Reflections on this week’s outpatient chemo

Tuesday’s appointment and treatment was fine.  My bloods are still holding steady and I don’t have much of a reaction to the vincristine – a bit more neuropathy and a little nausea, but nothing too awful.  I got a bit of a shock though while I was in the outpatients ward – someone I was in hospital with last August who had the same type of ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukaemia) that I did came in.  Last time I saw him a few months ago he had just had a stem cell transplant and was looking really well.  On Tuesday he didn’t look well at all and I was sad to hear that he has had a relapse and there is no further treatment they can give him.  He was very calm about it and talked about his bucket list and the gifts he was buying for his family to remember him by.  It was a salutary reminder that this disease is not to be trifled with.
On Thursday I spent all day in the outpatient ward all day from 08:15 to 18:35.  Although my bloods were fine, there was a question mark over the clotting factors.  So I had blood tests first thing in the morning again and had the 1.5 hours of intravenous bone strengthening medication while we waited for the blood results.  Those came back at 12:30 and they decided to give me two units of plasma before the intrathecal which took until 14:40.  Then I waited for the doctor to come and do the intrathecal which happened around 17:00.  This time my back was not being cooperative so I ended up having it sitting up (a new departure) and felt rather like a pincushion.  Of course I was then too late to collect the rest of my medication from the pharmacy so that meant another trip to the hospital on Friday afternoon.  Oh well, at least it will be another 3 months before I need to have the outpatient chemo again.
One of the nice things about coming in for treatment once every 3 months is seeing the staff and other patients on the ward.  During the year I was in and out of here 3 or 4 times a week I got to know the staff and began to feel they were like a second family.  It is good to catch up with them again, and also with other patients I haven’t seen for a while.