T + 26. Knackered

18/03/2013


Hb:    10.2 (+0.1)
Wbc: 3.56 (-3.55)
Plt:    68    (+4)
Ntl:   2.68 (-3.47)


Weight: 72.8kg

19/03/2013


Hb:    11.0 (+0.8)
Wbc: 2.69  (-0.87)
Plt:    100 (+32)
Ntl:    1.99 (-0.69)


Weight: 70.6kg


Things are looking good as far as my blood levels go  - the haemoglobin and platelets are all my own work, but the Wbc and Ntls are probably assisted as I had another GCSF jab a couple of days ago.

Jeannette conveyed some interesting information yesterday (well interesting to me anyway) she was chatting with one of her contacts in haematology and he had this to say. What has effectively happened to your husband is that he has been pretty much killed and brought back to life, so his system has been in shock and is using all and any resources to try to heal and get back to normal.

Given that under normal circumstances a male needs to consume between 2000 to 2500 calories per day to fuel the body, a post chemo/transplant male needs something in the region of 3000 calories per day just to maintain the status quo. I find this very helpful in explaining my weight loss (I've dropped about 10kg since coming into King's) as it gives me a very clear path forward - chow down and pig out. I'm not naturally a grazer, I tend to only eat at set meal times, or at most have a protein shake with a raw egg in it before and after gym sessions so it's new territory.

Jeannette has brought me in some unflavoured Build Up powder that is sprinkled on normal meals to up the calorie count and I've been down to the hospital shop and stocked up on chocolate. As an additional incentive I'm going off menu tonight and ordering a delivery from a Pizza Hut down the road, I figure after nearly six weeks of eating from the same hospital menu (good though it is) I'm entitled to a bit of variety.

Update - sodding bastard Pizza Hut won't deliver to the ward - they'll meet me outside the hospital gates, which is less than helpful seeing as I'm in an isolation ward. I bet this wouldn't happen in the U.S. they don't let anything come between a man and his lard. I can only assume that it's because the area is a bit dicey and there's a likelihood of the guy losing his bike or getting robbed - still I was quite gutted as I was really looking forward to it. Luckily I had  BLT and some Muller Rice to keep the calorie count up - around 500 for the two.

I'm off the MRSA prog now, so no more HiBi scrub soap or Bactroban gel to stick up my snout, I'll be swabbed and retested on Thursday and fingers crossed that'll remove another barrier to me getting out.  As a further precaution, I've also just done a sugar absorption test on my gut which I believe is to look for GVHD of the gut as it's possible with the weight loss. I tend to think that it's down to not forcing enough food down me - but hey who are the experts round here anyway? Very very tired all the time down  - probably sleeping for 15 hours a day.

T + 23. I can no longer Stand and Wonder, because I'm Driven by this Hunger

16/03/2013


Hb:    10       (+1.6)
Wbc: 12.3    (+ 11.24)
Plt:    48       (+5)
Ntl:    10.93 (+10.31)


Weight: 74.8kg

17/03/2013


Hb:    10.1   (+0.1)
Wbc: 7.11    (-5.19)
Plt:    64       (+16)
Ntl:    6.15    (-4.79)


Weight: 74.6kg


Feeling pretty damn good these days, although with the strength and energy of a runt of the litter kitten. I still have a little GvHD rash on my hands and feet and the usual lavatorial hi-jinks but what you gonna do eh?  Bloods looking good, I had a jab of GCSF yesterday to give the whites a kick start the other day, but the Hb is all me.

I was chatting to Jeannette earlier on today about my weight loss, which has been a bit faster than expected, given that I'm now back up to 3 meals a day and topping up with high calorie milkshakes with an ice cream float as a between meals snack  - I had 3 of the buggers yesterday and have still managed to drop a couple of kilos - of course a lot of it must be getting rid of the last of the water retention I had going on - glad to see that phase passing!


