christmas, but nothing to worry about either way.
There are so many things on tv that I have recorded that I don’t really have much time otherwise to watch films but I did take a day to not watch the normal tv stuff and just watch Christmas movies. Christmas Eve we always have our Christmas Festiviteves gathering, normally in Katy Daly’s but with lockdown and all that we just did it over Zoom, I was in hospital last year so missed out then but at least this year I was able to join in. I was gonna have a few drinks but as I take my chemo at 9pm I thought hmm maybe not, washing down chemo with booze probably isn’t a wise idea so maybe in a couple of weeks I’ll have a drink or two.
I did realise that my social skills are minimal to none, I’ve never been very good in groups but as I’ve not been in a group of people for over a year and a half I was very quiet being as tired as I was didn’t help either. But at the same time I like just sitting there listening to what’s going on around me, it was nice to see everyone or at least those that turned out for a while lol.
Christmas day I went round to my parents and dropped round the presents for everyone, I stayed longer than I had wanted to but it kept my mum happy and was home for midday, had a late breakfast and then things went downhill, my stomach started to play up and the tiredness levels shot up. That was me completely zoned out for a few days, even now still. All I could do was lie down and sleep, the tv was mostly on in the background while I dozed off but on a positive Christmas night I was able to watch the first innings of the Boxing Day test between Australia and India, not that it worked out too well for Australia but was good to watch.
The Big Bash is on in the mornings now as well so more cricket and still plenty of football on too, so with the two tvs one has the sport on and the other has things I’ve recorded. The WiFi around the house is as good as the cabled connection was so I’m pretty pleased with that and the reliability is a lot better than how it was, getting about 500Mbps. I’ll not complain about that.
I had duck in for Christmas but with the way my stomach was there would have been no point in doing it on Christmas Day so I waited for Boxing Day before doing it although that was a waste as well as my stomach was probably worse then. I had no idea what had caused it as I hadn’t had any lactose or anything with milk in it, but after a few days I’ve come to realise it will be to do with the chemo tablets and bunging me up so have gone onto some laxatives to try and help things. This will probably be the same with the tiredness but another week of them and then a week off and hopefully things will ease, the cramps have come back really bad too but there’s nothing much to be done about that. Last night though I seemed to get a good sleeping position where I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep without waking up with a cramp which I seemed to get every couple of hours at best.
I got a letter about my PET scan. It had been booked for the 7th of January where the hospital had planned for it to be after the 3rd cycle which would be a month later but I phoned up to make sure it was ok to go ahead with and they were happy to keep that appointment.
So pretty much since the last update I’ve slept and been a zombie, the cough has got a bit worse also since Christmas Day but probably a combination of the cold air and tablets. I am trying to get onto the treadmill a bit again but with the tiredness and the blood pressure tablets, I don’t want to take too many chances so a few short walks just to do something, better than nothing and avoiding going outside.
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and have a good new year's too.