Welcome to my diary page. I'm hesitating to call it a blog, as I'm only planning on sticking particular information into it and not generally linking to this page either.
I guess that since you're here, I have either given you this link (or someone I know has passed it on to you), or Google has become very smart recently. It's hard to tell these days ;)
Entries should in principle be listed in reverse chronological order. If anything has gone weird with it, please let me know. There could well be a bug I've put in the Python code that needs fixing.
Thanks for dropping by, and happy reading!
On the 9th of August, 2006, I was diagnosed with stage II(S)B mixed cellularity Hodgkin's lymphoma. This is a rare malignancy of lymph tissue (in plain English, a type of blood cancer) which affects around about 1,000 people a year in the UK. The median age for developing Hodgkin's lymphoma is 28. There are no real causes for this illness (though there is some speculation that having a weakened immune system may increase the risk), so it isn't something you can avoid with your five fruit and veg a day ;^).
The mixed celluarity edition of this thing is one of the less common forms, accounting for around twenty or thirty per cent of Hodgkin's lymphomas. This makes me about 1 of the 200 people this year who will get it.
In my case, it is localised entirely below the diaphragm (stage II) with some spleen "involvement" (S). The 'B' means I have the so-called B symptoms. I lost my appetite and weight over the previous year (which I ignored); I'm around 69kg now (that's about 10 stone, 12 pounds, or if you're in the USA, 152 pounds) for about 185cm (6 feet 1 inch). About a year ago, I weighed around 84kg (~13 stone; ~182 pounds).
About three months prior to the diagnosis, I started getting fatigue, whose severity increased up until the official diagnosis. Another bonus was "drenching night sweats"; I put this down to the hot weather, and the fatigue down to work.
It wasn't until I found a small lump by my hip that I went to see my GP. This grew rapidly and eventually I had an inguinal open lymph node biopsy (which means a big slice and they steal some meat for tests). At least I have a cool scar.
Apologies for being a part-timer here. I've been away with work and had a couple of days off.
I finished the radiotherapy a couple of weeks ago and things are pretty much back to normal. I guess it will take a while before everything is ``how it was'' but that's fine :)
I have a follow-up appointment on the 11th of June with the doctors; no scans or anything have been scheduled yet, so I'm not entirely sure what will happen next. Maybe a letter will drop through my door with a scan in the meantime (though that would be unlikely) so my best guess is that around six weeks after the appointment will be a scan.
As far as I can tell, that's pretty much all I can report for now.
I'm now halfway through the scheduled radiotherapy, and it isn't too bad. I tend to feel a bit more tired, but I've been busier at work, so that probably accounts for some of that. I've been sick a couple of times, but I think that was just a spot of food poisoning =( ... still, going well, I feel.
The radiotherapy itself, after the initial sessions where they lined me up and tattooed me, doesn't take too long. They're usually on time and only last for around quarter of an hour or so. I get drawn on by radiographers with biros or felt tips (I prefer the latter o_O - biros tickle), lined up with lasers. Then they jack you up pretty much to the ceiling and leg it out of the room, casting obstacles in their wake presumably to prevent my escape. Well, I say ``obstacles''; I probably mean ``safety barrier'', but that's much less dramatic. Where's your sense of adventure?
I can hear clicking and whirring from the linear accelerator as it moves into place, then when they bombard me with megavoltage X-rays, a rather mincy buzzer sounds. Not even any sirens, flashing lights or warning announcers.
I don't even glow afterwards. Very understated ;(
Anyway, it is much more pleasant than chemotherapy (more pleasant? less unpleasant is probably more precise) and doesn't take anywhere near as long. Hurrah.
I now have the schedule for radiotherapy.
There are a couple of scans and preparatory bits that need doing, and they'll happen at the end of March, and will probably take a couple of hours each.