Hickman hooked up to meds - note water retention in arms

Being the vain and shallow type that I am, I was having a bitch about watching the lean muscle I've so carefully built up over the years just melt away in a matter of weeks. My calves have gone, I have chicken thighs and shoulders and biceps that appear to shrink on a daily basis.  A less shallow and vain person would take the view that doing what I'm doing now has given me the chance for another 20-25 years of quality existence and be happy with that and the opportunity for (yet another) fresh start - and I am, majorly - and I think I always knew that the hard work I was doing in the gym was more to put me in the best place on the starting grid to come through this stuff quickly and better shape.

It's just that for a laid back ex-druggie ex-booze hound, I finally found my competitive streak in the gym. The rules were simple, if you get on a weight machine and the person before you has been lifting more than your usual training amount, then you're not allowed to reduce the weight (unless the guy before you is some bug eyed, roid-headed testosterone fountain). Always increase your lift by 5kg per fortnight and if someone gets off a machine having been lifting the same as your current setting, then bump it by 5kg before you start - always train to the point of failure and switch up the routine every six weeks to prevent plateau.

Now the clear-headed amongst you will pretty quickly separate the prideful, vain stupid macho bullshit from the common sense in the last paragraph, but I bet there's some of you that do it just the same.  My main grouch was starting over - going right back to the point where I'd just joined a gym and started from nothing.   This sounds like the point where I give you one of those 'Thought for the Day' switcheroos  -  'and in many ways believing in God is like joining a gym..etc' but nah.

In truth, not only does this give me the opportunity to start again at both weights and cardio on an equal footing (and I fucking hated cardio - no haemoglobin), it's going to mean I can be a properly active father to Milo, rather than the grouchy short fused twat I fear I'd turned into and something that was mostly denied to my two older sons Callum and Will - as I was still too busy looking at the world through the bottom of a bottle (well it was a tin - but you take my point).  I will hopefully again become the man that my wife Jeannette remembers prior to my diagnosis in Summer 2008 - and who has diminished a fragment at a time over the intervening years.

That is way too deep for me, time to get back to the silliness and bullshit.

Something I don't think I have touched on so far are the bizarre dreams that I get from the meds - for example last night I composed an 8 part acapella song between dozing off and sleeping - kind of  a cross between the Beach Boys and some sort of progressive rock - only about 2 minutes long but I can remember thinking this is fucking ossum - I have to remember this for tomorrow, I can download a little freebie 8 track studio to the laptop and get going on it and my mate Stu can whack some drums over the top of it - can I recall a shred of it? Can I fuck. Another dream a couple of nights back involved me approaching the Small Faces (yeah in the sixties - but I was my age now) with an idea for a promo video for either 'Itchycoo Park' or 'Song of a Baker', which lovingly ripped off almost every aspect of Bo. Rap by Queen, especially the four heads under the spots and the full band rock out at the end after the Beelzebub bit. They loved it - I mean if you can remember the impact it had in 1975 imagine how it would have gone down in 1968 - that was a bloody brilliant dream, with me modestly claiming that these genius ideas just came to me - I was fully expecting The Beatles on the blower next asking for some help with Lady Madonna.

NB Page views for this site passed 4000 (four freaking thousand!) overnight so I though I'd show you the top ten countries  - which is all I get to see - and all I can say is thanks for sticking with it you nosey fuckers!

Entry	Pageviews
United Kingdom	3326
United States	195
Canada	127
Germany	88
Ireland	81
Ukraine	29
France	18
Spain	17
Australia	14
United Arab Emirates	10

T + 22. 'Ahma go' Bitch Slap upside yo' Fat Head

15/03/2013


Hb:    8.4   (-1.5)
Wbc: 1.06 (+0.63)
Plt:    43    (-6)
Ntl:    0.52 (0.62)


Weight: 77.9kg


The recent cold spell has made me very aware that as a baldy, baldy man I'm losing a lot of heat through my head and I've been keeping my room way too hot, so I asked Jeannette to bring me a hat in on next visit. She didn't hear it quite like that and we ended up having a mini fashion show results <sigh> are below.

No1 Mr Mofo Pimp Hat

To be honest I was quite taken with this, sartorial elegance and an air of menace. Unfortunately though no woolly lining - a kind of harsh nylon interior - not baldy baldy man friendly.

