Hi! Sorry for last weeks silence. It’s been a busy few weeks, which meant that last Sunday I sat down for a short nap before writing my catch up and then woke up 3 hours later just in time for bed. The perils of trying to manage your energy levels on chemo!
So, seeing as it has been such an eventful fortnight, I’ll do a longer catch up today! Strap yourselves in!
Named my imaginary baby
If you read my update a fortnight ago you’ll know they didn’t start my 5th cycle of chemo because my HCG levels were unexpectedly high. This is a pregnancy hormone, but they weren’t actually high enough for anyone to actually think I was pregnant REALLY, but they still wouldn’t give me any drugs. I found this incredibly frustrating because not only did I know I wasn’t pregnant, but if I was it’s certainly not something I’d be proceeding with right now. It was like any choice over my treatment had been taken away of the rights of a foetus that we all knew didn’t really exist.
Anyway, I named the imaginary baby Viognier, and on Tuesday I ended up spending 3.5 hours in the hospital having yet more pregnancy tests.
My HCG levels were still up, bur they agreed to give me all my drugs except the Thalidomide. Which I still don’t have, despite my HCG levels apparently having gone back down again this week.
It’s a mystery. An annoying mystery.
Had an eyebrow top up
4 weeks ago I got my eyebrows tattooed on by Coveted Beauty. This week it was time for the top up. I am SO happy with them, and knowing that even if all my hair falls out I still have eyebrows is a weirdly reassuring thing. I am definitely more attached to my eyebrows than my hair.
Had a visit from my Mum & Dad
And at this point I realise I failed to get any photos of us all together. Doh!
They came for a whole week. We went out for that lovely birthday dinner we had to cancel because I was in hospital in May, drank some nice beer, had a roast dinner and they helped out with ferrying me to hospital appointments as I can’t drive.
It was lovely, and also the reason I fell asleep last Sunday!
Met Dippy the dinosaur
He’s on tour from the Natural History Museum and currently in Norwich Cathedral, so while my parents were here we popped in to visit.
It was great, it’s a really big dinosaur.
I also made a friend who helped me pose to show him off. I don’t know who this lady was but I appreciate her help.
Discovered there was nothing wrong with my eyes
I mean, I actually didn’t think there was, but last time I went to the opticians she seemed slightly concerned about a small difference in the size of my optic nerves and that it might be Glaucoma.
So I got a hospital referral, because what I really want is to spend more time in the hospital right now.
I kind of thought that this would be a fairly quick appointment, but I was wrong. After 2.5 hours and having every kind of test and eyedrop available I have come away with the knowledge that there is nothing wrong with my eyes, and that my eyeballs are on the thicker side of normal. So that’s nice.
I also forgot to take my phone with me which made it extra stressful as I couldn’t let Mr LLL who was waiting for me know that it was taking aggggges.
Went out 2 nights in a row
And blimey do I need a nap today!
Friday night we booked a table to go drink German beer at the market for Oktobyfest with Sir Toby’s Beers. We took the Pugs who had a very exciting night. Waldo fell off a bench which entertained everyone and on the way home they made flying visits through the doors of every bar we passed as they are nosey.
Saturday night we were invited down to the reopening of Gringos Tequila Bar by the owner who we first met when we organised Norwich Cocktail week.
They’ve started doing food on Saturday nights so they treated us to Mexican feast and a cocktail and we had a good catch up after the weirdness of the last 2 years!
I can confirm the food is delicious, as are the cocktails!
And that, I think, just about covers the major events of the last 2 weeks. It’s been kind of busy. Now I must nap.
Oh, one last thing. Over on Instagram I mentioned I was planning to watch a spooky movie every day in October and some people wanted to watch along. So I made a list. If you want to watch along then follow me on Instagram and I’ll post reminders n stuff!
How was your week?
