Chemo No. 3, second cycle

Winter is here, so we stay home next to the fire place and cuddle up. Sounds like our winter is the european summer, feel sorry for you guys over there! Mum and Dad do not have any regrets at all being here, the british summer is the worst in over 100 years.

The targeted therapy got approved by my medical aid, which is absolutely fantastic, I only need to pay 10% of it. Phew, what a relief and such a blessing for us.

I started my 2nd cycle on Thursday. A cycle is always three weeks, two weeks with Xeloda and Lapatinib which makes 18 tablets a day and one week with only 8 tablets a day. I do not need to go into hospital anymore which is a lot more convenient for all of us. My first cycle was pretty hard, every day I had something: nausea, appetite loss, diarrhoea, constipation, skin sensitivity, I can carry on like that…… but thank God never any pain.

Luckily since Thursday I am feeling ok and haven’t had any side effects except for feeling tired. So we’ll hope it will stay that way. I have changed my diet a little bit, started eating sugar and wheat in little amounts again. My oncologist said, it is also not good if I “punish” myself too much. Trying to get a good balance is sufficent. I am currently deciding if we are going to look further into my metabolism (Stoffwechsel) to find out what my body is lacking the most and what could have caused the cancer. Therfore a gene test would be necessary. So am looking into the advantages and disadvantages.

I have also started writing my book / telling my story. My longterm friend Samira from Germany works in publishing and offered to help me, so we have our regular skype sessions and we will see where it takes us. It is nice to talk to her at a regular basis, and to go into the “deepside” of my last year and a half.

My next scan will be around end of July, beginning of August. I will tell you all about the results once they are out, am very positive that this one is hitting the cancer on the nail, to get it out of my body for good.

Cold but sunny winter greetings from SA,

Helen