Wow.

I had one of my key appointments today to review where things are at and to plan the third and final cycle of high dose chemo. The first bit of news is that I am being re-admitted to hospital for chemo on Sunday.
The other bit of news is truly extraordinary, my main tumour marker (betaHCG) was measured as less than 1, any value below 4 is considered to be normal. The test was done on the 23rd of April, which was probably before the second dose of high dose chemo had time to take full effect, so to have such a great result so early in the process is so good that it is overwhelming.This final cycle of chemo should truly kick some cancer butt, and I now have a great deal of confidence that we have beaten it for the third time.
High dose chemo has a lot of of inherent risk associated with it, which is why it is only used when absolutely necessary, the flipside of that is that when it works it usually works very well, there are no guarantees that I am cured for good, but the evidence suggests that I can look to the future with a great deal of hope that we have won.
When I first got the news I was ecstatic, but as we walked home I struggled to believe it was true, I had heard the words from the consultants lips and had seen the numbers on the screen but I was just stunned at my good fortune, when I got home I had to keep checking the printout of the results...not many people get this lucky. I feel stunned, overjoyed, humbled and oh so grateful.

Walked to the hospital via the gardens today and yesterday, it is only about 1.5k each way but I was worn out by the time I got home, it's not the first time I have felt knackered after a trip to the hospital... When walking through the gardens it was strangely comforting to be greeted by the roar of chainsaws as a couple of trees were removed... it reminded me so much of Tassie, where no tranquil moment can go unshattered by some clown with a chainsaw, the only difference between here and Tassie is that instead of echoing around the hills the sound was echoing off the buildings. I've been told that I won't be a proper taswegian until I own a chainsaw of my own.
Leafblower people were also busily making a racket as they went about the futile task of clearing the paths of leaves at a rate slower than that which the trees drop their golden rain. I hear it is difficult to get an appointment with a psychologist this time of year as they are booked out by leáfblower people whose spirit has finally been broken by the realisation that no matter how high tech their leafblower gets, they just aren't going to win:

Besides, if you look closely at an autumn leaf these days you will discover that they have evolved a new strategy to combat the leaf blower, they now simply stay aloft long enough to ensure the operator gets bored and moves on, then the leaf gently glides back to the precise location it was blown from:

We were also interested to see a plane sky writing the words "Lara marry me" above us as we walked, we were surprised too see a second plane join the first to write a very large "NO" in the sky before the first plane had even finished... (ok now I am just making stuff up, there was a second plane, but it flew right on by).
Cheers, Pete.