The photo shows the packaging of my daily dose of 300mg of Temodal that I take each day during the five days I take the treatment, with the all-important Zofran anti-nausea tablets in the box on the right.
Today I visited my oncologist
Dr Paul Mainwaring to have a blood test before starting the first five days of the twenty eight day cycle. I take the Temodal on the first five days, then nothing for 23 days to recover a bit. Each month I have a blood test to check for any drop in my red or white blood cell count. Today's result showed that I am still going strong, so on with the treatment!
Cycle #2 last month did not go so well... It got off to a bad start when I saw Dr Mainwaring and found out that the Zofan prescription that he gave me at the start of cycle #1 was actually six month's worth. However, because there were 30 day's worth of tablets and the cycle was 28 days, I assumed that I was to take them every day for the whole cycle. Wrong! And because these drugs are subsidised by the Government there is a quota on how many he can prescribe. He was able to prescribe enough for one per day (rather than two) over the five days of the Temodal on cycle #2. So that's what I took! In an unfortunate bit of timing, My boss, the Pro Vice-chancellor of Information Services,
Linda O'Brien, happened to invite the members of a review panel and myself (I was acting as secretary to the panel) to diner at a fancy restaurant the first night of my five days of Temodal. You have to take the Temodal half an hour before eating, so I took my three Temodal tablets and my single zofran, then jumped into a cab and arrived at the restaurant. Because I was early, the helpful waiter gave me some carbonated water to drink while waiting for the others. That water must have churned up the contents of my stomach because half an hour later I started to feel waves of nausea washing over me. Linda arrived, and while I was chatting to her things started to get worse! Suddenly I had to excuse myself and ask the waiter for directions to the bathroom. I make a dash and as I arrived at a wash basin the three Temodal once again saw the light of day. Sorry Australian tax payers, I just wasted that subsidised medicine!!! Luckily, Linda is a very lovely person and understands what I have been going through. I said my hurried good-byes and caught a cab home. Unbelievably, the cab driver was used to vomiting passengers and offered me a plastic bag and a roll of paper towels. Phew what a relieft that was! Of course, Cheryl was surprised to see me back home so soon and in such bad shape. I had another three hours of throwing up before, mercifully, I fell into an exhausted sleep. I did manage to get to work for another two days that week but had to take the third one off sick.
Anyway, on to cycle#3 now and it should go better this time, as Today Dr Mainingwaring gave me perscriptions for more Zofran than I had last month. Also, he explained that it is best to take the Zofran half an hour before the Temodal (I have been taking them all at once until now).
third cycle of Temodal and I can't get over how tired I feel all the time. It does not matter how much sleep I have, I always want more. I find that to do anything active requires enormous mental discipline.Yesterday I did get myself over to the cliffs at Kangaroo Point and managed to climb, on a top rope, a fairly easy climb (Samson's Pillar-Australian grade 16, or about a 5.10a in the USA decimal system) that I have done many times before, so that was good but it showed me how much fitness I have lost.
