Ding Ding! Round Four!.....

Monday
I wake up early and am ready for action, today is the start of round four and I am itching to get back in the ring. Bring it on!
I have a cuppa on the beach as Miche readies for work, then once she leaves I head to the car. That job is gonna get done! I am under the car before 8 am and ripping panels back out, oops maybe too quick as one comes out in two pieces, Reaches for the silver tape...
Tape split the spring bounces back into action (not quite as impressively as i hoped but fully all the same). Panels patched and re-fixed the job is truly completed. Yeah!
Bath and breakfast of coffee, 2 eggs, 2.5 toast, ham and a tin of beans later, oh and a bit of packing, and I am ready for the hospital by 10 am!
The roots drop me off and I am welcomed back to familiar and a very pleasant surprise: I am back in the room of two, the second room I was in from the start, this is fantastic and will make this round even better!

I quickly run through my list of tasks I know are needed to be done this morning by all the staff: Rubitoximab, blood tissue type test and heart stress test. All appears well as they know all this! I settle in and get to know my new room mate. I also do my standard paranoid full cleaning of my bedside cabinet, bad, patient line machine and adjacent walls (although I wore gloves this time). Checking in forms and the tissue typing blood test follows, and later a brief doctor visit.
After lunch I am summoned for the stress test.

In the Cardio department a few things happen I was not expecting: first off more chest hair bites the dust as I am shaved to make way for the electrodes. OK, but then the skin is sanded hard with sand paper for each electrode, which are salted! Is this torture really necessary? Because I am certainly stressed now! They don't like my "Crocs", but I insist I can run in them and that they will not fall off. Still I now wish I had come in with trainers!

On the Machine it starts at a nice uphill walk, OK this is easy, no worries here. I notice the picture on the wall in front of me and ask which Harbour it is, apparently I have to guess but the clue is it on the local north coast. I try but it ain't no surf beach so I fail that test, (it turns out to be Portknockie).

The pace steps up every 3 min or so. After a few steps I ask "can I run now?", the answer is no, so I have to force my wee legs to walk faster. For someone who could not eat for over a week and lost a stone a week ago I guess I am doing OK, but I imagine Lance Armstrong looking on in disapproval as the test winds up a pace. We reach my heart maximum of 180, so I guess the test will complete. No still faster to go, so I start to hang on a bit harder one armed while the other is used to test my blood pressure. I don't want to give up and be "beaten" by the machine. Apparently there is only one level left and its up to me if I go for it, but am told I can run for this one. I am cream crackered but dammit, as its up to me, I have to go for it! I think I lasted only 20 seconds and finally shout "stop!". Beaten, I step off thinking if only I was tested 3 weeks ago when I did the 46 storey stair climb. They reassure me all the info they needed was collected, but I still wanted to beat the machine! I have since found out I had a haemoglobin (Hb) blood count of only 80, a level at which many patients are transfused at, so maybe I can cut myself a bit of slack!

It was interesting for me noting my blood pressure result during the excercise, where my systolic rose from 139 to 180 odd, and the diastolic fell from 86 to 74 .

Back on the ward I am seen by one of my docs, who takes a standard Blood test, he's a Surfer like me so we have a good crack. After a fine afternoon of visiting, and the evening meal (less fine), I am twitchy about when the chemo will start. I then find out it has been cancelled for the day as the blood test results were not back in time. I am very disappointed, so I ask if I can go for a walk off the ward. I am surprised how angry I am inside, I had really wanted to be back on the fight. I pop to the staff canteen to case it out, I have not tried it since all this started and haven't eaten there for years. I try a plate of chips as the rest does look dire tonight! Halfway through I formulate a plan, which is that in compensation surely there is no need for me to stay the night, since I have received no new treatments. I check back with the docs and they agree, and meanwhile Miche arrives so we grab my ruck sac and head for home!
I have a great evening at home, despite the fact I am stuffed with hospital food so there's no room for anything more wholesome, but never mind! (The Moral - there's always a good side if you open your eyes to it!)