During April, I have my fifteen sessions of radiotherapy. In principle, these will be quite short and are generally first thing in the morning, so I can carry on working. There may well be some delays along the way though, so perhaps I get to take the whole morning off work ;^)
Hopefully I should be all done with this by the last week of April (hurrah). I presume there will be some sort of follow-up scan to see how we've done with it.
I've received the results from the PET/CT scan I had two or three weeks ago. The good news is that my spleen is back to normal with no sign of the bad stuff around there. The bad news is that it is still hanging out in my inguinal lymph nodes.
I saw the consultant radiologist who gave me a cursory examination and asked some questions. He's decided that I'll need fifteen radiotherapy treatments over the course of about three weeks. The date is to be decided.
My main concern is scattering of the radiation, given the proximity of the cancer to various bits and pieces. I figure if the scatter dose doesn't exceed 700mGy then I'll be OK. Something tells me this won't be the case though >.<
Side note: it is common for the NHS to increase the dose to the site more so than other European countries. I think this has something to do with easing the general burden on it. I can expect 2500mGy to the site per session, whereas elsewhere it might only be 1700mGy. Oh well. Should have got that private insurance :)
Just a quick update: the lymphoma clinic has been rescheduled as the PET/CT results won't be ready in time.
I'll be meeting with the consultants on the 19th of February.
Interesting experience.
The PET/CT scanner was a mobile affair at the local branch of BUPA (very posh). First of all, you get a quick blood test and then some radioactive glucose injected via a cannula. It is a bit odd as the rooms have thick walls and sliding doors, and honking great big radiation monitoring systems.
After the injection, you're left alone and told to lie down for about half an hour. No exercising or anything like that, as they don't want the radioactive sugar to end up in the muscles.
When the time comes for the scan, you're led through from one room to another and lie down on a very long table, grabbing on to a strap above your head. You have to stay completely still for however long it takes them (probably about half or three-quarters of an hour in my case). Which is fine, so long as your fingertips don't go to sleep. Which mine did. Several times.
Very tricky to get them to wake up without actually moving.
The table moves through the scanner (which is disappointingly not nearly claustrophobic enough) a couple of times, then takes little `nibbles' back, moving a few inches and then a few minutes of "scanning without moving". This continues until the table has wriggled out of the other side, then they release you.
Advice they give you: don't get within an arm's length of other people for twenty-four hours. :O
If anyone has one of these scans, can you smuggle in a spider and let me know if you turn into a superhero?
Just a quick note: my PET/CT scan has been scheduled for this Friday, with a follow-up meeting with the lymphoma team on the Monday.
Apparently I'm supposed to stay away from people who are pregnant or small for twenty-four hours as I'll be ``slightly radioactive'' and this ``would be of no benefit to them''...
:O
At last: the final round. Or so I hope. Today was treatment 6B --- the end of my planned course of ABVD. The administration itself went without incident; the usual vein pain made itself known. The waiting time today was the shortest I have yet encountered and I was out of the clinic not too long after lunchtime. Didn't even get to finish my book.
After speaking with the consultant, I should wait for a letter to come through the post with the information about the required PET/CT scan, which hopefully (after discussion with the lymphoma team) should reveal everything is OK. I've been told that it is quite common to have some residual ``masses'', particularly with the size of the lumps that I had, but the PET component should reveal whether or not they are benign.
So that's it then. I'll keep putting up information here when I get it. A big thank-you to everyone who has provided support for me through this, and I really should get a box of choccies for the nice chemotherapy nurses too :)
Left arm this time --- not the right one as this is still reeling from the tenth chemotherapy :)
Everything went pretty smoothly. The consultant is going to arrange the PET/CT scan next time so we can check for any residual nasties. He says that it is unlikely that I'll need any radiation to go with it (hurrah) but we wait and see for these ones. Anything that shows up will get analysed by the hospital's team of expert bods to see if it is ``bad'' stuff (boo) or just `left overs' which will gradually get washed away naturally (yay).
