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The last few days have been mainly R&R. In hindsight I realize I’ve really overdone it recently. I finished 6 months of brutal treatment and felt like superman. Acting like superman, so to speak, was not the best thing to do. My body eventually told me so.
After a few days of rest I’m feeling quite a bit better but not as good as I’d like. It’s all a learning experience. I must confess my mind did drift to alternate explanations for my condition. I didn’t like it.
There is a common condition called cancer fatigue. What I have been feeling seems to fit the description. It’s common and comes with a lot of guidelines. I’m following them.
This morning I had my final MRI. 90 minutes in the machine is a long time but they had a lot to scan. It’s now the evening and there’s been no calls from the hospital. That, if I may use a macabre expression, puts a nail in the coffin of my worst fears. Next Tuesday we see my senior consultant here and get to learn the full results.
More good news in that the PAs of the various Profs are now chatting about my medical records. Hopefully this will progress without complication. We also managed to pick up a digital copy of my first MRI from last June – the one that triggered my emergency input into the Australian hospital system. They all came on a DVD complete with software to view them. It’s a strange thing seeing the inside of your own head.
Huge news. We are now connected to Prof Linch in the UK who is the top man for my type of lymphoma in the country. We even have an appointment to see him in April and are on our way to get a 3 month MRI booked. If things go pear shaped between now and then we have the direct line of contact and can go straight to them. This is something we’ve been working for for sometime and is the best result possible. We feel good.
On Saturday we allowed Sam to spend time with his nth cousins here as Chris was due to fly back to college in the US the following day. In the evening each family branch went out for a meal together. We had a delicious Sri Lankan curry. On Sunday we had a day out in Melbourne. We had another Dim Sum with Sam followed by some shopping, a trip up the Eureka tower, a tram ride and a visit to Federation Square. It was a fun day out.
Yesterday we had ambitious plans. We first headed to Churchill National Park where we previously saw many kangaroos. We didn’t see any this time, perhaps because we went near to midday. We did find a geocache in the bush and put in quite a hike. This time, though, I got wiped out and had to slow right down. I’m hoping it was just dehydration. So after a picnic lunch we headed back so I could sleep and rest.
Today, Sam is off to visit a friend he made during his time in Fiji. That’s really good for us as I think we’ve really overdone it recently. It’s still only just over a week since my final chemo and we’ve done a lot.
Yesterday we picked up Sam from Melbourne Airport. He’s now staying with us for the next week. The family here now number eight. In the evening we all shared takeaway pizza, a light game of charades and an in house movie, Loopers. Sam played a little guitar for us all.
I have to make a comment about Tiger Direct. They have a bad rep here in Australia. Everyone ‘knows’ they’re often late. We’ve flown with them lots. The only delays we’ve had were due to runway closures at Brisbane which affected all planes. Yesterday, either Sam caught the wrong plane or his arrived 25 minutes early. Both hypotheses seem implausible but we can think of no others. All good.
On Wednesday Helen and I went out for a walk to Jell’s Park again. We hunted down two geocaches. The first required us to traverse long grass so we passed on it. The second we found. I took a ‘photo sphere’ of the location. Take a look. Use your mouse to drag the image around. It goes all the way around. You can even go full screen. Cool don’t you think? (Turns out the following links hammer Chrome so for now I have put in a break and you can choose when to head on and look)
No blogs since the hospital. Sorry. But forgive us, we’ve been living life.
The last moments at hospital were incredibly emotional. Minutes after writing my last blog I had my tubes pulled out and we were told we could go. I couldn’t leave straight away as the dam broke on my emotions and I just bawled my eyes out. I cannot begin to describe how I felt but intellectually I knew I had passed one immense milestone and now had a new battle ahead. I was overjoyed, exhausted, thankful, fearful, proud and high. And everything else.
Helen helped. I enjoyed the hug.
We arrived ‘home’ in time for the BBQ prepared by our family. The place was full of their friends who were all a delight to be with. Bugger just coming out of chemo, I was ready for the evening (and early morning). In hindsight I know I was being supported by the dexamethasone but I had all the other crap running in me so I think I did pretty good.
On Saturday we all went out to the park to play with Patrick the dog (who’s now gone back to being a guide dog) and throw ball/frisby. For the first time in ages I was actually ‘running’ around which is a huge improvement. I still feel incredibly lanky as the strength in my legs has more recovery to come and the nerves in my lower body are still reeling from the Vincristine administered during the first 5 rounds of chemo. It’s more improvement though so I’ve just got to keep going.
After the park we dropped Chris off for a return visit to his old martial arts instructor. Very interesting watching him for a while. Afterwards I managed to geek the rest of the family into hunting down a geocache in the park next to the hall where Chris was training.
On Sunday Helen and I drove into Melbourne to visit the Royal Botanic Gardens. By pure luck it turned out that a Corpse Flower had recently opened after seven years so we had a chance to see it before it closed. Fortunately it didn’t stink.
We had a nice random walk through the park while I played with my Nexus 4. One thing I did was to record a track of of where we went. I have since applied that track to the photos we took with the camera so they are now all ‘geotagged’, ie, the photos have data embedded in them to show where they were taken. The pics from the Nexus 4 get this by default but it’s nice to have the better image optics of the camera coupled with the position recording.
Just for experimentation here are the same pics in Google Maps and Google Earth (if you have it). No idea how it’s going to come out.
After the park we met up with the family in China Town where we bought them Dim Sum for lunch at the Crystal Jade restaurant. It was a new experience for most of the family. We ate a lot and it was delicious.
After lunch we headed over to Fitzroy Gardens where we viewed the conservatory, Cook’s cottage (that had been dismantled in England and rebuilt piece by piece here in Melbourne) finally stopping for coffee before returning home. We’re now thoroughly in the modern world as we used our Nexus 4s to get us back to the car and then home without incident.
On Monday we were understandable pooped so Helen and I rested for most of the day (physically) while mentally got stuck into more planning for the near future. We’re now reasonably sure we have time to squeeze in Sydney and Hong Kong on the way to visit my side of the family in South Africa. It’s amazing how much time you can spend researching places to go.
We celebrated New Year in in style with the family at friends of their in a spacious apartment overlooking the river in Melbourne. Russ drove us all to the nearby station where we caught the train into Melbourne (free for the evening) and walked to the apartment. There we met many of the folks from the family BBQ as well as new people. Great company again. We watched the New Year in from the apartment gardens four stories up. The fireworks were impressive, all along the river. We had a clear line of site onto one launch site and the rest we could see over the buildings. It was fantastic.
We managed to get back before 3am but not long before. We elected not to stay up.
First day of the New Year has been one of recovery and lot’s more planning. We’re still not finished. We hope have everything worked out by the 3rd as Sam is due to fly in then and we hope to spend time with him, not our computers.
The last of 17 chemo infusions/regimes over 7 sessions is complete. I’m currently having about 3 hours saline solution pumped in over 1/2 an hour. Then the bung comes out. Then we’re DONE. DONE, DONE, DONE, DONE, DONE. Primary treatment complete (the final MRI / consult I consider news, not treatment).