The PICC line (deceased) laughs last

Day 117 

General status update

Anxiety level/insane euphoria (+/- 1-10,000): Yoo Hoo! The Dexys are HERE!!! I am ruling the world this week and that Teletubby Infant Despot in North Korea had better not start messing with me!

Fatigue/weakness: weird combo of artificial steroid high and much enfeebled body –the spirit is up for pretty much anything, but the flesh is very, very weak.

Nausea demon: he woke me very early this morning and we had hot buttered toast and marmalade, and big steaming mugs of tea, mine with a chaser of 3 different anti-emetic drugs, a dose of Dexys, and some of the magic anti-Chemo Nano Rats elixir, Omeprazole. I wonder what the calorie count of all those drugs is?

Despair Demon: has cheered up a lot since his coffee date with the Chemo Muse yesterday – totally delusional, of course. SHE’S USING YOU, YOU FOOL. Doesn’t the fact that her hair is made of SNAKES give you a hint that she is not quite like other women?

Chemo Muse: she’s inhaling the steroids and reverting to her full Dexy’d magnificence and power – she‘s been filling my mind with ideas all day, non-stop.

Chemo Brian: we’ve put in some quality time today, some of it in public, which was embarrassing (see below).

PICC line (deceased): its spectre appeared in the Chemo Ward yesterday, much to everyone’s surprise (see below)

State of mind: so happy – you cannot begin to imagine how happy I am – never mind the two weeks of horrible side effects to come – I am HAPPY. No more FEC.

Hair: in the snood, dude.

I won’t say that I actually skip down the Fulham Palace Road towards my final dose of chemo, but there is definitely a spring in my step, and a mood much lightened by an industrial-strength dose of painkillers (pain from the Cold Cap, for the alleviation of), some Lorazepam (dread of FEC6, for the alleviation of), and the happy, happy thought that when Matron Becky puts the needle in my arm this morning, it will be the last time anyone comes after me with a sharp pointed instrument for some considerable time.

But this is FEC, remember, and during the administration of the first five doses things have gone consistently wrong, so why I am skipping blithely towards the hospital assuming that nothing can else bad can possibly happen now is a mystery, the triumph of hope over experience, and perhaps the influence of too many powerful drugs taken too early in the morning.

R is loaded down with one bag containing a Pret picnic, fruit, and a variety of cold beverages, and the other containing my giant knitted throw (cold from the Cold Cap, for the alleviation of), my Smurf hat and snood, and lots of reading material in various formats. You’d think we were going to Glyndebourne or Glastonbury, not the Chemo Ward. By FEC6, we have now got this side of things down to a fine art.

Since the removal of the late, unlamented PICC line from my upper arm, I am now having the chemotherapy drugs injected directly into the veins on my lower arm, and after Matron Becky did this for FEC5 she pointed to the back of my hand and said ‘There – there’s one left we can use next time’, which was very reassuring, given that my pathetic lack of veins was why they inserted the PICC line into my arm before chemo started, after the unfortunate incident before my lumpectomy operation when the anaesthetist couldn’t find a vein into which to put the general anaesthetic.

So, I’m sitting in the Big Pink Chemo Chair for the last time, and Matron Becky, resplendent in her maroon Matronal Frock, readies herself to insert the Final Needle. She picks up my hand and looks at it doubtfully, as do R and I. There are no veins to be seen. Not one. I’m just not a very veiny person, but if you stare closely at the back of my hand you can usually see a faint tracery of something pulsing deep under the skin.

Not today. The veins have run for cover and retracted deep below the surface of my skin. There is nothing to be seen.

‘Hmmm’ says Matron Becky, and she puts a rubber strap round my arm and tightens it to encourage the veins to come out of hiding. There is a slight improvement, and Becky decides to go in…

I’ll spare you the gory details, but this is essentially the ‘Fo Veins Total Non-Cooperation Day’ and all the time in the background, as my arm is plunged repeatedly into buckets of hot water, and three different nurses stick a total of nine needles into my recalcitrant veins, the spectre of my PICC line is standing to one side, laughing, and saying ‘NOW do you regret throwing me on the scrapheap?’ Becky and I pretend not to notice it; we don’t want to give it the satisfaction.

At one point during this one and a half hour needle ordeal, Becky and I both find ourselves staring wistfully at the back of one of R’s hands, which is not unlike a relief map of the Yangtze delta. There would be no problems putting a needle in there.

‘You’ve got very good veins, R,’ says Becky.

R looks proud.

‘If you were in here as a patient, we could let the student nurses practice inserting cannulas on you’ Becky continues.

R blanches visibly, and decides this might be a good time to go and fetch more coffee.

After about the sixth painful, unsuccessful needle insertion, I start to cry, which distresses both R and the nurses, who are doing their best, and whose fault it most definitely isn’t; I just have the very worst type of veins.

By the time we get to the ninth needle, and there aren’t really other options left in terms of places for insertion, I am beginning to wonder what will happen if they simply can’t get a needle to stay in – will they have to postpone the chemo? Happily this question remains unuttered, as at last we have lift off, and the cannula is put in place.

Now it’s time for the intravenous anti-emetics and steroids, before we get to the main event, and the Cold Cap goes on for the very last time, and I recite poetry and emit small squeaks of distress as the pain encircles and penetrates my skull and my head freezes for the very last time. That pink hat may look very jaunty, but I’m not going to miss it One Little Bit.

I don’t remember much about the chemo, except for the fact that I have a nursing assistant sitting beside me for the whole time they were infusing the bright red Epirubicin, most vicious of the FEC chemo drugs, to make sure my vein didn’t explode. Seriously. She is under strict instructions to pull out the cannula at the first sign of spontaneous vein combustion. This stuff is NASTY.

R sits next to me reading and tweeting, a comforting presence,

and at some point, exhausted by it all, I drift off to sleep under my big knitted throw. Then the nurse wakes me to say it is all over, and I can take the pink helmet off, and go home. I towel the ice off my hair, and don the Smurf hat and snood, while R packs up all our paraphernalia.

And that’s it: FEC6 is done - my chemotherapy treatment is finally, finally over, after what seems like a lifetime. Two more weeks of side effects to get through, two more weeks of trying to avoid infections which may require more hospital treatment, and then I will be free, although it will take me anywhere between 3 and 6 months to regain my full strength, by all accounts. And there’s still the radiotherapy treatment to come in May

But the door to my chemical prison is now open, and I walk out of it and up the Fulham Palace Road holding hands with R.

‘Your veins are amazing’ I say ‘You could give Madonna a run for her money.’

‘Your veins are just non-existent’ he replies. ‘I begin to understand why you claim to have been a trout in a former life. Has it ever been formally confirmed that your body actually holds the full complement of eight pints of blood?

‘Oh, bugger off, you’ I say.

We are so, so happy.

And to complement that mood, this video sent to me the other day by BigSisFo of a Beethoven's Ode To Joy flash mob in a Spanish square, is one of the most joyous, life-affirming things 
I have seen in a long, long time...