Putting the Tiger in the Tank, again ...

We thought we were going to have a cruisy morning because we weren't due at the hospital until 11am.

Our kitchen plumbing had other ideas and it had taken it upon itself to wash out the cupboard under the sink.  Completely.

Alex donned his Professional Plumber badge and set to work diagnosing the problem and then performing complicated surgery.  He did comment that it is a tad difficult with a neck brace on, but he wasn't going to let that get in his way.

Once this had been rectified, it was time to head to the hospital.  Driving back into the car park again was a weird feeling.  We'd both loved NOT turning up there for a while.

Our first meeting was with Dr. Steven Kao, the wonderful Oncologist.  He wanted to check that Alex was progressing well and to keep a record of any side effects from the chemo.  We made an appointment for a scan on 15th October, and he will go through the results with us before Alex's next chemo session on 16th October.

This will be a major event for us.  The scan will show the effects of both sessions of radiotherapy (by that stage, Alex will have finished "cooking" after the radiotherapy); how his C1 fracture of the neck is progressing and how his cancers have responded to the first two chemo sessions.  We're already nervous thinking about it.  More on that later though.

We had a very long wait today for Alex's chemo to start.  He went to hospital yesterday to give blood, and this is supposed to cut out long waiting times.  The problem today was that one of the drugs used in his chemo treatment wasn't ready in time and this meant that we had to wait just over 2 hours. 

Once all his drugs were ready, his chemo treatment started.  Alex chose to sit in the same seat.  The worst part of the treatment was getting the cannula in - I don't think Alex will ever get used to needles.  Once he was hooked up, he watched James Bond: Quantum of Solace while the drugs dripped through.

The timing was perfect.  The movie finished at the same time as the treatment, and then came the best part of the whole experience - unplugging him!  The nurse did get a giggle when she realised that "putting the tiger in the tank" was Alex's way of describing the whole experience.

We wondered if Alex would have the same reactions as last time, ie, an appetite and no nausea (at least for the first 3 days).  Thankfully, he did (so far).  We went to the office briefly, and then headed home.  Joe and Leona came to visit and we were able to relax out on the deck and then we headed down to Bay Tinh, one of our favourite Vietnamese restaurants in Marrickville for a late dinner. 

Alex's appetite and taste buds were finally reunited and for the first time in what feels like forever, he really enjoyed a full meal.

Fingers crossed this continues.

A wonderful cafe discovery

We've had an interesting day.  We headed in to the office and loaded the van for the day's deliveries.  We had a pallet load to drop off first, and on the way into the city, Alex had a particular cafe in mind to try.  His taste buds are gradually returning from their long holiday and it was too nice a day not to take advantage and stop somewhere.

 'The Grounds' is a relatively new cafe and it has obviously become "the" place to go judging by the already full car park.  Luckily there was one vacant spot in the adjacent street, so we grabbed it.  Alex must have known this would be "his" place, as you can see from this shot

We grabbed a just-vacated table and noticed that the place was packed.  I am still surprised that places like this are packed during the week; it must be heaving on the weekends.  I am also still surprised that I am sitting at wonderful coffee shops during the week because in my previous life, I would have been trapped in an office mostly glued to a desk.

We loved the decor.  At the back of this shot you can see almost floor to ceiling clear windows.  This looks into the kitchen, and judging by the foods they were preparing we decided we definitely need to return soon to sample a full meal here.  The cakes on display were just too tempting, so to help our coffees go down, we shared an apple & blackberry crumble tart ...

It was as good as it looked.

Well fortified, we headed into the city for the last day of deliveries.   Our first few deliveries were uneventful.  We then had a carton to deliver to a shop located in the same building as a very well known and popular yum cha/trolly dolly restaurant.  This shop is on level 1 of the building, and there have been times previously where we'd do a delivery there and then head up to the restaurant for lunch.



We walked in the open double front doors to be greeted by the sight of the middle aged male staff member sitting on a ledge facing us.  He was dressed in a shirt, long trousers, shoes and socks taken off and his feet on an open Chinese newspaper thankfully catching his toenails he was cutting and also the pieces of dead skin he was "shaving" off the front hard parts of his toes.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

Any thoughts we had of heading upstairs for lunch immediately vanished.  Honestly!

Distracted from his pedicure ministrations, he looked up and smiled.  I wish I had my camera and could have taken a shot of the look on Alex's face but I had both hands tightly holding a by now heavy carton.  Thankfully there were no customers in the shop, and the owner was out somewhere.  Alex was trying to explain that we'd leave the carton and the invoice and we'd return in about 20 minutes but I don't think he spoke a word of English so we all smiled and nodded at each other and we both left him to his pedicure.  On the way back down to the van, we did wonder if he would have stopped if customers had come into the shop, and if they would have noticed or minded.

