Stage one complete

On Friday I had my last planned radiotherapy treatment at Ipswich Hospital. I've been crossing each day off on the calendar, and it's amazing how quickly five weeks has gone. Lockdown has an odd way of skewing perspective and time, but the good thing is that I am done.

Done with having to travel an hour each way to the hospital every weekday. Done with laying on the machine and having my insides melted. Done with weekly blood tests and, thankfully, done with daily chemotherapy tablets. That should mean in a couple of weeks, as the side effects peak and begin to diminish, I should be done with the nausea and tiredness.

I have been given some exercises to do (that will be familiar to anyone who has had a baby) and also some other instructions regarding stopping my insides sticking together. I am by no means out of the woods, but as to how effective the radiotherapy has been, I will be scanned again in three months.

Three months seems like a long time to wait and see if Gertrude has been eliminated or at least shrunk, but given everything my insides have been through, they need the three months to recover and feel a bit more normal. There will have been damage to organs other than the targeted cancer which is inevitable.

But the last day - going in for the last time and seeing my chatty blood nurse, the helpful and always kind and pleasant therapeutic radiographers, and also bumping into Jan from the Wolverstone ward that we got to know when Sheena was having her chemo. 

When I'd had my final chat with the support nurse, had my final treatment and blood test, I was ready to call Sheena - she was allowed in for the final visit. With Sheena, Jan, and several of the staff with me, I rang the bell! It's a significant thing, and marks the end of my radiotherapy treatment. 

What next? A telephone appointment on 7 July with my oncologist to discuss what happens next. I would think that not much can be decided until after my scan in 12 weeks' time, but until then, I'm seeing this as an opportunity to get fit and be prepared for surgery. The healthier I am, the better the outcome.

Thank you Sheena for supporting me so amazingly. Thank you to our friends who have shown such support and encouragement, and thank you to the amazing staff at Ipswich hospital.

A quick reminder - despite covid and the restrictions in place, if you have anything unusual going on, such as blood in your poop, and unusual consistent pain, a lump or something that worries you, please do see your GP. Early diagnosis improves your outcomes if it should be something nasty, and if it's nothing to worry about, then even better. 

Liked this?  Try...

Fundraisers are human too

Above the salt

Useful links

Testicular self-examination

Breast self-examination - men too!

Signs of bowel cancer

Colchester and Ipswich Hospitals Charity

Grandparents

When I was a child, my mother would get me to write to my grandparents, specifically 'Granny and Charles' (both my grandparent's on her side had divorced, hence Charles wasn't grandpa). I remember that my mother admonished me with 'You haven't written to Granny and Charles recently', and my youthful reply was, "well, they never write to me." Kid logic.

The days of writing to grandparents have disappeared, and technology has overtaken the pen and paper even to the extent of replacing thank you cards with texts or video calls, but the thing about grandparents is that you don't need a guilt trip to want to contact them.

Grandparents have the priveledge of having raised the parent of their grandchild and been through all the angst and worry that brings, and then observing that same angst transferred to their child that is now a parent. They have the opportunity to do all the things that their parents did with their child - the 'spoiling' if you like (whether that's being allowed sweets or allowed to get dirty, or buying expensive toys and games). Being a grandparent is a bit of a 'free' card - because you won't experience the consequence (back home) of the indulgence.

But grandparents aren't just for treating the grandkids, they are an opportunity to provide an example, to be that learned adult that isn't mum or dad (or step mum/dad) and who may actually be listened to - if the advice is given in the context of fun. Why can't parents do this? Oh they can, but kids are naturally resistant to parentgal instruction it appears.

But grandparents also have the opportunity to be eccentric, and in being so - unlike parents who embarass their kids - they are a novelty.

Sally, my mother

I've mentioned Granny and Charles, the converse is Grandpa and Peeps. I had four grandparents, but all on my mother's side (my father's parents died a when he was young). For a while grandpa lived with us, but then my mother (fed up with an elderly relative around the house, but I do have some lovely stories about him at home) said why not go and live with his ex-wife, who was also on her own. And in their declining years, they lived together again - two old folk rubbing along.

Peeps (her name was Primrose) was an unusual grandmother. She had a lot of insight that was almost spooky. She was a published author (weird ideas about Egyptian gods, Christianity and spacemen), and outliving grandpa, was still running her own cult religion at the age of 91.

She wasn't the greatest stepmother by all accounts, but I think she did her best having had no children herself. My mother was an only child, and when I asked her about her memories of VE day (she spent the war safely in South Africa with her aunt), she spoke about how difficult it was when she came home and her parents arguing over which house she should go to. Sad really.

River, my grandson

As a grandmother, my mother has come into her own in more recent years - when I first had kids she was in Mallorca most of the time with her new partner (Orlando), so wasn't the sort of granny you'd drop the kids round to. But visiting Mallorca to see her and Orlando wasn't exactly a hardship! So she was more of a grandparent in absentia, but she adores being a great-grandmother now and (lockdown notwithstanding) wants to see the kids and the grandchild as much as she can. Orlando died in 2000, when my kids were 9 and 7, but he did his bit as a grandad, playing football with Alex and telling Mel how beautiful she was.

My grandpa was a birdwatcher and an RAF pilot, and there's a whole blog post devoted to him, but as a grandparent myself I am trying to do my best and be the 'fun granny' to my little grandson. He has four grandparents, plus extras - lucky lad! There is myself, and my partner, and my ex-husband and his partner, and both of his dad's parents.

I hope that he will want to do things with me and my partner Sheena, and given time we have promised (just to scare my daughter really) that we will teach him to ride a motorbike (we have a four quad bike that he will fit when he is about four), and to do lots of crafty things in the forest. We are lucky that Sheena has two grandchildren too, plus some add ons (her son's step kids) and they are old enough to already do fun things with.

My father died when I was just 13 so he never saw my children - my ex-husband's parents both died before the kids were born too, and I know all of them would have loved being grandparents. So I am going to grandparent the best I can, because I know it's a priviledge.

Liked this? Try

The birdwatcher in me (thanks grandpa)
The Family Sheppard
What I learned from the Wiggles