An update at last!

Yes yes, I know I have been a bit slow with the updates lately but you can all relax, put down your mills and boon, turn of days of our lives and read this instead, lucky you!
We are now up to day 8 of the final cycle of chemo and something like day eighty seven since treatment started, so the finishing line for the chemo phase is definitely in sight.
I'm not sure how many of those eighty seven days I have spent in a multibed hospital room, quite a few I suspect... and ohh the funny stories I could tell about my fellow patients. I won't do that though as it is probably not considered fair game to pick on people with cancer so I will have to pick on someone else instead. I have picked on the doctors once or twice but as they can easily afford to launch a civil suite against me if they feel a bit miffed I will have to pick on an  underpaid target instead, i.e nurses.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been full of praise for the nurses at Peter Mac, and I stand by all of my comments to date, they have earned every good word I have written. Now however, I have a slightly different perspective. My enlightenment has come about due to the fact that the room I now occupy is close enough to the staff room and nurses station to actually hear what goes on.
I have never actually been in the staff room itself, and now that I am a little wiser I would refuse to enter anyway, but if I did go in there I would not expect to find the usual table, chairs, unwashed dishes and shit all over the place. No, judging by the noise that emanates from there I would expect to see this:

Granted there is still shit all over the place, but normal staff rooms does not have incessant cackling, nesting boxes, a strict pecking order and a self important, know nothing rooster strutting around the place... oh wait... whatever, email me if you need any eggs.

As for my treatment, things continue to go as planned. The third and final infusion of chemo was completed on Wednesday (huge cheer!), it has made me a bit more tired than last time, but as some of the effects of chemo are cumulative a bit extra fatigue is not surprising. The heavy chemo load over the years has also caused some additional 'peripheral neuropathy', which in my case is just numbness, tingling and poor circulation in the hands and feet, along with some tinnitus in my ears. It is caused by the chemo damaging nerve endings in those locations. I also have some difficulties with concentration due to 'chemo brain', which is difficult to describe, if I could remember what it is like I would tell you all about it... get it? I will also be left with a few other long term issues, but after fourteen cycles of chemo in six years I am not doing too bad.
Friday brought about my final stem cell transplant, so all twelve million of my babies have now come home to roost. No wonder I'm tired! Now we play the waiting game again and hope that I can stay infection free long enough for my stem cells to do their thing again. All being well I should be out of here around Tuesday next week, then we start down the road towards recovery and the planned operation.
Cheers, Pete.