We carried on with our deliveries and then had to call in to RPA hospital.  Alex's next chemo treatment is tomorrow and he needed to give some blood and get weighed.  They will test his blood to make sure he is well enough to have the chemo, and they need to know his weight so they get his individual formula correct.

Our last delivery was in Hurstville and then we headed back to the office to look after some paperwork and finally headed home.

Is it worth being a King?

Well, the Kings Brew bubbled away quietly on Monday.  The boys came home from the Motor Show a tad underwhelmed with this year's exhibits, and checked the fermentation.  They didn't appear to be overly impressed, and so we all headed out to The Three Weeds pub at Rozelle for dinner.

The boys decided that in order to be fair to the Kings Brew and to get their taste buds in the right groove, they really need to sample some of the offerings available at The Three Weeds. 

Back at home, it was time to sample The Taste of Africa Today.  There was much discussion, and each of them had to lean over the bowl and get a really good whiff.  The bowl was moved over to another bench, in case this made it appear more appetising or more appealing in better lighting.

Alex had the dubious honour of the first try.  Actually, this was taken after a closer whiff ...

... and it must have been OK because he did try it.  I don't want to spoil things for Roger (whom I think is still to share his packet with friends) so I won't show Alex's reaction.

Willie was next

and after watching Alex and carefully noting his reactions, he sampled it and this is his reaction.  I don't think he wanted to influence Pete's preconceptions too much, so he remained fairly mute for a while.

Pete now had to try it, if only to either confirm his suspicions or prove Alex and Willie wrong.

 What can I say???

Jenny I can guess your reactions.  Roger, please take this either as encouragement or a challenge to try it.

So after sampling the Kings Brew, I'm sure Alex can't just blame the chemo for playing havoc with his taste buds.




 

What has filled a two week gap?

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?  As the saying goes. 

Well, it does fly and it has been busy. 

Of course.

So, what have we been doing?  Immediately after I finished the last blog entry, waxing lyrical about how pleased we were that Alex had skipped any of the side effects of the chemo - they started.  I think his body finally just gave in and admitted that it's been through the wringer, and the "tiger in the tank" decided to make its presence felt.  Fortunately the bouts of nausea have now stopped.  Alex seems to be getting the side effects in his mouth and we think this is a mixture of the predicted chemo side effects and a belated result of the last bout of his glowing sessions on his neck.  As a consequence, his taste buds seemed to have taken a holiday elsewhere and eating became difficult.  This meant he was losing more weight and seemed to be shrinking in front of my eyes.  Definitely worrying.

At the moment though we're pleased that his taste and appetite is returning and this makes a huge difference.

We also spent the first few days trying to adjust to NOT having hospital appointments, or doctor's appointments.  This was very strange but its been wonderful to not be turning up there on a daily basis.

We have been in the office every day, and out and about doing deliveries.  The sad news is that there were NO coffee shop visits because of Alex's side effects.

We've been lucky to have many visitors, and on the 12th Tracey and Mike came over mid afternoon.  My computer was very ill, and Dr. Mike spent hours fixing it.  As with most things computerish, what is in theory a "quick and easy" job is anything but.  I think the only "quick and easy" things on a computer involve accidentally deleting (usually important) stuff, oops, files.  My computer had got to the stage where even switching it on was possibly easy but definitely not quick.  They stayed for dinner and left about 1am but the job still wasn't done and so Mike spent the next few days still fixing it, working  remotely.

I had to reload all my missing programs, and after the first few hours it started misbehaving again.  Alex phoned Mike to confirm my diagnosis and was then able to operate - successfully!

Last Wednesday we should have had a party.  This was the time limit given to us by "the Doctor" and according to her, he should no longer be residing on Earth.  We did try to have a joke about it, and we thought that sending her a letter, or a postcard of somewhere remote, along the lines of - "G'day.  Because of your verdict we sold the house and sold the business. But Alex is still here.  Wesley Mission have paid for the stamp.  You can't reply because we don't have an address.  Now what?"

We realised of course that the best way of dealing with it is to continue counting our blessings every single day and for Alex to continue his fight.

And because of this, we decided on Thursday to have a bit of a blitz and tackle a few of the things that "we'd been meaning to do" for some time.  I'm sure you all have those sort of little jobs that never seem to get done.  In 2008 we went to Turkey.  We had a blast, and we came home with a couple of small momentos - well, these have finally been hung.  Of course in order to get this done, we "had to go to Bunnings" and - as you do in Bunnings - we ended up getting a few extra bits and pieces such as plant tray and some herbs to grow.

