A quiet week really: since we have managed to re-establish that pain threshold baseline in a better place, the arm has been less troublesome, and added to my careful choices about what I actually do with it, I have been pretty pleased with the results.
There's not much happening on the treatment front till the 25th June: that's when 2 weeks of daily radiotherapy begins: though next week we have an appointment for the "preparation" for radiotherapy, whatever that actually means. Unfortunately the radiotherapy is scheduled to be done at Canterbury, rather than Margate which is a longer journey but all things considered Canterbury is not that far. Only takes about 30 or 40 minutes to get there so it could be a lot worse. I have heard of people who travel 2 hours each way for radiotherapy daily so mustn't complain!
One of the most annoying parts of the medication side of things is just how rubbish the doctor's surgery are at understanding the patient's need to get medication in a timely manner. The basic idea is that if you need a repeat prescription you call/contact the surgery and request the drugs you need. Now, doing this with, say, 3 or 4 days supply of drugs left should be ample you would have thought? In our case, the surgery doesn't even seem to look at a repeat request for about 48 hours, and then it might take another 24 hours to actually write and sign the prescription. In this age of modern communication, they insist that all requests are made in writing but are unable to accept requests via e-mail, and the form on the surgery website is disabled! When I enquired about this with a receptionist the other day she actually put the phone down on me. Frankly, doctor's surgery receptionists are so far up their own non-clinical ass thinking they know what you want that they rather lose sight of their responsibility to the patient and that they are there to provide a service where the patient is the most important part of the whole thing! Go to NHS websites and one of the biggest things they always say is that patients should always be treated with care and dignity among all sorts of other superlatives: hmmmm, I wish someone would point that out to the receptionists at our surgery.
The sudden realisation that you have cancer hits you like a sledgehammer. On 9th February after 2 months of tests and all sorts thats what they told me. In more ways than one it's a life-changing moment and your mind goes into overdrive thinking all kinds of worst case scenarios.
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