I woke up early in anticipation of the second chemo day. I had a shower amd we dropped the boys at my sisters as she was dropping them off at school/nursery for us. We arrived early at the hospital so went to the Rosemere Foundation Charity office. We met Rita who was enthusiastic and offered to pass on my details to the fundraiser for my area as they cover all of Lancashire and South Cumbria. I handed in our entry forms for the Walk in the Dark (sponsor us at www.justgiving.com/HRServices-Rosemere, thanks)
I was called up to the ward and saw the student nurse Chris and also an old mutual friend, Joanna, who is also a nurse on the ward. I was shown to my chair and began to get comfortable. Jo mentioned that my bloods came back with a low white cell count, so she needed to take another sample and wait for the results, which would take about 45 minutes. I sat back in the chair as she took my blood and started off the IV machine to give me the saline while we waited for the results.
To pass the time we laughed and joked with Chris, Jo and another patient as the ward wasn't full, Chris was going to a fancy dress party as a frog, as it was jungle themed. Thanks to google for providing important info in his research for the role of a frog!
The time passed quickly and the bloods came back unaltered from the previous days sample. Jo explained that they would expect the count to be around 1.5, and that they would administer the chemo with a count above 1, but my results were around 0.5. She went onto say that if I were to have chemo with my current levels, it would likely kill me, so she recommeded that I don't have the chemo today and it be postponed for a week to allow my body to recover! I agreed. Apparantly this is a common occurance and the guy next to me had had two chemo sessions delayed for the same reason. Claire came up to instruct me to take it easy this week and told me that I wouldn't be recieving any drugs to take home.
We left the ward a little frustrated as I feel fine within myself and we were geared up to go, had organised time off work, a sleepover for the boys and general childcare, now we had to re-do all of this for next week. We joked that it's an inconvenience, but its better to be alive with an inconvenience, than not be alive at all.
Leonie had received some vouchers for her birthday in Januray for the Walled Garden at Barton Grange. We always tended to go here for our wedding anniversary, but then life took over and we haven't been for a while. Its a nice little restaurant, very quaint. Leonie had a risotto and I had chicken, all locally produced. Over half the menu was GF, which was surprising. After a pleasant and relaxing lunch we went to get some shopping before heading home to wait for the boys. I think everything caught up with me, and I fell asleep (as did Leonie) for a couple of hours.
In the evening we watched Sports Relief. The things people do for charity, for example Davina Mcall, reminded me of my swim and where all this began, but her challenge was really inpirstional. I love things like this, it spurs me on to better things, I want to do another big challenge, I hope I get a chance to do another challenge and we are starting to plan the next one for next year hopefully.
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