And how were the drugs administered, is it all intravenous?

Intravenous yes. I think that’s quite traumatic. In, you know, for some people I had a problem them finding a vein, always was a problem and I think that’s a problem for a lot of people. And so you’re almost relieved when they get the cannula in and start getting the chemotherapy in because you think’thank goodness that bit’s over. Because, you know, physically at the time that’s the worst bit, you don’t actually feel the effects of the drugs going in you at that time and, obviously it’s all flushed through with saline and they put lots of other bits and bobs in as well as the chemotherapy! So that’s physically probably the worst thing is the having the drip put in.

And the fear. I mean I was so frightened about that, that I was almost sick. Just the not knowing, just the absolute fear of ‘What are they going to do to me?’ And knowing that while they’re doing it, okay they’re putting a fluid inside me which is making me better, but it’s absolutely killing the system that my body’s lived with all these years that has kept me well. And I know when the drip was going through and you can see the liquid coming down the tubes, it’s poison. And to be I thought about it like bleach. When I stick bleach in the sink and it cleans the sink or cleans the loo, that’s what it felt like, going into my body. Like bleach.

And the thing that I had to hang onto, because that would have been quite a destructive thought really, was that it is attacking the bad bits. It’s attacking the bad bits. The good bits have got a chance to get good again.

But the nurses on the wards were superb. They were so kind and I mean there were people on the wards hanging on to life, virtually hanging on there. But it wasn’t a depressing ward, it wasn’t a ward where you’ There was a lightness about the ward, people were very kind towards each other. Even though it was kind of I don’t know, that’s, they’re the kind of sad things that make me look back and, it was almost bringing out the good in people.

Sometimes I had a friend with me; sometimes I went by myself, it depended if this friend that was with me, my friend that’s in her 70s, if she could come, she would come with me. But I always felt a bit guilty because it’s a long day – it was eight hours – and you’re just sat in a room. I mean, it’s quite comfortable there, and they come round with sandwiches and tea, but even so it’s pretty boring if you’re just sat there all day, and I didn’t mind not having somebody, I was alright on my own.

It was comfortable but yes, people didn’t really talk. Most of them had people with them and they didn’t really chat. I got chatting to one man that was in there a couple of times, but I used to just doze off in the chair and read a book and do some crosswords and things like that, and just sort of sit there and think, ‘hhmmm, boring.

We live in a wonderful rural area here which has it’s drawbacks because it does mean that the nearest hospital for most treatment is at least an hour away and the oncology hospital is a two hour journey away. And this meant that maybe four hours in a day could be spent travelling and several hours spent at hospital having chemotherapy at a time when you really did not feel like travelling these distances. And I would have to dose up on Imodium because I was perhaps having diarrhoea and couldn’t cope with a two hour journey;

But then I had 6 weeks, 6 sessions of the Taxol and I said to my Oncologist how will I know this is working cos I am really really suffering?’ It’s not nice, it’s not something you would want to wish on anyone. But I think having, I’ve said it before I think I got away pretty well. I mean I had the session sort of well say on the Friday, I was OK till perhaps the Monday and then I started to go downhill. You can’t sleep, you, I wasn’t sick because I had plenty of drugs to stop that, so I wasn’t sick. And as I say, this kept going on, you’d get two weeks of feeling really rotten then suddenly it lifts and you’re back feeling a bit normal. I continued with my golf, I couldn’t do 18 holes, but I continued with the support of my friends, you know, and you sort of age 20 years, you feel really really lethargic, you know, I got that I could hardly move my legs at one stage, they just felt like glue at the end, when I’m getting to the end of the 6 sessions.

I mean that’s the good thing, if you like, about cancer and the treatment of chemotherapy is that everything has a time limit. You know exactly when you’re having your treatment, you know you might feel poorly for three or four days afterwards but you know after that you’ll feel fine, so you can plan your life to work round it. The same as avoiding busy places when your blood count is low, you know, don’t go shopping on a Saturday afternoon, but you can go at a quieter time.

It would be about 10 days later I started chemotherapy. I had chemotherapy starting on the 5th of June, every 3 weeks. I had 3 hours of Taxol and an hour of carboplatin. The first 3 treatments, they weren’t pleasant but I managed to handle them, but then the last 3, they were quite difficult. I found them very tiring, they would start about 2 days after the treatment and right on for about a fortnight I wasn’t a very well person, very limited in what I could do. Towards the end of my treatment I discovered that there was maybe one or 2 days I wasn’t even able to put on my clothes.

And I was really lucky with my business, because I’d got, I had some good customers who were prepared to wait until I was well to go back and work with them. But what I found I was able to do is, because I was being, having my treatment every three weeks, the first week I was useless for very much at all but during the second two weeks I was able to continue with my work. And that was good, I needed that.

I’d say the hardest bit of the chemotherapy was the waiting with each session because at this particular hospital, I don’t know if it was the same at all hospitals, but you had to turn up and you had to be declared fit by the doctor before they would prepare the chemotherapy. So the wait was a bit unnerving, you know, you’d think ‘well I’ll steel myself, this is something I’ve got to go through’ but that hour’s wait before the chemotherapy drugs came over was often, you know, just a bit unnerving. The urge to run off was great I have to say. But they were great in the chemotherapy suite so it wasn’t too bad.

In the meantime I was due to go back in every 3 weeks to have chemotherapy. When my first 3 weeks came up I had my bloods tested at the local surgery on the Monday ready to go to hospital on the Wednesday. But the first session I wasn’t allowed to go because the platelets in my blood hadn’t risen high enough. So I was quite disappointed in this because I thought I was a failure, couldn’t have my treatment, really wanted just to get through the 7, or the 6 treatments. However the next week my blood was up so they took me in the following week.

So you’ve had four or five lots of chemo now?

This is my fifth, yes.

And different drugs every time or have you alternated?

I had carboplatin, cisplatin, Taxol, and then last time I had Caelyx and I’m having that again this time. When I had it I understood again from the oncologist that you couldn’t have more than a maximum of X number of mls of this drug, but whether again this is research that’s changed things in a short time, because things do don’t they. It’s wonderful really how things improve. Hes quite confident now that I will be able to have another six, obviously well monitor it as we go along, but another six doses of Caelyx;

And I didn’t lose my hair with Caelyx, and I was treated at home on that occasion which was, I didn’t know you could have chemotherapy at home, well that was quite interesting, and I think that was the drug that’s caused me personally the fewest number of unpleasant side effects. Although I understand its, it has an effect on your heart and not everybody can take it because the risk to the heart is greater than the benefits, you know, to the cancer.