4th cycle today

I had my 4th cycle of chemo this morning. It went well although I was a little bit worried as a new nurse was doing it for me. Yesterday when she drew out blood from me, the blood spilled and stained the pillow as well. Luckily today she was handling it well. I noticed that the doses of Doxorubicin and Cyclophosphamide were reduced and the infusion took lesser time to complete. Thank God this is the last dose of these drugs and I'm responding well to the treatment; the lump has shrunk around 50%. At times I could not feel the lump anymore :-)

My next appointment with the Oncologist will be in a month time. I managed to psycho them to postpone the next one for a week because I need to go for a week course in Warwick. When I come back from the course, I'd have to for more checkups like echo test, ct scan etc for them to select at random of which drug I'll have for the next 12 weeks. If it's Ixabepilone, I'll have it every three weeks which I prefer as I'll have time to go for the conference in Dublin this coming August. If it's paclitaxel, too bad I will have it weekly for 12 weeks, meaning more frequent trips to the hospital. Luckily they are sending a taxi everytime I go to the hospital, as part of the clinical trial deal. Allah is great; when we have no car, He makes it easy for me to go to and come back from the hospital at ease. Every ride to the hospital, I keep thinking how fortunate I'm and for that, Alhamdulillah...

Early of the month, the weather was bright and shiny and my biggest obstacle during this season is hay fever. I cannot stand the pollen, and as the result my eyes were swollen red last week. Now that the weather is a bit cooler, and it rains almost everyday, the pollen is controlled and my eyes are back to normal. I can't take any chances and during my appointment last Monday, I requested for some medication to treat the symptoms of hay fever. I now have Chlorphenamine for that.

All in all, I can't wait til this is over. I can't wait to go back home especially now that it's durian season in my hometown. Will the cancer like durian? I don't know and I don't care, if the king fruit is in front of me, I can easily eat 3 or 4 whole fruit at one go. Imagine how good the smell of the urine will be. I really get tired of my urine smell now - the smell of drugs...