So this is the second-to-last chemotherapy session. That means I only need to track down one more vein and I'm done --- hopefully for good :)
This time, mercifully, the dacarbazine didn't hurt too much going through and we managed to get through the whole bag in an hour, which also meant less saline so I wasn't sitting around in considerable discomfort waiting for the loo. Always a bonus, I find :D
Had a great Christmas. It was nice to meet up with family and friends from home home and catch up. Father Christmas clearly decided I had been a good boy this year so I got some lovely presents (thanks to all, by the way!*). Here's to 2007!
* this does not constitute a thank-you letter. One will be sent in due course :)
This one didn't go so smoothly. When I was cannulated, I didn't spot that the vein they were going into was adjacent to the one they used the previous week. As such, the initial saline and ``ABV'' part went OK, but as soon as they started with the dacarbazine it was pretty excruciating. I could feel the inside of my vein sloughing off. Eww :|
As a consequence they needed to turn the rate right down to a very slow drip, so the dacarbazine took around three hours or so to be administered. They couldn't really offer me anything for the pain either, which got worse after an hour as the dacarbazine denatured.
I wasn't feeling tip-top after this session, as you can probably imagine :) the veins in my right arm went nuts over the next couple of days; my arm was coverd in rashes and they all went a very angry red colour. I think I'll probably be sporting a couple of small scars where it ``burned'' up to the surface of the arm. At least that looks pretty cool ;^)
Three-quarters of the way through now. Hooray!
Actually, this time I was seen in remarkably quick time. I showed up and saw the consultant, who suggested that I ``went and got a coffee or something'' as they would be at least an hour with preparing the drugs, so I did. I returned half an hour later and had barely sat down when the chemo nurse called me in :O --- she even said that they had been wondering where I had been as they'd been calling me for ages.
Amazing stuff. I'm going to wander off more frequently if it induces this level of service :)
I have a dental appointment on Wednesday (i.e., the week after the chemo) so I will need to inform my dentist that if he's going to do anything that might draw blood, to, er, not do that. I say ``he''; my dentist might be female, but in my experience the female dentists are competent and the male ones are a bit, well, hit-and-miss. Like missing the problem with my wisdom teeth on ten consecutive occasions. And charging me fifteen quid for the privilege of missing the problem. Rubbish.
Maybe I should find a female mechanic to fix that weird orange light thing on my car.
Despite the somewhat rapid chemotherapy session this time, I did manage to gobble through another book. I was concerned that I might not have any available veins for the treatment, but I had a new nurse who managed to track down a magic bonus vein, which worked splendidly. In the right arm, so there's been some respite for Mr. Left Arm, who has taken a right old panning over the last couple of months. Maybe I should spend any free time hunting for new veins which might be good and marking them up with a biro. Some sort of ranking system might help. I could pen in a number depending on how great I think they are (but if I change my mind that would require a whole lot of scrubbing). Perhaps I should just tick great ones, and cross bad ones. I can always turn a tick into a cross, just like my teachers did at school when they wanted to be mean.
Only three more to go. One just before Christmas, then a couple in January. Nearly there :)
Now we're two-thirds of the way through. Not bad going. My veins are holding out to some extent but I'm a little concerned that I'll have run out towards the end. I count two good ones left, and four sessions. Eep.
My arms are giving me more grief. The right arm is flaring up with a fair amount of pain just when I thought I had seen the back of all that; it has been two months since any chemicals went into it, but the left one is starting to bite. I tend to get a nice blend of chronic and acute pain, which waxes and wanes as it sees fit. The two arms aren't working together though. One will be fine, then turn on the aches, then the other one will join in. There's no pattern to it. Hardy is one arm and Laurel is the other. Not sure which though. The left one gibbers a bit more at the moment, so that one can be Stan.
