Today has been another good day for me. I woke up about 3:30am, so had a few hours sleep, lay awake in bed with my eyes shut for a while, resting while I could. Decided to watch the x-factor at 5am on ITV iPlayer. The nurse asked at about 5:30 if I wanted anything, so I decided to have some toast and marmalade whilst watching the x-factor. I didn’t have any cereal at 8am which I tried to at least have a few mouthfuls because I had not long had the toast.
Lunch I ordered the Chicken and was told they hadn’t got any, so I ordered the sausage. Except when it arrived it ended up being the Chicken again. Again I managed to eat most of it along with the potatoes as well as some ice cream and jelly afterwards. I have to take my time eating as my stomach isn’t quite up to it properly, but it’s getting there.
Dinner I decided to try something new, the Corned Beef Hash. Maggie, the nurse, warned me though that it didn’t really resemble anything that looked like Corned Beef Hash! When it arrived, I knew exactly what she meant. It isn’t something you would want to look at if you was feeling a bit sick, lets put it that way. But me being me, I will try anything if it will help in my process of getting better, so I tucked in. Surprisingly it was very nice and I almost ate everything. Maggie asked if I would like some pudding, so I went for my usual of two lots of ice cream; however Maggie came back and said they have ran out of ice cream in the fridge (probably due to me eating so much of it). She suggested steamed jam pudding and custard. Now I’ve been caught out like this before, where my mind thinks … mmm that would be lovely, only to end up being sick once I had tasted it. Throwing caution to the wind again I said yes. It arrived, steaming hot custard, the smell so sweet. I took a tiny bit of custard with my spoon and thought, ‘is this really going to taste as nice as it smelt?’, and yes it did. The sponge, syrup and custard was very sweet, but I could taste it and it didn’t taste, which has made a change as everything becomes tasteless after the chemo. Again I couldn’t manage to eat it all but it was very nice.
I had to rest for quite a while after eating it as I didn’t want to disturb my stomach and throw it up. My stomach was making all sorts of noised and gowns and pains as I could feel it being digested with all of the other food during the day. My body trying it’s hardest to adjust to having food again.
By about 6:30pm my body told me you need to go to the toilet and it was right. It felt like I was there for about an hour, but it also felt like the best poo ever. It felt as though for the first time in weeks my body was actually doing what it was supposed to (at least to a point).
I’ve had a couple of hours sleep and rest and felt good.
I still have a runny nose a bit, but I think it might just be the air conditioning. They have taken swabs, but I wont get the results of that back till tomorrow.
I’ve also had my growth factor again today and tomorrow they will take blood tests again to see if it has started rising. I’d be very surprised if it hasn’t now.
22:00pm and just had some more toast and marmalade, one and half slices is all I could manage with a cup of tea. My weight has gone down again today, but will see what happens tomorrow. I have to keep telling myself that I need to eat and drink, without food and drink my body wont have the energy to recover. So although it has been difficult eating over the last few weeks, the bit by bit procedure I have adopted in my mind seems to be working.
From the looks of it I have manage to avoid all of the worse things that everyone else has experienced, at least so far. I’m obviously not out of the woods yet, but it is looking promising.
Over the next few days I will try and put blog post together that outlines the things I have done to try and make sure it goes as easy as possible for others who have to go through a similar thing. That’s once I know that I am OK and I’m working my way back up, it would be no good making suggestions until then.
