What now?

Today I reached a couple of milestones.  I walked to Urban Bites, my resident cafe, which is about three blocks from my house.  It only took 8 minutes, but it's the first time I've been able to reach it since I left the hospital last week. I must have looked a sorry sight, because the waitress, who was new to me, shouted me the coffee. That was nice of her, but boy, did I look that pathetic?

I had a latte, hoping that all that the milk would modify the acidity of the brew. This was my first coffee in weeks, if not months. It tasted fabulous and also cleared the mush from my head. On the way home, I stopped at a manchester shop to buy a mattress protector I've been meaning to buy since I moved. Altogether, I walked 25 minutes! Another milestone.

So, what now, you may ask. Well, yesterday I went to see the Professor. I had a hard time walking and he was really wonderful and didn't mind my asking to lean on his arm while we walked into his office from the waiting room. That's why I love this guy. He may be the head honcho, but he is human - a mensch. He listens and let's me complain when I need to, and in-between he plies me with dreadful jokes that make me laugh. And most of all, he can do a diagnosis the old fashioned way and uses tests to confirm or deny his diagnosis. Just like my Dad did. He told me from the beginning that he suspected exactly what the tests indicated I have.

Yesterday, Prof said I was improving: my blood picture, that is. This means we can continue with the chemo. At my request he changed the class of hormone pills I have to take (the previous ones work through the adrenals and I have enough problems with those, thank you very much). These are called Exemestane. I started taking them yesterday. I have learned one thing. Don't look up any drugs on the internet until you have symptoms that may be side-effects, so I am not giving the URL at this time.

For some reason I had the impression that we were restarting the chemo. This is not so. Evidently, the first one that laid me low was number one and I will have to restart the the Cyclophosphamide pills again on 22 May.

The second cycle will start on 4th June, when they will give me an IV 'bolus' of 5FU and Methotrexate. That's what made me so ill the last time. However, this time my cousin Anna will come up from Melbourne to be with me, in case I have a bad reaction again. I am fervently hoping that I won't.

Concurrent to this 'bolus', I will take the Cyclophosphamide for 14 days, after which I will have a week off from everything, except the hormone pills. And so it will continue, in three week cycles, until Prof is satisfied that the cancer cells are dead and the ascites is gone. Long live the healthy cells!