32. I was hungry this morning!

Today is the day before Chemo III (that's 3, not 111. Just thought I'd be clear that I'm going to use Roman Numerals to count my chemo treatments. I've always liked reading them, just like I like reading 24 hr time for clocks). I woke up this morning and actually felt hungry for breakfast. That was a nice change. I had my blood test around 10.30am, I had to wait almost 45 mins. Lots of pregnant women waiting for their glucose fasting tests. I'd gone to the testing place around 9.45am as I'd asked previously what would be a good time and they said before 11am. Today the lady said it's always busy on Monday morning and it would be better to come after lunch. The results would still be ready in time for the nurses to check for my chemo dose. Works better for me anyway as mornings are not my strong point. Saying that, my chemo appointment is at 8.30am tomorrow....I'll see if I can get it a bit later for my next one. Also better traffic wise to travel later, miss out on all the school zones as well.

I went to my GP last week for an update on Felicity (as in the ultrasound for the lump under my left ribs). She is allowed to stay, she's just a fatty lump. Pap smear was also clear so won't need to do another one of those for 5 years.

Thursday I saw Paula, the psychologist. She is lovely and I think that it will be beneficial to see her again and have another appointment booked the day before Chemo IV. It was a hot and humid day and I had slightly misjudged how much traffic there was going to be in order to get to the hospital by 9am. I was only a few minutes late but was sweating like crazy. She put the air con on and said "Let me know if it gets too cold". Does it go down to 10c please? It was an hour long appointment and it went quickly. We talked mainly about what had happened so far - a very very paired down version of the blog basically.

After seeing Paula I went to lunch at a cafe with a friend, Carsten, and got a vegetable open melt on Turkish bread and a side salad. You could have chips too but they didn't really appeal to me. They were the sweet potato ones anyway as their usual normal potato ones weren't on the menu. The great potato shortage is still happening (the floods really created issues with the potato crops). I was slightly hesitant about eating but it had been almost 4 hours since I had eaten anyway and once I started it was ok and I ate the whole thing. We went for a short, very short, walk in the bush not far from home. Mither calls it the Rollicky Ridge, it gets some nice views at the lookout. Pither has named it the Lion Lookout. It was hot though and even the slight incline back up to where I had parked got me breathless. It was nice catching up with Carsten, we met through UNI as we had a few of the same subjects in 2020. Our plan had been to meet up every couple of months and talk about classes but the pandemic had other ideas, especially seeing as Carsten had to fly to Germany for family reasons and then got stuck there for months! For those who don't know, our UNI classes were all online and students are from all over it world so meeting in person is a bit hard for most of us. I have met another lady who also lives in Sydney and there were plans for two others to join us for a lunch date before Christmas. But, due to various reasons (cancer for one) it hasn't happened yet.

Thursday night choir practice returned. It is at 7.30pm-9.15pm. I was pretty tired by then, it had been a long day but I wanted to go as I missed the last bit of last year and both the Christmas concerts. We started learning "The Crown of Roses" by Tchaikovsky. It was arrange for a choir chorus in 1889. It's in English but translated from Russian. It has some beautiful harmonies. I'm in the alto section, though I used to be in the tenor section. I like singing either. I used to be able to sing soprano but since I lost my voice for 5 days in November 2019 my voice hasn't been the same. I lost 3 of my top notes and now struggle to sing a high E, even a D sometimes if I'm not warmed up. It was a weird thing, I didn't have a cold, or sore throat or anything, it just disappeared. Pretty much on the flight from Atlanta to Denver. It was a slightly odd visit with Adriane for the week as I couldn't talk for most of it. The other song we practiced was one we started last year. "Ut Queant Laxis" by Orlando de Lassus (c.1532-1594). This has some really lovely harmonies as well, a few nice accidentals to make it interesting too. I love singing in Latin. Often our songs are in other languages and I don't really have much issue reading Latin, Italian, Spanish, German or Old English. French though - I have to learn that phonetically. It just does NOT make any sense to me. It was a HOT night and by the end I was very tired but it was so nice to sing in a choir again. I'm hoping I'm going to feel ok this week, it's a couple of days after my next chemo.

I saw Dr Man on Friday, last visit before he moves into another role. He said I was a dream patient. Doing all the things I'm meant to be doing. Let's hope that continues and I don't end up having to use the red card at Emergency. I was a bit sad that I won't be seeing him again, though he will still be at Sutherland Hospital so I might bump in to him. I'll be seeing Dr Michael Krasovitsky for my next appointment. Dr Man said he would send him my blog. Hi Dr Michael if you are reading!

I had a massage in the afternoon on Friday. They are definitely helping to slow down and just focus on the body. I had a few sore muscles from my exercise class with Lewis on the Wednesday so they were helped too. Not bad sore muscles, just they had been worked harder than they have in a few months. The massage was going to be on Monday but Carlie got stuck in Melbourne with cancelled flights. It probably worked out for the best as on Monday I don't think that I would've liked to lie on my tummy. It was still a bit iffy then.

Saturday my sisters and I went out to Jbeil's Lebanese Restaurant at Kareela. I had been there before, as had Donna and Shell but Rach and Ange hadn't. I wore the headscarf that Adriane bought me for the first time. It is very light and comfortable and I barely could tell I had it on. I was able to eat everything except for the stuffed vine leaves. They tasted like metallic dirt to me. I ate well and didn't have any adverse tummy effects then or later. It was lovely to be with just the sisters, it's been many years since we have been able to do that. Afterwards we went and sat in the Joseph Banks Gardens which are only a few minutes away. We had some deep conversations, some tears and laughter. Shell gave us each a book she had been drawn to buy for us. I got Captain Haddock's A-Z insults. I love the TinTin books and Captain Haddock's insults are the best! Blistering Barnacles!!! After we went back to Rach's (Shell went to Audley to meet Dyl and the kids) where the dad's and kids were. April looked at me and said "What's under here?" and pulled off my headscarf. She'd been waiting for my hair to fall out and the wait is now over. It was fun watching the kids play together and before we knew it, it was past 6pm!!!

I had a quiet day on Sunday, sewing. For chemo tomorrow I am going to take some hand quilting. I'm covering some one inch hexagons at the moment for a project that will take a couple of years to do. It's very relaxing, almost like a meditation. I need to cut the fabric into squares, a bit bigger than 2 1/2 inches works best, to get ready for tomorrow.

This afternoon I did another exercise class with Lewis. I'd sent him a message to say I felt good today and was there room in the 1pm class. There was and I was able to push myself harder today than last week. Sarah and I ended our class doing the Nuttbush dance to Tina Turner, but we had stretchy bands around our ankles while doing it. Makes it a lot harder and you really feel it in your hips and bum. Makes for a fun end to the class that's for sure.

For tonight it's get a good nights sleep and mentally prepare myself for Chemo III tomorrow and also what the next week will bring this time around. Maybe a bit better seeing as this time I won't have just had the port put in and I won't have my period (I hope not anyway!!!!).