Week 4 - Day 20

It feels good to be writing 'Day 20' – I have finally reached the end of week 4 and am now two-thirds of the way through treatment. The session today was a challenge. I took morphine first thing this morning, as advised, to help me eat breakfast. That part was a success, but unfortunately the morphine seems to be stronger than my anti-sickness meds so by the time I arrived at the hospital I was practically green with nausea from the car journey. I had all of two minutes to try to breathe and re-set myself, before I was called into treatment. I explained to the team what had happened and they were very reassuring, telling me to raise my hand at any time if I thought I was going to be sick so that they could rush in and unbolt me. This seemed to make things worse as I started to visualise in my mind how they would manage to clean the mask (which is like mesh, so full of little holes) in the event of an unexpected regurgitation of my breakfast. This obviously didn't help me! Also probably too much information and I don’t want to put you off your dinner. I asked them to play Someone Like You today – I was in need of some loud, shouty Adele to distract me. This seemed to do the trick, along with some focused breathing, as I thankfully went through the procedure without issue.

Afterwards, I was treated to some pampering, if you can call it that. I had a 15 minute relaxation session with the lovely lady from the Penny Brohn charity. This involved lying back in a reclining chair in dim lighting while she did guided breathing. There is a good chance I may have had a tiny power nap during that time; I certainly felt very relaxed. This could, of course, have been because I had been feeling so awful after the car and treatment that any opportunity to lie down was extremely welcome. It got even better after that as I then had a reflexology session – more time lying horizontally, while someone massaged my feet and toes. Such a strange sensation. There was no doubt this time, I definitely fell asleep as I woke myself up snoring a few times (my throat is so blocked!) and had to keep apologising to the poor lady enduring the noise. She was very lovely about it. Frankly, it was just nice to have someone performing a non-medical procedure for a change.

The journey home was as bad as the outbound ride had been, so when I stumbled through the front door, I couldn’t do anything other than lie down (again) – and have mostly stayed that way today. I managed some cheese pasta for lunch and a McDonald’s cheeseburger for dinner. I had a strange craving for something other than bland cheese dishes, so it was a morphine and maccy’s fest this evening. I needed a lot of water, and it did hurt, but I managed it! Now to chase it with a McFlurry! Then it's back to the sofa for the torment that is Bake Off. I’ll probably spend tonight dreaming about eating all of those delicious Bake Off goodies. One day!