Shiney happy peeple

It's been a busy few days. Had an extensive appointment with the Haematology doctor and coordinator on Monday. They are the people who will manage the high dose chemo & stem cell replacement stage of my treatment. As this phase of treatment could be pretty challenging I am pleased to say that I am very confidant that they are the right people for me.
They gave me a heap of information about what is coming up and what I can expect. I won't go into all that info here, I'll just describe the process through this blog as we go along.
There is one bit of the discussion I must share though. When I asked if there is anything I could do over the next week in preparation for the upcoming treatment, they told me to eat more and try to put on weight... awesome. These are my type of people... except that they didn't give me a prescription for pizza.

I have had several tests and check overs in the last few days to ensure I am in good enough shape to cope with what is coming, these include:

• A lung function test. I'm pleased to say that there has actually been a small improvement in my lung function since the issues I had in 2008, this is a very good result given all the treatment I have had since then and puts me in good stead for the coming months.
• Heart scan (echo), and review with cardiologist. Another good result here, all normal, all good.
• Dental review, the treatment I am about to have is pretty hard on the mouth and digestive tract, so a healthy mouth that has no hidden sources of infection is pretty important. They also gave me a 'megasoft' toothbrush and some special mouth wash. Robyn pinched a second toothbrush for her collection! All was good here too.
• Renal scan. It is important to to determine the actual level of my kidney function. This is because the kidneys are responsible for removing the chemo drugs from my body, but we don't want them to do so too quickly or too slowly, the drugs need enough time to do their work but we don't want them to hang around too long because they could cause problems (especially to the kidneys). The chemo dose I get will be determined by my kidney function. I will get the results of this test early next week.

The Kidney test itself was pretty funky, I was injected with a radioactive tracer that would be removed by my kidneys during the course of the next four hours, hourly blood during that period were taken to determine how quickly the tracer was being removed by my kidneys. In the second part of the test I was again injected with a radioactive tracer, but this time I just lay down in front of a gamma camera. This camera would pick up the radiation from the tracer as it moved through my body, was processed by my kidneys, and then travelled from my kidneys to my bladder via my ureter. We could watch this on a screen in real time, the little dots of radiation appeared on the black screen like stars in the night sky, it was such a nice moment that Robyn started singing Don McLeans Starry Starry Night, I'm sure I could see the planet Uranus too...
Now when I go to the toilet at night I don't have to turn on the light, lol, sorry for the pic:

Shine on you crazy diamond

The results of the tests are great and give me extra confidence that I can get through the next phase of treatment without any unnecessary complications. I am very pleased that I have looked after my body over the years.
I also see a pschologyst next week again to make sure I have everything in place to get through the next few months. I wonder if I have been as good at looking after mind as I have at looking after my body, maybe they will have to use the crazy stamp on my forehead:

Cheers, Pete.