Stop Dreaming. Start Living.

So, it's been just over a week since my last blog. I've mainly been at home but spent last Wednesday through to Friday on the Bud Flanagan West Ward at the Royal Marsden for my anti fungal treatments and bone marrow and intrathecal chemotherapy. Grace was amazing and put up with some horrific traffic to come and see me on Wednesday! It was so so lovely to catch up and talk vet chat! She's also convinced me to put down a deposit for Grad Ball, which would be amazing if I could go to! I really do want to go with everyone I've spent the last four and a half years having an amazing time at uni with!! I've also sorted my Yearbook entry, which everyone should do if they haven't already! Will be an amazing momento for an incredible 5 years! The stay in hospital wasn't too bad and I made the most of it with a fry up :P. Everything went well - again, lovely sedation for the bone marrow so not a problem :) I received more Vincrinstine on the Friday, which is doing it's lovely job at making my hands trembly and numb. It's now spread to the tips of my toes too, which always makes life more interesting! 

I had a great weekend at home! Managed to get down to see Hannah at the grooming parlour, which was lovely! Hoping to see the old kennel lot on Monday (fingers crossed!). And saw the lovely Lauren, Terry and Sam on Saturday evening for a good catch up! :) Also, managed to get to Ikea on Sunday with Dad to get a new book shelf for my room (since I now have A LOT of uni work that needed a home!). We got a new rug for the lounge too, which Flo seems to think is just for her! And we may have bought a lot of their rather scrummy Swedish meatballs! Horse meat or no horse meat, they are yum! I also made some homemade Pizza Hut-style garlic breadsticks (as requested by Phil), which I have to admit went a lot better than I expected and were extremely tasty! Even if I do say so myself!

Dad also was itching to shave the final stubble of hair I had off too! Which I have to admit was necessary as I had my wig fitting coming up. I did say to him that I bet he never thought he'd be shaving my head in his life time though! So here's a picture of my very shiny bald head now and the master at work!

Completely gone now!

Monday involved another trip up to the Royal Marsden for more blood tests, anti fungal treatment and a consultant appointment. My neutrophil count was still too low to start the new oral chemo, they have to be above 0.75 and mine were 0.64 or something, so not quite enough. Platelets were still good though! Yay! The best bit, however, was the fact that all my IV stuff was done through my new PICC line!! I have been waiting to have this placed for 5 weeks and finally I got it done! It's a central line that goes through your upper arm into a large vein and down into your superior vena cava. It means that bloods and IV products can be given without having to be stabbed continuously with cannulas and needles!! Woop! Like everything, there are risks but my god is it easier! This stays in for the entirety of my IV chemo treatment too so is very handy indeed. It is seriously cool how it is placed as well! Firstly, the vein in the arm is ultrasounded and a cannula and guide line can be seen going into the right bit of the vein. The line is then placed and an external ECG is compared to an internal ECG that is on the guide line. When the P wave is at it's largest on the internal ECG compared with the external ECG it means the line is in the correct place in the superior vena cava. Seriously cool and seriously expensive bit of kit, which means you don't have to have a chest X-ray to check the line's in the right place. 

Me under my drape - not used to
being this way round!

Caroline doing the PICC line - usually me in the sterile gown!

The external ECG above the internal ECG

The appointment with my consultant then went fairly well too! From my initial bone marrow aspirate results, which the Royal Marsden do, it appears that I am in remission as they can't find any leukaemia cells! Yay! I still have to wait on results from Barts hospital, however, which is the minimal residual disease test, where they do a PCR of my bone marrow cells and see if I'm high or low risk, which will then dictate whether I stay on the intermediate regimen or have to go to a more intense one. The only problem is because my blood count was so low when they took the bone marrow on Thursday there isn't enough DNA present in the sample for the test to be reliable, so unfortunately I have to have another one tomorrow. I am being sedated again though so it really isn't that bad! Whilst we wait for the results, however, I'm being continued on the intermediate regimen which consists of three weekly intrathecal chemo treatments on Thursdays and a couple of doses of Cyclophosphamide on a couple of Fridays, along with weekly 4 consecutive days (Friday to Monday I think) of Cytarabine (which I think I may be injecting myself with SC) and my new oral chemo - Mercaptopurine - hopefully! As of tomorrow I'm off the steroids too, thank goodness, so I can eat normally again, despite still being rather obsessed with food (in case you couldn't tell from my Facebook! I apologise I may have become one of THOSE people :S )

I had a lovely day Tuesday, seeing Gwen and Edd (Phil's god parents). Phil and I then cooked our yummy meatballs in homemade tomato sauce and made our own Malteaser milkshakes in my Nutribullet! That gadget is great for so many things! (Thank you again Auntie Boo!) We then had a nice chillaxed afternoon in front of the TV (well I did, whilst Phil slept in preparation for his night shift).

Today was probably one of the most exciting days, however. I had my wig fitting at Barbara Carpenters in Maidstone (who I would highly recommend!). The Little Princess Trust incredibly cover the cost of the amazing human hair wig (£600!), shampoo, conditioner, stand and brush - they really are an amazing charity! You get to choose what colour and length you want and then it gets styled to your exact specification - and it's incredible! So so exciting!!

The hair cut!

The finished article!

Anyway, tomorrow, as I've mentioned is another trip up to the Royal Marsden - luckily not so early this time! So I'm sure I'll be updating you all again soon when I have the second lot of test results! Keeping everything crossed!

Much love to you all xxx