Guess Who's Back, Back Again. Chemo's Back, Tell A Friend

After another appointment at Velindre a few days ago I've been informed that, although the tumour appears to be stable, the fact that there was clearly some activity that lead to my recent admission to hospital means the oncology team are inclined to believe I would benefit from having further treatment sooner rather than later.

As a result I will be beginning a course of chemotherapy on Tuesday. This will be different from my previous chemo as it will involve a combination of tablets and IV drip, whereas my previous chemo has all been in tablet form. This method of chemotherapy is called PCV (Procarbazine, Lomustine - known as CCNU, Vincristine) and will consist of an intravenous drip on day one of each treatment cycle followed by 10 days of chemo tablets. I will then wait until six weeks from the injection date for my next cycle to begin, and I will be having a total of six cycles.

As the mathematically astute amongst you may have realised, this means that I will be under treatment for a total of roughly nine months. After nine months of sickness, scans and hospital visits I'm half expecting to give birth to Timmy at the end of it all, although I have a feeling he'll manage to hang on in there like some sort of annoying, life threatening, brain dwelling embryo.

One small mercy is the fact that this type of chemotherapy does not usually result in hair loss, although it will likely mean a return to the sickness and sleeping problems that I so enjoyed last time around.

In other news the stitches in my stomach have finally dissolved and I'm expecting imminent delivery of a bunch of Bio-Oil so that I can start working on minimising the visual impact it will have on my abdominals.

This does also mean that I won't be able to go on my trip until at least this time next year. If it's true what they say and good things really do come to those who wait then it should be absolutely unbelievable by the time I eventually manage to go.