Chemotoasted !!

 

Today was what I call my 'Toxic Tuesday'. The day I was meant to get my infusion of Chemotherapy in the Bons Secour. But for the 2nd time since I commenced my treatment, my white blood cells said 'not today'. I wasn't feeling the best for the past number of days so it was no big surprise to me when I told Nurse Jakki Cosgrave that I didn't think today would happen. Ten minutes later after taking my bloods, Jakki comes back with a sense of wonderment telling me I know my own body so well. You see, I'm getting a 'fair whack' of Chemotherapy. I'm told that it's knocking the shit out of my tumourised enemy. But it can and does kill other things along the way. That would include my white blood cells. Crap !!! As of now I am particularly susceptible to picking up ANY infection so please stay away from me if you have or feel you are harbouring any illness. 
The hardest part in all of this 'infection free' gig, is that I'm not to hug or kiss Aoife when she goes to bed. 
This is horrible but just makes me try 5 times faster in order to rid this affliction from me, the parasitical bastard. My Number 1 Enemy. 

Plenty of rest is the order of the day. I need my bloods to be present and correct next Tuesday. Please God they will. Having a break in the Chemo is possibly a good thing for the body too but wait too long and it's extremely hard on me. 

On a brighter note I met Fr. Owen today, my friend the priest who is in the capuchin order, the same as Padre Pio. Today as he was giving me the host, I slipped a St. Pio [support] pin quietly into his other hand. It was if you remember from last week, that I got visibly upset when Fr. Owen came around just as I got the promising news. That's when I felt the love of St. Pio to me and bust out crying. I needed to explain this to the Padre. And I did !!



 Below is my letter to Fr. Owen (I wrote to him last week) and his subsequent response:

 

Fr. Owens response below:


 


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Let's see how the rest of my week pans out. My work is cut out in trying every trick in the book this week to get those white blood cells back to normality. Hopefully this can be achieved with the minimum of fuss. I need to get re-toxicated ASAP though and thats no joke unfortunately. 

Just moments before I left the Oncology Day Unit today, there was a beautiful elderly couple beside me. It's my understanding that it's her husband that was getting the chemotherapy. Two very sweet people.  I checked my shirt pocket and discovered one of my St. Pio [support] lapel pins along with my G-PPIO [support] lapel pin. 

I can tell you now that both of these pins are spending their first night in Howth tonight, how beautiful is that ?


Thanks so much for reading my blog. 



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Best Wishes,


 



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