Light at the end of the tunnel...

Just a short update page in response to lots of messages which say I've been a bit quiet (unlike me I know!). After chemo 4 it took at least 10 days to start to feel human again due to a combination of nausea, tiredness, headaches and Olympic level heartburn (which no amount of drug seems to be able to kick into touch!).

However the last few days I've managed some long overdue catch up coffees and lunches with wonderful friends and colleagues who have made me laugh and smile again which has been lovely :) I've also been treated to some lovely pampering reflexology and reiki. Thank you to each of you...

Round 5 is on Wed 4th Feb - I've been advised my 'spin doctor' (his quote 'chemo gets a bad press' - I wonder why!!) that I'm likely to feel worse due to the effects being cumulative so as they say, 'brace for impact'.....

If you have a really good 'can't put down' book that you'd recommend please let me know as reading helped distract me through the recent 10 crap days. Meantime watching the West Wing has become my new addiction :)

As someone said: 'Every day many not be good, but there is something good in every day'.

I'll try and post again sooner than it took me this time!

A huge thank you for keeping in touch with your cards, messages and emails, it really really helps me and particularly on tough days :)

Skerry
x

PS Here's a link to the page on how to: Post a comment to this blog. Just in case you want to use it...

In the chemo ring: rounds 2 and 3

Hi there

Sorry not to have posted earlier, have found chemo 2 and now 3 very tiring and quite gruelling. Still that's me now halfway through so the end of the treatment programme is in sight!

For chemo 2, I was accompanied by 2 best friends, Susan and Nicky who livened up the proceedings with Christmas dressing up, horoscope reading and of course the quintessential general girlie 'putting the world to rights' chat! Evidence of silly hat wearing below...

and of Nicky testing out her Santa outfit before it gets 'halved' for her lovely Café Cognito (if you visit there before Christmas you'll see the final product on the ceiling!)

For chemo 3, another best friend, Donna joined me and regaled me with tales of teenage parenting which had us both crying with laughter... She was also witness to the 'small' bag of take home drugs which leave with me after each session!

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster emotionally - in true festive style, I think I have been each of the 7 dwarfs i.e. grumpy, sleepy, happy, dozey, bashful, dopey etc.

I think I'm still me somewhere in amongst all this 'chaos' though - as you can see from the pic above taken in early December when I was I'm celebrating my friend's special birthday. On that day the 'wig' got its first official outing and yes that is a glass of bolly in my hand although its only 9.30 in the morning so although it was serious Gaviscon to follow, I did manage a drink which as you will know is very me!!

Not least were the school Christmas plays, where both of my gorgeous boys did a fantastic job (Elliot's highly comic performance as an ugly step sister was a moment that will lift me every time I think about it... yes that's him with the big blonde wig!)

So only a short post today to keep you up to date and to let you know that I'm hanging on in there... thank you so so so much for all the hugs, texts, emails, cards, flowers, wonderful food parcel deliveries and very generous gifts as well as your humour, energy, patience and support...

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and I can't thank you enough for all your support to date,

with much love

Skerry
xxx

PS Here's a link to a page again, please don't feel obliged at all, its just that a few folk have asked me again about how to: Post a comment to this blog. If it doesn't work, pls email and let me know :)

3 shaves in 8 days...!!!

So its a week to the day that muchos Reserva Rioja was consumed in order to muster some Dutch Courage in order to get the hair cut that was required due to chemo drugs taking their inevitable toll on my long grown, highlighted blonde locks that I've maintained for the last 20 something years (the cheek of it when I consider that I've spent enough on it at SAKS to be a major shareholder!)

Husband Michael offered and I initially hesitated but then agreed as long as he only had one drink beforehand! I meantime had at least 3 glasses, which made for a very drunken Skerry due to have only having drunk 2 glasses of wine in what seems like an eternally long alcohol free spell! (A big thank you to Julia and Annie for getting me drunk the Saturday night the week before ;) Just 2 glasses - I was a cheap date eh?!)

