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Chemo-savvy
Chemo-savvy
5th May 2006
And so it begins. A second front in the battle for my body is about to open up. The first salvo of Operation ‘Body Storm’ will be fired at 12.00 hours on Tuesday 16th May. Collateral damage is inevitable – innocent bystanders (the good cells) will be destroyed along with the enemy. Just how much collateral damage will occur is unknown. Those cells which divide rapidly – skin, hair, lining of the mouth and digestive system – as well as the cancer cells - are in the front line. At present we cannot simply target the enemy and avoid the civilians – the drugs do not discriminate. Seems to me we need smart weapons instead of weapons of mass destruction.
The day before, at 09.30 hours, a line will be inserted – hopefully into a vein in my arm. If the veins are reluctant to get involved (and who can blame them) then it’s to the operating theatre for a line into the chest. Then home to relax until the kick-off.
The current plan is for 6 cycles of treatment once a fortnight. A cocktail of drugs will be injected and then the big one will drip into my body over a 48-hour period. Fortunately the drug can be administered by a pump, which I will wear (somehow) – this means I don’t have to stay in hospital, but can come home while the battle rages. So, another dinky medical accessory to add to my collection.
Meet the troops at the Oncology Centre at Northampton this morning. A staff nurse shows me round the battlefield – a group of a dozen or so reclining chairs arranged in a sort of horse-shoe shape. Could be mistaken for a furniture showroom - except the white pillow on the right arm of each chair says that this is no ordinary gathering of furniture. This is where I’ll spend the first 2 hours of each 48 having cocktails. The staff seem very nice – other patients are there getting dosed up. Everyone looks so normal – you wouldn’t pick them out in the street as needing chemo.
I leave with a little green book which details my treatment, lists side-effects, and emergency numbers to contact. There’s a lot to take in. I need a blood test the day before each cycle. The pump has to be disconnected (in hospital) at the end of each 48-hour cycle and the line flushed out once a week. I’m provided with a supply of anti-nausea drugs but I’ll need to get a thermometer to monitor my temperature (over 38°C means an infection). The blood tests are essential for gauging the effect on my bone marrow. If the blood count falls between cycles, the next may be delayed to give them time to recover. I’m going to have to start eating red meat – particularly liver (the irony of eating liver to save my own is not lost on me) or start drinking stout instead of cider.
It’s a full-time job having cancer – there’s a lot to learn and a lot to do. You have to become sensitive to minute changes in your body, without becoming a hypochondriac. You have to know your enemy if you want to defeat it. So there’s a lot of research to do – on the progress of the disease and the treatments available. I could really do with a PA.
Most of the side-effects are well known but a few surprise me; numbness and tingling in the hands – not a big deal you might think, but could make playing the guitar difficult – and it’s not unknown to drop a cold drink taken from the fridge. Another is more scary – laryngeal spasm – affecting the voice box. Again it’s related to low temperatures; so even if I manage to hang on to a cold drink from the fridge, I shouldn’t drink it – especially not before a gig. And then there’s depression; in fact depression is now seen as a side-effect of cancer itself, not just chemo. So it’s perfectly normal to feel low with this disease. Which is a relief.
Having said that, many of the side-effects are rare. And that’s the odd thing – some people will experience a number of side-effects, some people will get a few and some may get none at all.
The next 12 weeks or so are going to be eventful, one way or another. I want to fit in a couple of gigs and a charity bike ride. It looks as if the chemo cycles will be on Tuesdays, which means my weekends should be fine. I’ll report back in my next dispatches from the front.
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