I'm sort of settling into this routine now; turning up, seeing the doc, waiting around, having a vein hunt, feeling the cannula working its way into my vein and then the weirdness of the cold saline. I've noticed that I can almost pinpoint the moment my brain melts. All I need to do is start the crossword in the newspaper, or a sudoku, or similar, and there is a definite moment where I cease to be able to solve either. Quite remarkable :O
Apologies for not updating my novel-reading status. I've only just remembered. I'm chewing my way through one per session with time to spare. This rule has only been broken once - when I actually managed to get started in the morning and was done nice and quickly.
The aches in my veins are generally under control, waxing and waning as they see fit. My only real concern is that I might run out of `good' ones before the treatment is completed.
Book review: Colin Dexter's Morse is at least as grouchy in the books as on screen. He might drink even more ale.
The sixth round of chemo went off OK generally. The dacarbazine drip was set too low, and took a while to get done. Not a big problem, but it took a couple of hours longer than normal. I guess I prefer that to it going through too quickly and ruining my vein.
What did disappoint me though was the service provided by the general hospital canteen, which is some privately run affair. Thanks Tony. I always get a hankering for something acidic after the chemotherapy, like salt and vinegar crisps. This is probably something to do with the steroid I get beforehand. I wandered down to the canteen with my brain like a bag of candy floss (standard side effect I think) and pick up a bottle of orange-flavoured drink-like substance (I did want an actual bottle of `orange juice', but this wasn't amongst the selection.
When I get to the counter to pay, the demand was one pound and four pence. I needed the pound coin for the parking meter, so I opted to pay with a two pound coin, with a five pence piece added into the mix to make things easy --- you know how these tills are for change :) I hand over my two pound five and receive back just one pence in change.
I point out to the cashier woman that I was expecting a little more in change, but she reckoned I only handed over a pound and five. My chemo-addled brain couldn't recall for sure that I had paid up as I recall. To reinforce her solid argument of `I reckon you only gave me a quid, innit', she pointed to the till receipt which said I had given her a pound and five. I didn't want to point out that she had actually typed that in.
Computer says no. Pft.
When I got back to the car I went through all the things I bought that day and had receipts for (hard work, considering the state of my brain) and realised that I had, in fact, been royally fleeced by this nasty profiteering creature. Nice work. Maybe she's trained to take advantage of this. ``There's the chemo patient; rob them!''.
I bet she hops when she sees people with one leg and dances at the disabled too.
I hope that pigeons decide to fly into your windows instead of mine, hopefully at three o'clock in the morning and give you a bit of a fright. That should balance the karma. Nasty woman.
Ouch!
My vein pain is back with a vengeance. My entire right arm and shoulder feel like they are being gnawed upon by an angry badger with a headache, a wife nagging him to take out the rubbish and a stepson that robs your credit cards when you're not looking.
The general nausea was out in force this weekend. By Sunday it was down to a couple of hours on and off, but the Saturday afternoon and evening were fairly vicious. It's a shame there's nothing to fix this (besides beer, which at least takes one's mind off the whole affair).
Yesterday's chemotherapy went without any major issues, I guess. They've run out of veins to use on my right arm, so after a couple of (painful) attempts that was abandoned and now I'm onto my second arm. The left one. I guess this I'm a little concerned about this, because after this arm (which should get me through to chemo 4B) I'll have run out. Yikes. Maybe the right arm will be better then, though the nurses reckoned it would take around three months for the veins to recover. Meh.
I've started getting more of these sensory cues to give me nausea, though I've identified a couple now. One is the smell of `warm electrics'; there is a small electric blanket that is kept over my arm during the chemotherapy to help the veins. It smells a bit of burning electrical stuff (you know what I mean) but now if I get a whiff of that out of the hospital I feel all weird.
I think there's a diesel generator somewhere near the treatment room too, as now if I smell diesel fumes (or rather diesel exhaust fumes) I `get bokey', so to speak.