Hat No 2 Mr Metrosexual Pom Pom Hat.

 

 

 

 

Although it had a nice comfortable woolly lining - this was never a contender, I'm no way near that metrosexual.

 

Hat No. 3 The Biggles Look.

 

 

 

 

In my eyes and given my obvious soft spot for all things Battle of Britain here we have a winner-and it looks cool with my face mask -  though if the Huggy Bear pimp hat had had a soft lining - well who knows.

 

The decision on my release seems imminent, although I've just been put on 5 day MRSA watch (special soap and nasal oinkment) there is still a possibility that I could be out next week  - fingers crossed people. A line of thought that the says my body is kicking up against the Hickman Line and could maybe be causing the temperature spikes and so I may be having it taken out.

 

 

 

 

 





 

T + 21. I do not Stink like a Piss Soaked Pole Cat

12/03/2013


Hb:    9.9   (-0.4)
Wbc: 1.69 (+0.68)
Plt:    49    (-15)
Ntl:    1.14 (+0.22)


Weight: 77.9kg

Well I got the news today that the guys here are giving serious consideration to releasing me back into the wild sometime around next Monday. It's quite late in the day now so I'm a bit knacked, but last night gave me the best sleep so far - a good solid 7-7.5 hours, sorry to bore the arse off you, but I'm writing this for me after all and I want to remember just how important the little things were in here, like getting sufficient sleep, the lovely feeling of cleanliness after a shower and the timely delivery of painkillers.

Bit of an improvement on the last pic eh?

I have developed a new approach to showering. Prior to being admitted to KCH I was never much one for them - not to say that I reeked like a piss soaked pole cat, it's more that vegging in the bath with a magazine, preferably a Mojo or Shindig! for a good old soak was more my idea of 40 minutes of  life well conducted.

No baths in here, so I've shifted one of the folding plastic chairs in there and angled the shower head to 90 degrees and will happily spend 30-40 minutes in there, head down just moving my it around letting the water cascade all over me - you can get into a kind of trance and let yourself go, I have to force myself to get out sometimes because I really could spend an hour in there  - no problem.

For the queue people, this is lovely and intensely relaxing and I cannot recommend it enough - even on my worst days this has helped bring me relief and peace for up to and hour and a half after getting out. You may well be prescribed a shitload of creams to apply to GvHD rash (or MMPRv for those of you in the know). I've got a steroid one to apply thinly all over, a separate one for my face, a moisturizer to go over the top of the lot and one for my poor old scrote (bad news there by the way, the swelling's gone down - I was prouder than a gardener with a prize winning marrow for a while there). Back to my point, when you're all super slinky and chilled after a nice long spritz it's an ideal opportunity to get all of the lubing business out of the way which otherwise really, is quite greasy and a bit of a pain in the bum.

As you might imagine, this business involves a fair bit of sitting around waiting, I get wheeled all over the place to be given different scans and X-rays - so I've learnt to make my own entertainment.
I was sent down for a CT scan (me neither) today and cast my eye around the waiting area and saw a 'Mission Statement' proudly emblazoned across the top of a notice board.

Now I remember these becoming fashionable about 10-12 years ago under the last Government and  local authorities wasted countless hours in meetings coming up with something that abided by the Management Bullshit guidelines to create a snappy strap line that encapsulated 'in a meaningful way' what your area of the 'business' delivered to 'the stakeholder' in a manner that was 'diverse' , 'accessible' and 'inclusive'. I'm sorry I need a minute here, the memory of all this has triggered my gag reflex.

That's better, now because these things ended up being written effectively by a committee they were very often a bit of a dogs dinner by the time they were done and, in most instances were very definitely not strap lines. So the dust bin men might find their bin lorries might end up emblazoned with;

'London Borough of Phones, Loans and Chicken Bones Refuse and Recycling Department'

 

Our Mission is;

 

The Timely, Sutainable Removal, Disposal and/or Recycling for

The Diverse and Differently - Abled Stakeholders of Household Waste
and Recyclables within the Borough'

 

 

Which is all very laudable sorry I mean sickening, but hardly trips off the tongue eh?

