Sorry for the late blog.  I have had a busy week.  I went to Maggie’s on Wednesday to do some natural Christmas decorations.  I made this lovely decoration for our Christmas table, it will be our centre piece! It was so much fun.  And so Christmassy…  they had a real fire, mince pies, hot tea, and it started to snow outside!

Then on Thursday I had the second lot of the Gemcitabine.  This time around I did not need the IV fluids, and as the Primary Care Trust had not come back on the Retuximab, yet, I did not have that either.  So, the actual chemo took about an hour.  I was pleased as I have never ever seen the Medical Day Unit as busy as it was.  I had to sit in this separate room as the place was too packed with people having chemo.  Christmas rush!  Jukka came to keep me company, and took me for a really yummy lunch.

The kidneys were fine in the end, and they have not hurt as much anymore.  I believe, I had the pain because after the first lot of chemo, the kidneys were working very hard to get rid of the dead cancer cells. Within a week my chest is flat!  Not kidding.  And the swollen node above my left clavicle is shrinking day by day.  The registrar on Thursday before the chemo thought I may only need two cycles of this GEM-P-R before the possible stem cell transplant.  They were really pleased with the progression.  I will have a CT scan after the full cycle of this chemo on the week commencing 4^th January to show exactly what is going on.

I am still not sleeping well.  I am in the process of weaning off from steroids.  Five more days.

It has been really cold, to a point of snowing, and oh boy, I FEEL the cold, more than ever!  I am dreaming of a warm sheepskin coat…

My lovely natural Xmas decoration!

The lovely Rosemary who runs the 'gardening group' at Maggie's, and who was teaching us how to make the decoration.