April 14 - More CT Scans, Bone Scans, Bloods, etc

Following blood transfusion I was due for my regular oncology appointment to discuss my treatment so far...
I was worried about getting my 7th cycle of chemo. I was worried I would not survive. I expressed my fears to my oncologist. My body felt so exhausted from endless needles, endless chemos and hospital appointments. It was almost like constant boxing match with no finish !
Its like your body never gets to fully recover and than you re asked to go for yet another boxing match and it goes on and on and each time it gets really exhausting. I felt tired and bored of it as well! When people ask me how I am I think yes they want to know about my latest treatments but to be honest with you I was bored of cancer talk ! I was frustrated and angry that I can no longer live normal life.

I wanted to go out there enjoy the life I should have had in my alternative sliding door reality. I wanted to laugh, smile and love. I wanted to run in the daisy field, I wanted to go for a  lovely nature walks when everything is blossoming and waking up from a long winter months. I  wanted to feel the sun, the sea water on my face again. I wanted to worry about silly little things like running late for work,  my latest haircut, my endless chores, etc etc. I would give anything to erase my cancer life  and start over again. But I was stuck. I was stuck in this cancer ridden body and I know there is only one way for all this to end. However, no one asked me if Id like that kind of ending ?!
I know we are all gonna die one day, some people sooner, some people later but for now...

 Go away cancer I want to enjoy my life !!!
(Actually, I felt like swearing but thought i shouldn't )

So my oncologist has decided to give me a month off chemo to recover a little. In the meantime I ll have further tests, including bone scan as well. Ive asked to see my latest MRI scan before I left. My lovely oncologist Jason put them up for me. My spine especially my vertebra T12
looked even more hollow and it looked like there was more cancer within it. I kind of started to panic a little bit but of course there was nothing I could do about it ..
He mentioned it could be treatment thats draining my bones and might be good to get a bone scan done as well as part of the staging of my cancer. I agreed and left hospital.

Walking out of the hospital and knowing Ive got a month off treatment felt great. I felt certain sense of freedom but also worry. I was worried that my bones / my vertebra were even more brittle now.
 I ll have to be careful not to cause further fractures and I ll be ok I thought. However I was free for now ! Its almost like someone released me from this chemo prison and said go and live your life. I felt great despite of everything ..


More scans ...

So few days later I had my CT scan and my usual problems with my blood vessels. They ve tried 4 times with no success to insert a little cannula. At the end its was decided I d have CT done with no contrast of whatsoever.
Few days later I was booked to have my bone scan. I never had a full body bone scan before and this was something new to me. Again they had to insert a contrast ( more needles! ) before they do the scan itself. So I waited for 3 hours for the contrast to work.
 They positioned my in this huge machine and asked me to stay still. Machine will be in a close contact to my body, they ve explained.

 Ah dear, Im gonna be a pancake ! 

I ve imagined this huge machine will squash me down should they make one false move! So i closed my eyes and nearly fell asleep.
I was done and asked to sit in the waiting room in case they need to redo it. Few minutes later I was asked to come for a scan again of my chest only. Is this a bad sign I though?  I was desperate to know why they needed to do second scan but knew I wouldn't get any answers asking. So after they finished I was ready to leave. As I was picking my things from a chair I had a quick glance at my scan on their computer. It looked incredibly white on the ribs on my right side. This was the side I had pains and actually I still have them. So my initial thought was that cancer is now in my ribs too !!!
 I worried for a day or two after my scan but realised I couldn't change anything. So a couple of days later I decided to occupy myself with the little things in life that make me happy.

So I chose to do the best I can with my "month of freedom" and enjoy every moment of it :-)

(between my hospital appointments of course)