Just When I Thought I was out...They Pull Me Back In.

Despite being offered a bed on the Teenage Cancer Trust Unit to start my next lot of intense chemo on Friday, I opted to postpone this until the Monday and have a nice weekend at home with the family before being institutionalised again for at least a month - I needed time to come down to Earth with all the news, as did the family - and also the weather was too good to miss out on!

Had a lovely catch up with Phil's Grandad and Uncle on Friday afternoon. And then Phil and I had a very yummy dinner out at The Old Mill in Kennington with Phil on the Friday night as my counts were so good. We did splash out a bit - I had the scallops in a garlic and chorizo sauce to start, then their steak and lobster plate and the cheesecake for pudding (was all incredible - never a duff meal there!). Phil had the calamari, Porterhouse steak and chocolate and banana pancakes (all also come highly recommended!). Saturday morning, me and Phil did a bit of retail therapy in Maidstone and I treated myself to a Burger King for lunch. In the afternoon, Lottie had her Rally Driving experience at Brands Hatch that Phil and I had got her for her birthday. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy it at least, which we're very glad about! :)

Think she's enjoying it!

And she came 3rd out of 6 (4 of whom were guys!)

Dad then made an awesome paella for dinner! Definitely been filling up on food I won't be allowed for a while!! Was extremely good!

 

So yum!

Sunday involved a bit more of a chill out day. Went to see Phil's family in the morning after packing up all my stuff ready to head back into hospital. And then we had a scrummy, very fresh KFC - another food I won't be allowed for a while! We had a relaxed afternoon watching Fury and then we had a lovely Roast Beef dinner (done medium-rare) whilst I'm allowed! 

Monday, I was back in hospital after a pit stop for breakfast in their canteen beforehand. This next month will involve an intensive 7 day stint of the chemo protocol I explained in my last post. My counts should be okish until day 10-14 when they will start dropping. I will be in hospital through this time as my counts will hit rock bottom and I will be at risk of infection etc. again as a result. I then have to wait for my counts to come back up naturally when I will then be allowed out (hopefully) for a bit of time at home before I most likely will need another cycle of this.

They are looking for a stem cell donor now, so best case scenario, if this goes quickly, I could have the transplant after just one cycle of Flag-IDA. However, this is unlikely and I will most likely need another cycle like this, with another month in hospital, prior to going for my stem cell transplant. I will know more about dates etc after my bone marrow after this cycle and when a donor is found. The point of this chemo is to reduce my MRD prior to the transplant to give me the best chance of not relapsing in the future, so fingers crossed this will kick its arse! And if it doesn't, the transplant certainly will!!

This week's been inevitably uneventful, as it tends to be in hospital! We had a quiz night on Tuesday with a few of the inpatients, which was nice! Though it would appear my knowledge on Pitch Perfect quotes and James Bond baddies is fairly poor!! Katie and I were very lucky this morning, as well, to go on a tour of the genetics lab here at The Royal Marsden, which was very interesting and didn't help my itchiness to get back to uni. Unfortunately, what with the Stem Cell Transplant and everything now, I think I'm fairly set on not being able to go back in January, and will have to delay it another year...but we shall see... Who knows...

Hope to see some of you lovely people soon anyhow!

Much love to you all xxx