 

The one I spotted today was the antithesis of everything I've written above, but in its way just as bad - here we go.

 

 

'WORKING TOWARDS EXCELLENCE'

 

 

 

What does 'Working towards...' even mean? 'Well we're at average so let's work towards hum-drum' Take a minute and read it again. Now I'm no lover of this brand of bullshit, but even I can see it's half-arsed. It might just as well read 'Hitchiking to Rochdale' or 'Pissing on Nettles'. If you do have to turn out this shite at least make it any good. One should Strive for excellence, quest for it, fight for it with your last breath - make one last fated grasp for it as your life blood spills from the bullet wound in your upper left arm anything but work towards it.

 

Some bright eyed MBA straight out of Uni was probably given this as his (or her) first assignment, when skip in step, fringe a flopping and whistling a little tune of first-job happiness he (or she) came up against the committee. They never stood a chance...

 

 



T + 20. Jurassic Pork. The Lost Week.

09/03/2013

Hb:    10.0   (+1.8)
Wbc: 3.14  (+1.41)
Ntl:    2.62  (+1.19)
Plt:     87     (+69)


Weight: 79.8 kg

10/03/2013

Hb:     10.3  (+0.3)
Wbc:  1.31  (-1.83)
Ntl:     0.92  (-2.7)
Plt:     64      (-23)

Weight 80.2 kg

Apologies for being out of touch for a bunch of days, but to paraphrase Billy Ocean 'When the going gets tough, the blog can piss off' this is not reality poop hot from the from the frontline and I am not in the business of suffering for my <ahem > art.

WANKER I hear you shout - or is that just Jeannette?

Before I go any further - look at my lovely, lovely figures, 10/03 is without any recent top ups of blood or platelets or injections of GCSF - so I think I'm pretty much doing this myself - I couldn't be more chuffed. I know that some a re down a bit here and there, but the overall trend is good. If I can stay infection free and keep my temperature down, there's a real possibility that I could be out a lot sooner than expected.

Anyway I've had to write myself a bunch of headings so that I remember to include everything because so much has gone on. The first thing I want to say is that I'm stopping with the self-deprecating James Stewart type 'if that's the worst that this is going to get - then I think I'm going to be fine' spiel. I mean I still think I'm going to be fine, but every time I say OK folks THIS is the bottom, THIS is as far down as things are going to go, it appears to be the cue for the great Cosmic Bod to fuck with me some more - a bit like when the Gods stir the water in the font and mess with Harry Hamelin in that 80s Greek Gods fillum. So things have been shit, have got shitter and they may get shitterer still (or not).

There's a T-shirt logo for you.

Somewhere along the line I messed up my internal clock and my sleep pattern got very screwed over. I switched from a couple of dozes during the day and between 3-5.5 hours a night to 30-40  minutes every 2 hours throughout a 24 hour cycle. I wasn't too concerned for the first two days, but by day five I was a mess. The lack of sleep, combined with fluid retention and a bit of GVHD (Graft Versus Host Disease) rash  had conspired to make me look like Darth Vader's guvnor with the hood pulled down <see pic> in fact I think if I didn't have such a trippy, happy colourful dressing gown I probably could have pulled it off.  Be thankful it's a low-res pic...



Luke, Luke, -  I know what you've got for Christmas...

Roughly in middle of this period, about last Wednesday or Thursday it was decided to give me a go at an antibiotic called Ambisone - the first night I was given a taster dose, quite low and took to it ok. The next night, before being given it again, I'd had really bad headaches, still had some mucusitis and severe rigors so had been dosed up to the gills with Paracetomol, Codeine, Oramorph and Pethedine (the latter to stop the rigors). When the Ambisone was infused I felt some faint twitches and tingles but really had too much of a good thing going on behind my eyelids to be bothered.