So above is Michael's practice run (yes he did a half head for effect and then the whole lot as a number 1 and that was in the afternoon well before a drink!)

Its taken me a while but I've decided to share the pics... it started with a Phil Oakey look,

then a number 7,

Then a number 4, then to my final cut - a number 2,

Which resulted in the ceremonial wearing of the lovingly 'hand knitted by my mother' hats, thanks Mum :) accompanied by yes of course, more Rioja!

 

So I've now taken to wearing a selection of hats (favourite one is currently a red VANS hat which Elliot says is the only thing that's made me a cool mum -at last I think to myself, all it took was a hat!!)

So to the 3rd and last head shave of the week, due to take place tomorrow (Sun 30th Nov) for my friend Alex, who's getting his hair shaved by his daughter Lizzy to raise funds for Breast Cancer Care:
https://www.justgiving.com/nomorehairscotland

I promised to publicise his grand haircut on my blog, so its over to you Alex now that you've nearly completed your haircuts countdown on Facebook... I am very humbled that you're doing this for me and others going through this that you know.... do send me a pic as evidence once its done! (And surely my wig has to be better than your one??!!)

love

Skerry
xx

Wee update...

Just a wee update to say I'm doing well - this week has been good and a few things have happened in the last few days which I thought might give you a giggle so here goes...

Tuesday I had a fitting for a prosthesis, aka chicken fillet - yes I am now the proud owner of my very own silicone! Not quite the 36DD one had hoped for but then apparently the Dolly Parton style reconstruction is an option for next year once my body has calmed down from the chemo.

It all went very well, the lady that does the fitting at the hospital has a room that's setup like a department store fitting room, i.e. not the clinical environment that I was expecting. Susan came with me and we judged the various options proffered - think I ended up with the smallest size they had!

I wore it all day and felt almost normal (well, that's based on my usual scale of crazy!) - so much so that it led to an incident in the evening...

Went to my first yoga class in 8 years, forgot I was wearing said prosthesis and when I did a 'table top' or 'dancing dog' (can't remember which but suffice to say I had both legs and arms straight and my back was supposed to be straight!) my prosthesis made a public appearance (need a name for this one Morag...) peeking out from the top of my crop top/teeny bra thing! I decided it was best to remove it and hide it under my sweatshirt which was lying on the floor behind me. Once I had stopped shaking with laughter (silently as the class was in a 'relaxed and meditative state') and resumed downward dog, the instructor then 'helpfully' moved my sweatshirt off my mat which meant prosthesis made a second public appearance! She said oops, I said it was ok and this resulted in her being embarrassed and me having a second fit of the giggles (again in a room full of people being silent, which always makes you laugh more!)

Wednesday I saw the oncologist who was very pleased that I arrived in his office smiling - his view is that I'm doing really well for week 2 and he, the nurse and I had a good laugh about the yoga prosthesis incident :) He's going to prescribe me more drugs (more!!) to try and reduce the nausea and the heartburn for the next round but overall was really pleased with my progress after chemo 1 to date :)

I'm going to write more later today but meantime, check out this video of my very cool boy (edit done by his friend Sam - apparently the last trick is Elliot's best yet - turn up the volume LOUD!)

#affaproudmum :)

Getting better everyday...

Just a quick update to say that now I'm on day 9 and every day feel better and better - nausea is all but gone and apart from constantly being on temperature watch (nurse has got me obsessed with checking my temperature so am now the proud owner of 2 thermometers) not sleeping well (clearly more drugs required so off to phone GP shortly) eating gargantuan amounts frequently and feeling a little spaced out... I'm on the up!

So much so that I even managed to attend last night's John Lewis Xmas shopping evening and spend a few hours with Millie - my lovely mum in law, as evidenced by our meeting Monty...

