STAGE ONE……..ALMOST DONE

So that’s it. Her worst fear confirmed. The eyelashes are now gone. She’s taken it quite well considering that it was the one side effect she was dreading the most. To be honest with you, I didn’t really notice they’d disappeared (maybe that’s just a man thing) until her eyes kept weeping as we were walking along the street. I suppose you just don’t realise how much protection your eyelashes give until you until they’re not there anymore. The left eyebrow is now the only thing left standing as the right one made a dash for it a couple of weeks ago.

Final chemo this week then. Well, that’s the plan anyway. I’ve got this niggling little feeling that they may want her to do some top up sessions due to the fact that she’s had 60% less dosage than their original plan. We’re apparently booked in for various scans at the end of June to get the update on the shrinkage (as long as Dr Laid Back booked them) but I expect we’ll have more details of those on Thursday at the final pre chemo. Talking of Dr Smooth, I did ask if we could possibly switch back to our original consultant but it looks like she’s somewhere else in the weeks that Sam has the chemo. Hopefully Dr Dynamic will be more lively this week as we have our appointment before lunch.

Another little nugget for Sam on Thursday is that she gets to say goodbye to the PICC line after all this time. They’ll remove it as soon as the chemo session has ended so she won’t have a tap attached to her arm anymore. No more bandages or irritated skin from the dressing that they use on her and no more weekly appointments to get it cleaned.

The side effects of the last Docetaxel were a bit different to before. There wasn’t as much joint pain because the anti depressants did their job of blocking it, however they did bring something new to the party. Previously Sam had 4 days of extreme joint pain that really did stop her in her tracks, but as soon as the 4th day passed she was back to normal almost immediately. This time round the joint pain was gone but what she did have was this feeling that she was outside of her body looking in for at least 10 days. On top of that her taste buds were more messed up and the fatigue was definitely worse. She’s now having the dilemma of whether to take the anti depressants or not. Should she put up with the joint pain for 4 days and recover quicker or be away with the fairies for twice as long? Either way, all she has to do is go through this 3 week loop once more and be as comfortable as she possibly can.

Sam has been one of the bravest people that I’ve ever known during this part of her life. Not once has she moaned, not once has she made other people feel uneasy around her (even when she’s been in pain) and not once has she spent hours laid in bed feeling sorry for herself. I personally don’t think I would have been able to hold off on that last one (but maybe that’s just a man thing) 😉