Come the next night I pretty much went into it clean - ie no painkillers on board. This stuff is a sickly, pustular looking yellow and is apparently very effective at wiping out hard to track down infections - so basically it was aimed at the cause of my rigors and temperature spikes - which were hitting 40 degrees. It was a busy night on the ward with only 2 of the 3 usual staff on board (which I didn't know at the time) so the infusion started as usual with the machine chugging away and me laying back and wondering how long it was before my next painkillers were due for the ever present headache and with my nurse dashing off to another patient. After about 5 minutes I started to feel the familiar screaming kidneys band across my lower back and didn't think too much of it but within a further 3 minutes I knew some thing was up, the belt of pain kept tightening and flexing, my stomach started to churn violently and pains were starting to snake their way through my buttocks and down my legs.

Now, as the nurses here are no doubt damn sick of hearing, I am not a pussy when it comes to pain - I've been stabbed twice, been through a couple of windscreens, taken my share of beatings, had fingers/nose broken, had multiple bone marrow expirations, sliced the tips off most of the fingers on my left hand, fallen off ladders from silly heights and had teeth removed with insufficient local without a peep. My high pain threshold is a matter of pride with me - it comes from all the WWII and cowboy films I watched as a kid in the sixties and seventies.

Those guys could take a bullet - usually to the upper left arm (good guys) or the gut (for the baddies). Something that would normally have ricocheted around off the bone and rendered the entire upper arm into a bloody skin bag of its' own pulped components was treated as nothing worse than a bee sting. Cliff Robertson hauling his burnt and wounded body from the shattered cockpit of his Mosquito after his little ferret faced radio op has just passed on at the end of '633 Squadron' - I'm filling up remembering.

Christopher Plummer and Michael Caine in the Battle of Britain plummeting from the skies to strafe the crap out of Heinkels or Me109s with that Der Da Da Der Da Da Der Der Der Da Da Der Der Derrrrr music going on in the background. Men of a certain age know as well as I do that it's impossible to skip past this this film if you are channel surfing - no matter how much of it you've already missed. Mind you Christopher Plummer let the side down a bit when he let out that girly scream as his face got burnt off. Oh and Susannah York in that film lordy-  but she was a bit nuts in real life I think.

This is part of my model of what comprises a man,  so I though OK, I'll hit the call button and until the nurse comes, control it with breathing which is what I managed to do quite effectively for the next 25-30 minutes with this little mantra;

Breathe in deep and long for count of 5
Breathe out deep and long for count of 5
Breathe in deep and long for count of 5
Breathe out deep and long for count of 5 while saying 'FUCK YOU PAIN YOU FUCKER'

and start over...

Although I'd just made it up on the spot it worked pretty well and concentrating on keeping the rhythm and trying the make each 'FUCK YOU PAIN...' sound more menacing than the last took my mind off what was happening from the hips down. But I came to the point where I knew it wasn't going to work any longer, I'd over ventilated  - my lips were numb and face was all clammy and lightly pins and needles. I had to break my pussy code and call for help - I tried a couple of loud groans at first - pretty much as soon as I stopped the breathing I was swamped with pain from the hips down, stabbing, burning disco lights of it dappling over me and my back arching upwards off the bed - crying freely now. I transgressed the Pussy code again and further this time by yelling 'Nurse' a couple of times. I realised that a nurse wouldn't come anytime soon - if she could have she would have by now. OK what next? - turn the machine off - I couldn't see to press the buttons - I reached down and fanned my hand around on the floor looking for the mains lead - found a bunch and bodily yanked the plugs out of the sockets across the room. Fell back on the bed - the pain didn't disappear instantly - but the relief was instantaneous.

Within 10 minutes my breathing had returned to normal as I could feel the concentration of Ambisone lessening with each circuit of my body made by my blood. 10 or 15 minutes after this the nurse was freed up enough to come and see me - I'd got myself together by then and explained what had happened and we mutually agreed that I wasn't going to be having any more Ambisone that night and to her credit as soon as I explained all this to Doc Anita the next day she got on the case and discontinued it immediately. Now it might just have been me in which it engendered such a severe reaction, but let me put a marker in the sand for you here queue people if you hear 'Ambisone' the next words that leave your mouth might need to be - sweet as you like 'What measures of pain control do you normally give with that?'