Have to confess we did try a 'selfie', failed miserably and so harangued a well dressed passer by to take this on my phone! Amanda, hope you're nae greetin'....?? ;)

Did I get lots of pressies bought? Well of course not - but I did treat myself to a lovely red cashmere scarf (cancer perk!), a cuddly bear hat (feel that a photo will be honour bound to be taken once its had its first outing) and some 'headgear' to wear soon for the inevitable falling locks... all still here at the mo but I suspect not for much longer. Jules, you'll be pleased to know I nearly purchased several pairs of boots in one go, but they didn't have any in my size so the 12 pairs in an hour in Madrid record still stands :)

So overall all good - bookings now being taken for coffees, lunches, catch ups whenever you are free - not sure how I'll ever find time to work again ;)

Skerry
x

In the ring with Chemo - round 1...

OK so its official, chemo does make you feel rubbish!

Monday I had bloods taken and I also had a heart scan and ECG. Heart scan was pretty cool (although they had just had new software installed so it took a while - I did wonder if that might be an opportunity for electra to offer training for the medical sector!)

Results were all fine so went in @ 12.30 on Wed for chemo, as planned. Two lovely nurses took me through it, Mary and Shirley (one of them has the surname Savage, made me feel right at home Claire) who patiently sat pumping 4 types of drug in via my hand, one at a time, till 3pm.  Pleased to say that didn't feel anything particularly odd but just very tired towards the end. We had a few giggles and I had a few tears, I think mostly down to the fact that this is the treatment that I was dreading most. I've attached a wee pic right to show how civilised it was - yes I am on the bed holding court as usual ;)

Felt very nauseous that first night with a sore head, took one of the four (yes, four) anti-sickness drugs they've given me, nicknamed Dom Perignon by the nurses as its easier to remember, so that name will do me just fine too plus give me something to look forward to when fizz is an option again! The bag I got home should have me rattling for weeks. The most extreme one is an anti-schizo drug, prescribed in quarters for nausea (but I may take a whole one when the voices start!!).... never a dull...

Day 2 - I felt fine (thought 'this is easy') and managed to go into town and have lunch with Michael (already the 'long suffering' having to put up with me and this is only chemo 1 of 6!) but days 3 and 4 have been like having the worst hangover I've ever had and without the good time preceding it which makes a hangover worthwhile :(

Day 3  - On waking up felt horrendous, thus became an official couch potato and felt quite grim until the day was brightened up by an avalanche of texts and emails and especially by a visit from Louise, home this week from Calgary who helped me cheer me up - thank you Louise :) Cravings also kicked in big time - salt and vinegar crisps anyone? The incessant nausea takes me back to being pregnant when eating little and often seemed to be the cure.

Day 4 (yesterday) - still felt horrendous. At the end of the afternoon I ventured out for the follow up appointment to buy a wig, another tick on the list so we'll see how that works out at the appropriate time. Daniel woke me up this morning and asked if I was wearing it already - I can only assume he was commenting on how glamorous I looked today (i.e. not!!) or how similar the wig looks to current hair (yes I've played it safe\sane and haven't gone for any Lady GaGa madness, although it may only be a matter of time \ or if I decide to up the schizo drugs and \ or decide to visit Geneva as they have a fabulous wig shop there as discovered by brother in law Stephen who sent me a fab clip via YouTube).

So here I am on Day 5, onwards and upwards is what I'm hoping, although I do think that each day the general state of feeling rubbish is improving marginally or that's what I'm telling myself...:) As quoted yesterday, 'may the force be with me'... That I felt like updating this blog makes me think I must be improving...

So to end on a note of interest\amusement, I've created an additional page today to give you a show of the wig samples - it was interesting trying on different styles. Yes one did make me look like my mother (aargghh and sorry Dzid) so as that short do is likely to happen at some point next year, no prizes for guessing which one I went for :)

An enormous and heart felt thank you to all of you supporting me and sending me your positive thoughts, they are needed and really are very much appreciated :) :) Every single message, email, post, comment and text really does help keep my spirits up,

Will update again in the next few days or so,

Skerry
xxx

Autumn Wigfest!

So here's a few samples for a viewing and a giggle... cast your vote if you want to, I can always buy a few more ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that's the last of the seven!