I've got another few waves of Ondansetron, the herioc Autobot of the chemical world. It does seem to work much better than the domperidone, but then I believe it is more expensive too. I'm glad of the NHS --- apparently a box of ten costs around $1000 in the USA.
My brain is getting mushier immediately after chemotherapy too. I find it particularly difficult to concentrate on anything. In fact, doing work or answering questions or just trying to remember where I parked the car is comparable to being sloshed and trying very hard to `convinsh a polisheman that I'm fine, occifer and jusht on my way straight home right now, yes'. I'll put the traffic cone down and return the shopping trolley to the proper place.
Haven't written anything for quite some time. Sorry about that.
Anyway, my fourth round of chemotherapy (2B) was last Wednesday. The day before that I had my now-routine blood test. The nurse who took the blood was very pleasant and chatty, but unfortunately her people skills didn't translate particularly well into needle adeptness. She twisted the needle to `get more' once it was in. Ouch! Not to worry. I'm still sporting the almighty bruise from that one.
My blood counts are still low (boo) but not too low for chemotherapy (hurrah) and apparently they're better than before the previous chemotherapy (yippee). The consultant reckons that all the `feelable' lumps have now gone. That's not to say that there's no more Reed-Sternberg owl cells kicking around, but just that I'm on track. A proper scan using some sort of antimatter emitter will probably be scheduled at some point, probably post-6B, to get the real results. There'll probably be another CT scan too.
I've noticed I'm getting some weird psychological effects from this chemotherapy. I'm starting to subconsciously associate certain things with nausea. I felt sick when I had the blood test (needles = chemotherapy). Today in the car I felt sick when I could smell something from the outside which was a bit like the treatment room (rubbery toast-ish, whatever that might mean to you). Putting my right arm on something cold makes me feel sick (temperature of saline solution is less than body temperature = chemotherapy). Yuck.
Had another `trainee' nurse issue the chemotherapy this time around; she's done it on different wards before but this was a new one. She was supervised and pretty good at it. I got cannulated round the back of my arm this time --- I hope that my right arm can make it at least half-way through.
Took a while, this treatment, but I was out of the hospital at around half three this time, so not too bad. The nausea is certainly getting worse and starting to become disabling (to some extent) earlier. Previously it was just Saturday that was an `off' day, but that now seems to have spilled across onto Fridays and Sundays. The ondansetron anti-sickness tablets seem to help.
I still think that sounds like a transformer though... :)
A big wait at the hospital yesterday. I was in again for 8:30am, a little before the appointment with the consultant, so I got a coffee and started on today's novel.
My regular consultant was away (off sick? holiday?) so I had a different one. This guy doesn't speak so quickly and I mentioned that I didn't think the existing anti-emetics were working so well. He wrote me out a prescription for some other ones (which thankfully seem to be better, but we'll need to wait until next week to find out the upshot of this).
He seems to think that if I have adequate insurance, I should be able to go to CERN if I want next week. I got a quick prod and he reckons that the new lumps (which have subsided somewhat) aren't anything to be concerned about and probably just the result of an immune response. This is pretty much what I figured, but still, I've got to watch out for infections.
I needed to wait until half past two in the afternoon to start the chemotherapy. When I did finally get in there (last one in the waiting room, with one of the earlier appointments --- I guess the pharmacy was a bit on the busy side) there was a nurse I hadn't seen before, apparently coming down for some `practice' [eek!] from inpatient chemotherapy. She had a look at my right arm (where the two previous stabbings took place) and decided to have a dig at the left.
As she put the needle in, I felt it keep on going and my vein `popped' over the bone. Ouch. The nurse got all nervous then and got another one over. Don't blame her really.
Still more dacarbazine burning, though I got the heat pad again this time. I don't believe I'll ever get used to this.
The weird thing is, the vein post-chemo stays cold for hours afterwards. It's a bit freaky really.
It would seem that last night a whole new lump appeared around the site of my inguinal open lymph biopsy. It's about an inch across by half an inch high. This one I don't think is cause for concern, as it hurts; it's rather tender to the touch.