And our Turkish fish ...

... and plate, as well as one from Rome purchased a couple of years ago

 

Really, the buzz we got when these were finally done was great.

On Friday morning, Pete and Willie arrived back from their trip in Japan, so Alex collected them at sparrow-fart time from the airport and we went to Sideways for breakfast.  This is one of our favourite local cafes, and just down the road I'd spotted this doorway and had always promised myself to get a shot

The menu at Sideways was much more appealing, and we had a great time hearing about Pete & Willie's exploits in Japan.

Breakfast was delicious.

Back at home, we also had a couple of signs we'd been meaning to hang around the deck

and since it was late afternoon when this was finally hung, we decided to do as it said.  The weather was perfect and the BBQ was fired up.  Lamb was on the menu, and apparently this is now a treat for Kiwis since most of their lamb is exported and you need a second mortgage to purchase it from the butchers.

The boys went over to help Simon with some concreting on Saturday morning.  Yesterday we ended up at the Art Gallery of NSW to have a look at the Eugene Atget exhibition and then we stopped at Deux for lunch.  We had time to look around the shop area at the bikes and clothing and I loved this sign.  "Please do not sit on this motorcycle or your legs will be smacked".

 After a quick circuit or three, and deciding not to purchase anything, we headed to the cafe area.  This really is another of our favourite relatively local cafes.  We had a quick lunch and reflected that so much had happened since the last lunch Alex and I had eaten here.

We were all invited to Nerida and John's for dinner last night.  John had spent most of the day preparing his signature paella dish, and we all voted this as the most scrumptious paella any of us had eaten.

We had a great evening and there wasn't much left over.  We all waddled back home and collapsed on the lounge. 

This morning, Alex decided it was time to try this:

Roger and Jenny - please note!  I had purchased this back in May (this year) from a supermarket in Cape Town.  I was amused by it, and so I bought a packet for Alex and Roger.  If you haven't tried yours yet Roger, you may want to skip over the rest of this blog and perhaps my next entry.  Jenny, you know what's coming I know.

Alex decided it was time to try it, and so decided he'd mix up 3 litres worth.

We were all glad we'd had breakfast by this stage.

Pete had to come and check it out - I don't think he believed Alex that what he could smell was the beer in process.  After much mixing and whisking to get rid of the stubborn lumps, the bowl of beer is sitting and peacefully (so far) fermenting on the kitchen bench.

The boys have all headed off, with John, to the Motor Show, and it is due to be tried later tonight.

So, stay tooned ... !!!

Wonderful neighbours ... and more good news!

We are so fortunate to have wonderful neighbours in Nerida and John.

In another life, we had hanging baskets and flower boxes on our front verandah, and what passed as lawn.  With the recent upheaval, I had given up and eventually had emptied all the baskets and the lawn had rapidly unravelled into what we affectionately called "grass".  I think the various weeds kept it green, and the artistic folk would call it "naturally windswept".

Nerida had purchased replacement flowers and she and John today came in to help me with the repotting and weeding.  John made short work of the whipper-snipping edges and the mowing.

A huge thank you to our wonderful neighbours.  We are indeed fortunate to live where we do.

Nerida came in after we'd finished asking if we would like a "garden ornament".  Further down the street, there were piles of items waiting for a council clean-up.  She'd spotted this gem, and thought it would be a perfect way to see if Alex was perhaps suffering from any chemo side effects not normally listed on the hospital notes.  Thankfully he isn't.

Our other good news is that Alex continues to bypass any of the nasty side effects listed for the chemotherapy.  He has spent the weekend "busy relaxing" and we've had friends visit so it's been another great couple of days.

PS  The garden ornament continues her recycling ...

A week's worth of news ... and chemo starts

Don't panic.

Just because there have been no blog entries for a whole week, that doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything.  Far from it.

We spent Thursday night and most of Friday just recovering from the relief of no surgery.  We were both surprisingly, absolutely exhausted.  Or perhaps not surprising really.  On Friday we were back at the hospital for a meeting with Dr. Steven Kao to learn about the chemotherapy.  He wanted it to start today, and it turned out that this entire week was fully booked for chemotherapy.  But the hospital staff - as accommodating as ever - managed to tweak and fiddle as only they can and time was found for Alex to start his chemo.

The long weekend loomed and we spent it at home.  We had lots of visits from friends and that was wonderful - it's always great to have friends around and the kettle worked overtime.  Saturday especially was a wonderful day, starting with Tanya & Lindsay bringing croissants for breakfast (they didn't last long!), then Simon & Kitty called in, then Mr. and Mrs. Hage and then Jenny & Steve came for dinner.

