Back to the old familiar routine

After a very successful overall experience with my first course of chemotherapy in that it prolonged my quality of life already past what many may have hoped. I managed to have such an amazing trip home and adventure to visit sox many of you lovely people for perhaps the last time and it was amazing, rewarding and appreciated. 

Returning home to New Zealand has been a bit of a whirlwind as the cancer has taken a foothold again which has caused me to spend some time in hospital as well as resulting in a night in a hospice for which I was neither physically nor emotionally prepared as it all seemed quite sudden to move to a place I certainly would have associated with death and dying more than health care. No doubt I am mistaken but this was nonetheless my perception at the time leaving me feeling somewhat thrown. 

I found myself experiencing quite lucid dreams that led to some confusion as to how capable I was at handling day to day activities. 

This may sound unusual, but after a stint in hospital where much of your thinking us done for you as regards day to day activities, having there suddenly be less focus on this can be jarring. Hence I was very happy to get home to house and family and normality due to the Herculean efforts of the hospice and community Nurse teams who through syringe drivers, which are changed at home daily have overall managed all my pain and allowed me to be safe and sound in my own home. It has also been good to get to independent activities we all take for granted such as driving, and knowing and believing yourself capable of these tasks as nothing rally has changed. 

There is so much support out there for people in my position so I cannot complain. Even from home I see at least one nurse every day if not several through the day all of whom work locally making everything easy for me in Newtown once more. 

So I am back to chemo. The hope is that I respond well to this regime and reclaim some further good times ahead. It is as yup in the air as it was before though we only hope my reaction to it is as positive as before and I have more time to life, love and enjoy life. 

Treading Water

Christ I'm looking forward to food. What began as a nagging discomfort in Dublin I originally - and quite wrongly, it seems - attributed to a sudden onslaught of "proximity to Grogan's following an extended period of Groganslessness" and developed into frequent but treatable pain throughout the rest of my trip and escalated on my return to unbearable pain and two extended stays in hospital has my here. 

Right now I have a 75microgram fentanyl patch on my skin and treat breakthrough pain with 60mg doses of oral morphine (severadol) around twice to five times a day to deal with the pain alone. I am about to head I for a combined ERCP (to view, clear and potentially replace the metal stent in my common bile duct) and EUS, which is a repeat of the previous EUS whose sole purpose is to treat pain by injecting alcohol into the nerves around my pancreas currently causing me all this pain. 

I'm also barely able to eat, reducing my intake to little and often that has become three tiny meals a day - resulting in some pretty severe weight loss, making me look somewhat gaunt - at least one of which I am throwing back up on a daily basis. I am also so low on energy that I have been bed ridden and fast asleep most of the last fortnight. 

It hit me this morning when I came into hospital and Zoe said "we've been surviving rather than living the last month or so, eh?". We sure have. I want so much for this procedure today to resolve this and let me get back to enjoying life again before I begin chemotherapy again inevitably in a few weeks.