Week 15 - Thursday 9th July

Friday 3rd July was my last treatment, and it was a weird occasion.  It was my last brachytherapy treatment, and I looking forward to having the last spinal block!  All the team were as friendly as usual, and one of the team was a fan of F1, in particular Daniel Ricciardo.  It was nice seeing her, and having a chat about the upcoming season.

A perk of the spinal block, is that I get to take my phone in with me so I can listen to podcasts or music.  When you're stuck on your back for several hours, listening to audio books or music is best.  Friday I chose to put on Radio 5 Live so I could listen to Free Practice live!  The coverage wasn't great, as an example, they'd react to something and a little while later remember to tell us what they reacted to. Anyway, I had a different anesthetist, who knew of the challenges with me.  He was ever so nice, talked through everything he was doing, was super quick with the injections, and was the best spinal block I had!  It takes around 5-10 minutes to kick in, and he was checking it was working throughout the whole wait to make sure it was doing what it was meant to.

Everything went as it should, and I was sent off for my CT and MRI scans straight away.  I was given an extra blanket in case I was using the slower MRI scanner, as it can get quite cold in there.  Turns out, I was going in that one, so I was nice and comfortable.  However, when I got back to recovery, I must've started to warm up too much and not noticed.  I had some water (through a paper straw as I can't sit up), then started to feel like I was going to be sick.  They brought me over some cardboard bowls, and I proceeded to bring up all the water I consumed.  This is the first time I felt or had been sick in recovery.  I felt better for about 10 minutes, then started to feel sick, then more water was brought back up.  They took off my blankets and offered me anti-sickness through my drip line, and a while later, I was sick again!  A different anti-sickness was given to me this time, but this was could make me sleepy.  If it helped, I didn't care.  Being sick when you can't sit up as you have all these tubes and applicators between your legs is really awkward.  Thankfully, I wasn't sick again, and had was drifting in and out of sleep.

I was taken down to have my final treatment, and even had a snooze while that happened!  They've got good CCTV in there, so they could turn the main lights off, to make it more comfortable for me.  Honestly, they are so nice!  After treatment, all the gubbins is taken out, and as usual I had no gas and air, we just have a little chat, as well as them telling me what they're taking out.  They even remarked at how positive I've been, and asked how I have such an upbeat attitude about it.  

Back to recovery I go for a cuppa and a sandwich, as well as the mandatory wee, before I could go a ring the bell!  All the team throughout the day had asked if I was going to ring it, and one had said they would be happy to film it on my phone for me, as visitors still aren't allowed due to Covid.  When you ring the bell, the receptionist, any staff around the area, and anyone in the waiting room all clap.  It was a bit of a surreal experience, but in case you've not seen it, you can see it on my instagram page.

No more treatment means everything gets back to normal?  Not quite, now is the time I plan my recovery.  I would love to say I felt better straight away, but in fact during the weekend I never felt so drained and lethargic.  I think I kept going for so long, that as soon as Saturday hit my body had had enough and wanted to rest.  Imagine you've done the most exhausting activity (running, lifting weights etc), and you feel drained?  At least double that feeling, and you get towards how I felt.  My legs didn't want to move.  Going out in the garden with the dog, I needed to sit down.  To top that, I'm still having challenges with my bowel (although that is improving slowly), and also have a urine infection (good job I always drink plenty!).

Each week I've been taking pictures of both my face and of my pelvic area.  I can see changes in my face, especially when they weight dropped when I started having severe diarrhea.  The two pictures are the beginning of treatment, and then day after my final treatment.

I'm not going to show you the pelvis, but I can confirm there's a noticeable difference between pre-treatment and post-treatment.  Before I could see where the cancer mass was, but obviously that's not noticeable now, and hopefully there won't be anything left.  I won't know the answer to that yet, and my next appointment is with the oncologist in 4 weeks.  It seems like a long time, but that's to let my body settle down.  To give me chance to see if there's any changes I'm concerned about, or indeed nothing that concerns me.  

So far this week, I've started to eat a bit more, and my other half has, as usual, been superb at making sure I'm fed and watered.  I'm not eating mountains of food, but more of a gradual increase.  I'm a little more active than a week ago, but I grow tired extremely quickly, so need to plan what I do.  

I'll continue to blog each week, and continue to document my progress.  I'm even thinking of doing a "Frequently Asked Questions" blog, so keep an eye out for that, if that's of interest. 

As always, stay safe, stay well, and if you're not feeling right, get yourself checked out xxx