On Monday we collected Kiwi Pete from the airport.  He stayed for 2 nights, enroute from Perth to Japan and so on Tuesday we had an extra helper with the work jobs.

We both enjoyed having Pete stay.

This week we thought we may end up with ONE MEDICAL FREE DAY but it wasn't to be.  On Tuesday we went back to the hospital for a Chemotherapy Education session that was well worth it.  There's a lot to take in.  A small part of the talk was the necessity to keep up some regular exercise.  Of course, to some of us the idea of actually starting some regular exercise would be closer to the mark.  It does sound strange that regular exercise does help fatigue, but it is true.  It's just putting the theory into practice that is sometimes the difficult bit.

We were walking from the hospital to meet Pete at Enmore when we passed a house that reminded us of this point.  Full marks for making the most of their verandah with the comfy chairs and table outside.  Of course, one look at the empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtray on the table was a clue that regular exercise probably wasn't their main priorty in life.  Even though they did have the pushbike there as well.

Closer inspection of the bike revealed that it may have spent most of its at least recent life just looking out at the street and dreaming of being out and about  ...

We've been driving to and from hospital on a daily basis, and occasionally we've driven through Newtown rather than going the "back roads".  The first time I saw this shop window, I thought that the window dresser was having a lunch break, or a coffee break.  But by the end of the week, I realised that he or she wasn't having a break and indeed the window display was finished.  We were stopped at the lights long enough to take a quick snap.

Yes, I know this isn't a blog about street photography. There has been a shortage this week of "one day" coffee shops as we've been busy catching up with work & deliveries and we've still had medical appointments every day.

Our big news is the start of Chemotherapy.  Alex has been booked in for 6 chemo treatments.  These are going to be on Fridays on a 21 day cycle, ie, every third Friday.  So he's booked in for treatment for the next 18 weeks, until January. 

Of course we're very excited about this, given the news we'd been given previously. 

The other good news is that the RPA Oncologist has worked miracles.  He has convinced the drug company to give Alex the new treatment.  These are drugs that have been tested but are not Government funded in Australia.  In the testing phase, they have provided patients with a better quality of life and a longer life expectancy.

Our appointment was at 9:30 this morning, and so we went to the office briefly and then to hospital.  We checked in at the main Reception area in Gloucester House and then at the Chemo reception.  The nurses were getting the area ready for the day's patients and since this was our first chemo session, they made us comfortable in the education room and ran a short informative video presentation for us.  Then one of the nurses came in to answer any questions we had, and generally to go through the process with us.

Alex had called in yesterday to provide blood samples.  Before each chemo treatment, they check each patients blood to make sure they're healthy enough for the treatment.  Then each patient's medications are made up and sent through.  The staff in the pharmacy must work flat out every day.

The nurses asked Alex to choose a seat and make himself comfortable.  The room has about 20 stations - recliner chairs, with table; a chair for a partner/carer/friend and stands with the medical equipment required.  There are also about 3 beds, for patients who are unable or not well enough to sit.

It's a busy environment, and while the nurses are busy making sure they have all of Alex's chemo treatments, and everything else they need, Alex reverts to playing solitaire on his phone.  The nurse then takes his pulse, BP, temperature and then wheels her trolley over to get ready to put his canula in.

Uh oh.

What happened at this point is that in order to take his mind off what was happening, Alex was thinking about the conversation we had with Kiwi Pete earlier this week.  We'd been discussing the options of what bike Alex would ride when we went touring next.  Alex will sell his GSA and the options were to buy one like mine or get a bike and sidecar.  A Vespa was also mentioned for when we're next in Europe.

Kiwi Pete thought it would be worth thinking about buying one of those 3 wheeler bikes.  Like a CanAm.  We think that the Kiwis obviously have their own names for them.  Alex and I also have our own names for them .....

You can see from Alex's expression that a 3 wheeler bike - of ANY description - just doesn't bear thinking about!

I know that Alex is good at pretending he can't hear me when I ask him certain questions, but really this is honestly the nurse taking his temperature.  She also checked his pulse and BP, which was excellent!

So with his drugs hooked up, and the machine set, it was time to "put the tiger in the tank" as Alex called it.

Jeffrey, one of the volunteers, came around regularly asking if we'd like a tea, coffee or glass of water.

The only items needed to complete the ideal chemo treatment were a laptop, hard drive of movies, ear plugs and voila! 

May we present,  (drumroll, drumroll) ...

"Chemotherapy with Pemetrexed (Almita) and Carboplatin with a swig of Zameta (helps heal the bones) to finish it off while you are seated in comfort watching James Bond's Casino Royale."