Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! Nope.

Opened my blinds this morning to see three hot air balloons floating past, one of them was quite close. Hot air ballooning is something I can highly recommend. We took my sister up for her 40th birthday... seems a long time ago now (hahaha, I'll pay for that last comment). Ballooning gives you great views and it is very peaceful to just drift along with the morning breeze.
Things continue to really well, I have not even gone close to having a fever yet, which means I have managed to avoid infection. That is pretty amazing for someone who has a depressed immune system and has spent the last eleven days surrounded by other sick people (the last three days I have had no immune system at all).
Also, I have somehow managed to avoid or minimise a lot of the problems that most people get when having this type of chemo, maybe all those years of looking after myself reasonably well might be paying off...
The only slightly unusual issue is that my heart rate keeps jumping up to around 120 beats per minute with even the mildest activity, having a shower will do it. Everytime it happens they give me another ECG, which always checks out ok. I've had so many now that I reckon they should just leave the machine by my bed and I will do it myself. My heart was thoroughly checked out before we start all this and everything was fine and blood tests reveal that my electrolyte levels are ok too, so it is likely that the high heart rate is just another indication of how hard my body is working to repair itself and get over the chemo.
I also had the worlds slowest nose bleed last night, it dribbled just a couple of drops every ten minutes for about an hour. The bleed was caused by my very low platelet levels, normal platelet levels are between 150 and 400, my level this morning was sitting at 10. At least that is what they tell me, after the nose bleed and the puffy eye a couple of weeks ago I am suspicious that one of the nurses might be smacking me over the head with my own patient chart in the middle of the night, maybe they have been reading this blog.
I think the Peter Mac building might be reading this too, after I called the building out of date on yesterdays blog it seems that it engaged in a bit of payback. Last night the nurse call system malfunctioned, instead of giving a short buzz everytime a patient hits the button, this time it got stuck on and gave out a long and continuous wail for the next half hour, dogs within a 5 mile radius were doing this:

Overnight I had the smallest increase in my neutrophils, from 0.00 to 0.01. I might be getting excited over nothing, but last time my neutrophils turned the corner they rose so quickly that I was out of hospital just 3 days latter. Here's hoping they are on the rise again!
Cheers, Pete.

Looking out the window

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre has a pretty amazing location, patients with a window seat have views from most levels. To the East are views over Fitzroy gardens and beyond to the Dandenong ranges, Southerly views capture the sports precinct, the Domain and Botanic gardens, Government house and the Yarra river. My window looks to the north, along with some great autumn sunshine from time to time my view features a fine view of the huge, elaborate, crazy, gargoyle laden stone heap that is ST Patricks Cathedral:

You can actually see the Peter Mac building in that photo, it is the ugly grey building about half way up the right hand side of the photo.
I am on the second floor at the moment, right at canopy level of some trees that are only now starting to showing off their autumn colours. They are not dropping their leaves yet, except for those that are shaken loose by a rowdy and very busy flock of birds that visit every evening. The birds make almost as much noise as one of my nurses, who is a one person flock of cockatoos.
Whilst I can't fault the staff of Peter Mac, the truth is that the building itself is beyond it's use by date. It is overcrowded, under pressure and slightly run down. It probably does not function as well as a modern hospital does as it was built when nursing practises were very different and it's ancillary facilities for patient use are pretty poor (things like day rooms are constantly being replaced as the operational needs of the hospital increase).
Which is why they are currently spending a lazy billion dollars to build this:

 The new building currently goes by the not so glorious name of the 'Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre', only a particularly dull committee of bureaucrats could come up with that.
I don't care what they call it, apart from the occasional check I don't plan on spending much time there. What I do hope is that the current culture of outstanding professionalism and extraordinary care that exists in the old building can be transferred to the new one. Given the calibre of people here I have no doubt they will do that with ease.


 

Day nine of second cycle of high dose chemo

It's day 9 and my white blood cells and neutrophils have fallen right away to nearly zero again. That is one day earlier than the last cycle so I'm hoping that means that recovery come one day earlier as well. If it does mean that, and everything else goes well, then I hope to be out of hospital on the 13th or14th, so I have about another week as an inmate, err inpatient.
Things are going along pretty well at the moment, most of the issues I had last cycle have been kept at bay thus far, especially the stomach/bowel problems, so I am able to eat much better too. Fingers crossed that all continues to go well!