Catching Up

Well, here’s another attempt to catch up with last week’s events. Sorry it is so late but I really have not had the energy to write over the last few days.

Last Wednesday I attended the Christie for my second dose of chemo. This was a quicker procedure and consisted of a half-hour infusion.

I had been told that my treatment chair was booked for ten o’clock and I got there a few minutes early to discover that I should have been there an hour before treatment-time for blood tests. Still, it didn’t seem to put them out too much and I was home again by a quarter to one.

I don’t think this treatment knocked me about in the short-term as much had the first one of the cycle but I hadn’t slept much over the previous night so I was tired and slept most of the afternoon and evening.

On Thursday the real bad time began with a really painful recurrence of pissing broken glass which made me very sore indeed and creased me completely. The pain-killers did hit it on the head eventually but on Friday it was even worse & I was curled up in a ball with agony most of the afternoon. I thought my penis was on fire & it took a mixture of different pain-killers to make me feel human again.

Since then I have been so sensitive and tender that I’m shuffling around like an old man & I can’t get out of the house. And, of course, I need the bathroom every few minutes day and night.

I remembered that one of the chemo nurses at the Christie had warned me that if the tumour did start to break up the debris had only one way out and that I must drink a lot to keep my bladder flushed out. I wondered if the pain and soreness was caused by the debris in some way having irritated my urethra again so I e-mailed her to ask.

She rang me back yesterday morning and was concerned that I might have a slight infection and strongly advised me to call on my GP for antibiotics which I did. So now I’m on two sorts of pain-killers, two drugs which were originally prescribed to help shrink my prostate & antibiotics. I am now getting full value from the NHS.

It’s embarrassing how many women are taking an interest in my willy just now. I wish as many had taken such interest when I was in my twenties.

I had another rotten night last night running to the bathroom so often I’ve probably warn tracks in the carpet between there and the bedroom. I think the longest period of unbroken sleep was about 45 minutes which means I’m shattered.

This morning a community-based MacMillan nurse came to talk to Ann. At last there was somebody to answer her questions & help her deal with her fears and concerns.

It turns out the the nurse, Elaine, is a fellow-magistrate who I’ve sat with a few times.

Mind you, it’s now clear to me that I won’t be able to sit whilst I’m on chemotherapy and certainly won’t be able to if radiation follows or for some time after surgery if we end up there so I have taken leave of absence from the bench. I regret having to do so but if I can’t do the job properly then I’m not doing it at all.