I've also picked up quite a severe arm-ache. If I touch my arm (the arm where the chemotherapy drugs went in) it feels like it is bruised on the inside. I have spoken to the hospital about both of these and they don't think it is anything to be concerned about, but if my temperature goes about 38 degrees centigrade to give them a call.
Finally, I don't think those anti-sickness pills are doing the trick any more. I spent a large chunk of Friday clutching a grey bucket to no avail. I stopped taking them that night and felt generally unwell across the weekend (but not any differently to Wednesday through to Friday). I was a big grouch both days. I seem to be picking up again now, much as I did the Monday after the first chemotherapy session. I think I can see a pattern emerging.
I got dropped off at the hospital at about half past eight this morning. My appointment wasn't for an hour or so, so I grabbed a coffee and started on a novel.
I saw my consultant again prior to the chemotherapy. Today he had a student doctor in, and he was quizzing her on Hodgkin's lymphoma. She wasn't so good at answering his questions. On the plus side (I think) I mentally answered them all correctly. :o
Apparently my hitherto enlarged spleen is back down to the normal size, and the Seriously Big Lump has taken a jolly good beating too. Good. The consultant reckons that the shockingly bad fever from the first chemo night was that lot getting battered.
Waiting around for chemotherapy took the rest of the morning; I finally got in there at about 1pm. A further uneventful two hours (apart from the obligatory vein pain, particularly when a bag of saline gave out) saw that novel finished off too.
After hanging around in the oncology department to get my blood taken for a couple of hours, I'm told (when I finally get in there) that I should have really been to get this done at the pathology department. The nurse grudgingly took the blood when I protested that this was the second place already where I had tried to get this done.
This is a bit of a departure from the consultant who just said to get it done anywhere. I guess I'll know next time :o
So, today my 'mild hangover' symptoms appear to be waning. This I take to be a good sign. I did feel a touch nauseous earlier in the afternoon, but this has passed now.
Last week, I decided I would beat the drugs to the punch. Regardless of the outcome in terms of alopecia, I reckon I can give myself an advantage by getting shorn.
I'm now sporting a number 3, and fortunately it has made me look dangerous as opposed to middle-aged.
I know it wasn't recommended until Sunday, but today I felt like I could go without the anti-emetics I'd been prescribed for the chemotherapy side effects. Since I didn't really have anything planned today except maybe lazing around in bed and watching the telly, I could arm myself with a bucket and hope for the best.
It would appear to have worked. I feel like I have a persistent low-grade hangover though, but I've not been feeling too great anyway, so not really a big deal :)
OK, so my temperature gradually recovered throughout the day at work. Now I need to take my temperature a couple of times a day. Since I'm generally immunosuppressed and taking antiemetics, pretty much the only sign that something's wrong is if my temperature goes up. If it hits 38 centigrade, I need to call a special number at the hospital. 38 degrees is nothing in the 'regular' scheme of things, but apparently it can spiral out of control during chemotherapy and I would be toast before I knew it if I left it until the usual 39 or so. Oh well.
Today was the first day of ABVD chemotherapy, but before that could start there was the pending issue of the bone marrow aspiration and biopsy.
I've had a needle impale my kneecap, used my chin as a brake coming off a mountain bike at 40mph and trapped my thumb in a car door whilst the car was moving. Nothing could have prepared me for the succinct pain that is a bone marrow aspiration.
The procedure itself is relatively straightforward as far as I can work out. The person who is performing the procedure will do a bit of drilling, hacking and smashing to work a needle into the back of the hips, whilst a nurse will provide "gas and air" (this is the same stuff as they give to pregnant ladies). A local anaesthetic is administered, and everything is ready to go.
The drilling, hacking and smashing component didn't hurt at all. It was uncomfortable, to be sure, but not painful. When the needle goes in, this doesn't hurt; again, one is aware of the needle but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't even hurt when the needle finally pops through the bone into the juicy goodness. It hurts when they actually draw the stuff out.
