I woke up this morning feeling a lot better than yesterday. My throat pains have reduced significantly over night and I feel totally ready for whatever they throw at me next (except the hospital food. Chemo yes. Hospital food no).
I’m now back in Monash Hospital receiving my penultimate round of chemo. It feels a bit like business as usual although my mental faculties are miles above where they were when I was here previously which somehow changes how I’m seeing everything. We recognized all the staff and they recognized us. They all thought my hair (lack of it) looked good and commented on how different and well I was behaving (read it right – all of you). Each round, this time, comprises two intravenous dispensations of Cytarabine with a cocktail of drugs to smooth the way. Including my old favourite, Dextamethasone. Now that I’m pretty much on the ball mentally I can feel the battle going on. The chemo drug is knocking me down and the dex is picking me up. I may get some sleep tonight but there’s a nutter in the ward screaming every few seconds. At least I have a room to myself again but the walls aren’t thick enough. With a bit of luck we’ll be home tomorrow.
Helen stayed most of the day with me. She went out from time to time buying food. The hospital food is truly disgusting. It shows how sick I was that I actually liked it for the first three and a half chemos. Now with my continued tongue funniness there is nothing funny about the food. She also went to visit a couple we’ve come to know. Ken is the patient and his wife is always with him. We first met them here in this hospital and last met them at the Peter Mac while I was having RT and he was waiting to see a haematologist at the Monash Moorabbin clinic. Sadly his health has taken a nose dive and is getting worse each day. It’s now just a matter of time as he’s being moved to palliative care.
Helen and I spent some time chatting but I spent most of the day doing stuff on the laptop and Helen doing stuff on hers, reading and resting. Since the last blog yesterday evening here’s a taste of the things we accomplished, in no particular order:
- Commented on tripadvisor.com on a few places we stayed at/visited on our Great Ocean Road trip.
- Started inquiries in the UK as to the state of IT education and future direction (gathering thoughts for what Helen might do in the future)
- Started our bucket list
- Localized the laptop to UK from US – dates are now the right way around everywhere.
- Talked to brokers to get dates for boat viewings in December
- Decided we’re going back to Brisbane before Xmas and booked flights.
- Confirmed appointment with Prof MacManus at PeterMac.
- Merged all my TODO lists into one TODO list thus eliminating another TODO item off my main TODO list.
- Sorted out all my OneNote notes cleaving off all current stuff into a few sections and putting old stuff out of sight
- Kicked some financial planning in US and UK into a higher gear. Already managed to determine worst case scenarios are not going to happen and things are looking optimistic. Some actions already taken, more now planned.
- Paid off some UK bills
- Kicked off getting Tax Filing Number here in Australia to avoid further punitive 46.5% withholding rate on interest.
- Chased a loose end with a recent property sale in the UK
- Frequently checked for Nexus 4 availability in Australia. No luck. Hope dwindling of getting one before we leave.
- Clarified and chased additional work to Dignity from two of our suppliers.
- Paid the gas fitter.
- Paid the gas inspector.
- More follow up and knowledge gathering re boat electrics here in Australia.
Somehow at the end of all this my TODO list is now longer than when it started. Like working on the boat, whenever you start doing one project, another three spring up – mostly ideas of something else to do. This seems no different.
The nutter is still screaming and other patients have been yelling at him. Joy.
PS. I do realize the word ‘nutter’ is a poor word choice and may be seen as bad taste, for someone so ill, but it is important for one’s own sanity to distance oneself sometimes. Dark humour is one way of doing this.
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