I woke up dead the next morning. Worst headache of my life so far (this is bearing in mind that I'm a recovering alcoholic of ten years standing and have expertise in this area) and karma had decided to diddle me just a little more by turning my mouth into a fleshy parrot beak, half man half herbivore dinosaur with quadruple peeling lips and vermillion eyes set deeply in a pouchy red ruined looking face. It was almost as though the intervening ten years of sobriety had never happened and I'd spent them on that same accelerating spiral of drink and drugs which I battled so hard to quit. If you don't get the 'Karma' reference pls do me a favour and go back and read 'T + 6 Karma's a bitch..' because I seem to be the only person that thinks it's funny - hardly any other bugger has read it.

In these situations the solution is age old and obvious and really the only way to go - you sleep and let your body take over  - weaving you whole again strand by miniscule strand. I tried to sleep and just plain vegged for the next two days my eyes and face gradually looking more and more 'Picture of Dorian Gray' as it became plain to me that I couldn't sleep properly (just to give you some perspective the pic above is before the Ambisone episode). I caved and asked for some sleeping tablets to be prescribed that night (Saturday?) I'd had a bit of a tricksy experience with getting off sleeping pills called Zopiclone when I was first diagnosed back 2008 and was reluctant to go down that path again, but realised this would be for days rather than 12 months and what alternative did I have? - having just passed my sixth night without proper sleep I knew I was out of choices.

I'm writing now on Monday night after two nights of Zopiclone and I cannot begin to tell you how much better I feel. I got about five and a half hours the first night and maybe even as much as 7 hours over two spells last night. I even briefly had some white in my eyes before the infusions started today. I'm beginning to get some of my bounce back and feel that I can face the days head on now with an element of confidence that at least- at the very least I should be able to sleep at the end of it - and I'll cope with getting my clock sorted without pills when I leave hospital.

I just read this blog back to myself and was very tempted to delete the lot as self pitying whiny shite. There are pretty much guaranteed to be  people within a 50 metre radius of where I am laying now who've had worse pain and worse sleep depravation and worse diseases and are Fugly as well. Then I decided well you go and write your own fucking blog - this is mine.

Well I'll just do a bit of housekeeping and give you the local news before I pack in.

In other news, a combination of water retention, possible infection and maybe just being sat on for a month has caused union member Mr Jolly-Bagge to swell by up about 30% in size, turn blazing red and become quite sore. Whilst the appearance is considered to be an overall improvement by the committee, we are currently in negotiations with the staff at Kings on 3 principal points;

• Curing or toning down the nuclear pink colouring
• Eradicating the itchiness and soreness
• Keeping the size.

We've indicated that point three is non-negotiable and in the event that this matter is not ring-fenced <fnar>, we will order our members to pull out.

Right that's mostly caught up - I'll try for some more tomorrow - one final bit of local news is that my NAC and Ciclosporin are being reduced to once a day and I've been told that I have to go and have do some special kind of drug respirator or inhalator to prevent lung disease. Now that sounds to me like pre-checks before going for a release back in to the wild - doesn't it to you?

Anyroad - more hot poop from our man on the spot when he can be arsed to report it to you from  Kings College Hospital in the London Borough of Phones, Loans and Chicken Bones.




T + 12. A Momentary Lapse of Self Absorbtion

03/03/2013

Hb:    8.2    (-0.9)
Wbc: 1.73  (+1.42)
Ntl:    1.43  (+1.22)
Plt:     18     (-3)


Weight: 82.5kg

Not completely unexpected last night was another night on the tiles, but it started much earlier - I think it was about half past midnight that my temperature went up and I started gettin' down with ma bad self (shaking that is, not...you know). Throat very inflamed felt like I had a spike through it from mucositis so I spent the rest of the night in a bit of a haze getting topped up on Pethedine, Oramorph and Paracetomol every couple of hours (4 for the Paracetomol) and probably until about midday today just sleeping, vegging and waiting for my head to clear. Really hadn't realised how much it took out of me until I got up to get washed and had to navigate round to the bathroom holding onto the wall - luckily it's a small room.