And what an experience - to the engineers out there, allow me to create a more abstract analogy. Regular pain is a bit like a sawtooth wave; it hits hard for an instant, then ebbs away quite rapidly. It still hurts, but the worst is always over.
This particular kind of pain is more like a square wave. The pain comes along in an almighty fashion, and remains constant for ten or fifteen seconds. The closest I can describe it to anyone who hasn't had this is it is akin to having one's legs sucked out through the needle via a woodchipper. I was surprised at the legs hurting, given the location of the needle. I guess that when they suck out the bone marrow, they create a vacuum or some sort of general space which needs to be filled. Maybe the pain is a load of stuff getting sucked in from somewhere else. Through the bone.
The gas and air helps...
After the procedure, I hung around for twenty minutes or so to allow everything to 'set' and then it was off to get some chemotherapy. I met briefly with my consultant, who gave me a prescription for domperidone, a powerful antiemetic (though I have been reliably informed by a doctor friend that there is a "better" one).
After waiting around for an hour or so whilst they prepared the drugs, I went into the chemotherapy room. This consists of around ten rather comfortable armchairs, in which one is sat whilst they administer the chemotherapy drugs.
First, I got five antiemetic tablets and a cannula, which is a needle a couple of inches long with an attachment on the end. This gets inserted into the back of the arm near the wrist and taped down. All over the little hairs usually associated with the backs of arms. After the cannula is in to the nurse's satisfaction, in goes the plumbing. A couple of bags of saline are wired in to the back of a tap arrangement, which has a spare inbound port for chemotherapy drugs. They start the saline flowing, then three of the four drugs are injected further up the saline line. Each one takes between ten and twenty minutes to administer. The final one goes in via the tap arrangement and takes about an hour and a half.
The first drug I got was vinblastine (ABVD). This guy is found in the Madagascar periwinkle plant, along with a bunch of other vinca alkaloids (these are also used in chemotherapy, but just not mine, e.g. vincristine). Vinblastine reduces the number of immature white blood cells in the body. And makes you lose hair.
The second one was doxorubicin (or adriamycine; ABVD), a demonic red-hued nasty. This one binds directly to DNA and prevents cell replication. It does this by waiting for the original DNA to unravel, then it stabilises it, stopping it from finishing off the replication bit. Clever. This isn't without side effects though. Apart from the expected alopecia, dilated cardiomyopathy is on the cards.
Bleomycin (ABVD) contains nitrogen and sulphur in addition to the standard issue carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. This bad boy causes DNA strands to break. As an added bonus, pulmonary fibrosis and fevers abound. Oh yeah, and hair loss.
The final one, dacarbazine (ABVD) is a friendly alkylating agent, which feels like liquid fire as it goes into the veins. This one is good for birth defects and possible sterility, along with the usual nausea. Being cytotoxic, it causes trouble with cell growth, hopefully stopping the cancer cells from doing their thing. The cheeky monkeys.
Aside from being incredibly boring (and rather painful when they remove the tape from the hairy arm; ouch :O), the chemotherapy, certainly when coupled with the bone marrow shenanigans, left me feeling like a petting zoo that had been involved in a train accident. I went home and snoozed off a couple of hours.
Then --- surprise! Bleomycin fevers. My temperature hit 38.5 centigrade at about five o'clock. I was warned this might happen, so take a couple of paracetamol and this will sort it right out.
Oh yes.
An hour later the temperature is down to 37.9. Good. By the time I turned in for the night, it was down to 35.5 centigrade. Hypothermia? Who cares. I had the worst night's sleep yet that night. Went through six pillows before midnight and had to give up, kipping on the sofa. I hope this is just the drugs doing their thing.
My temperature was up to 35.6 when I got up in the morning. Progress, I'm sure you'll agree...
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