It wasn’t a great weekend. The first round of chemo is now finished, but it was harder on B than I expected. I feel guilty for complaining about his man flu last week, as it did indeed morph into something much worse than my girl cold. A dry cough and flu-like symptoms are possible side effects of the Temozolomide though, so perhaps it was a combination of the two.
He’s also had nausea (despite the strong anti-nausea drugs), bleeding gums, night sweats and insomnia. This put paid to our weekend plans, which included the Acton Transport Museum Depot Open Day! Ah well, there’s always next year.
B lost his appetite over the weekend too. People on chemo can get high calorie foods on prescription for when they don’t feel like eating, and luckily we had some of these tucked away. We have fortified orange juice and a dairy dessert, which are helpfully labelled with the warning ‘not to be taken intravenously’. It’s a good thing I saw this at the last minute, as I already had the tourniquet on B’s arm and syringe loaded with custard.
B now gets a break to recover. His next blood test is on November 12th and the second round of chemo should start the following day.
As for me, I’m struggling a bit at the moment. With the wedding over I knew we’d be staring down the barrel of the impending winter and 6 months of chemo, so it’s not surprising.
With regard to sleep, I have some good nights and some bad. I’ve been back in the marital bed for a while and deliberately haven’t made up the sofa bed upstairs, as it’s an easy option the moment I can’t sleep. This did mean that I was up last night at 1am making the bed and watching Dynamo: Magician Impossible. It was mostly due to B’s hacking cough, so I should be back downstairs once that goes away.
I’m trying to put some measures in place to deal with the wider issue of my current struggle with daily life and my routine, which I will expand on in upcoming posts.
Boyfriend with a brain tumour 
Jill this is going to be hard for you as well as B, make sure you look after yourself. Its not selfish its vitally important.By the very nature of the beast, the patient is the one that receives attention, so I’m pleased to see you have plans afoot for you too.
xxx
Thanks Kathleen. Don’t worry I never forget about me! I’m going on a spa weekend with a friend in 11 days time (not that I’m counting). Can’t wait.
Keep your pecker up. You are important too.
Could be a lot worse. He could have a grade iv glioblastoma like my mum.
I’m very sorry to hear that. If you’ve read the rest of the blog you’ll see that we realise it could be worse and we appreciate all the ‘positive’ aspects of B’s situation.