I know it's probably tempting fate to be writing this again but at nearly 24 hours remove and with no recurrence I feel I'm still having an easy ride. When I hear an alarm go off in another room and the clatter of feet as the crash team rushes to help there's just no comparison. Any discomfort so far is sure to be temporary and given the news from yesterdays' and todays' bloods I couldn't  honestly justify feeling anything other than upbeat

Jeannette came in to sit with me on Saturday afternoon which was most sweet and forbearing as in retrospect I very much doubt that I was fit for human consumption - I think she just couldn't wait to get a look at my new baldy man look. She says a tad Bruce Willis - I say Locke the on/off paralysed guy out of  LOST.

Thas right you be checkin' my Swag - fool

24 hours is a long time in this kind of situation (actually one can be) when I went to clean my teeth this morning to get rid of the sickly sweet taste of umpteen doses of Oramorph I was all but unrecognisable. Eyes puffed half closed, big puffy jowls and a lower lip to put Jagger to shame, from water retention and all painted a lovely livid sweaty red but by 10pm you'd never have known it had even occurred.
I marvel at the human body now - the trillions of things that it gets right every hour of every day - the amount of stuff that gets put in me that it would normally do just trucking along on autopilot it's quite, quite miraculous

There is something wrong with me (apart from the MDS) in that for some bizarre reason I allow adverts to get up my nose.  In the normal run of things I never see them because on Freesat you either view pre-recorded or just pause or fwd. TV when the ads come on. I don't have that option in here and he latest furniture chewer for me is the McDonald's ad with the whiny northern teen who won't accept the Mum's dopey looking bowl cut new fella, until the boyfriend offers to take him to McDonald's. Why oh why does he not take the opportunity to crush the little turd and just say 'I wasn't talking to you sh*thead' and just walk out - it would be such a beautiful thing.

T + 10. Hey there wanna see my Hairy Keyboard?

01/03/2013
02/03/2012

Hb:    9.1   (+1.2)
Wbc: 0.39 (+0.28)
Plt:    21    (+13)
Ntl:    0.21 (+0.14)      

Weight: 82.5kg


Turns out my comment the other day about Carrie was a nearer the mark than I could have imagined, because at some time between 2am and 5.30am I started a real gusher of a nosebleed and woke up absolutely caked in my own blood and rattling all over the shop with rigors. I should have taken a pic really, bit I was so concerned about getting cleaned up that I forgot.

All credit to the Nurses Jinky and Mai who were completely unflappable in the face of what I thought at first was a scary quantity of blood (it wasn't) and got me sorted in double time. Looks like more platelets today and there's going to be a new antibiotic tonight to try and take down whatever it is that's giving me the rockabilly shakes.

Jeannette and my eldest Callum are dropping by this arvo bringing the clippers with them - and I seriously cannot wait to remove what remains of Tufted Duck Hair Island - I would laugh at me if I saw me in the street. also have to stop typing every couple of minutes or so to blow the arm hair off the keyboard <Gak>. Had the greatest shave of my life this morning, the razor actually removed the hair rather than cutting it and it feels great - soooooo smooth. Another effect  I have noticed which I'm actually Ok with is a chemo burn suntan weirdly my face looks quite brown and healthy so for every blip so far there is a corresponding blap...you may also note that blood values have all gone up, the trick now is to see this sustained running on my own juice rather than top ups, have to admit though, I'm just a little bit excited.

Later in the day, nosebleed has stopped but shakes have come back, fortunately I shaved my head before they started up again. Have to sit and wait now for whatever the growth culture reveals, I know this may sound a bit whingey but if this is the worst it gets then I'm having an easy ride and look upon each day under my belt as a day nearer resuming my life. On the entertainment side I  have been spoilt rotten, I've got about 15 or so recent top films and series 1 and 2 of the Walking Dead (ah jus' lurve me them Zawmbiz) and Boardwalk thingy from Sky.