Last treatment day

Well I mentioned last week that it was 6 months since I started on the road by visiting my GP. Today is 1st September and it is now 4 months since my first chemotherapy session and is now my last day, neatly rounding things off. It makes it a lot less than the 6 months that doctor Davies quoted at the start.

As a celebration I extracted my last pair of socks that I had saved up - Dennis the Menace - I haven't worn these since my wedding day. In addition Sam painted on the Union Jack that she did after I first shaved.

For the first time during my treatment the car park next to the oncology centre was full. I had to go round to the multi-storey, which had quite a bit of space. But I didn't realise what a trek it was from there through the hospital. Must be a bit of a bank holiday backlog in treatments, I thought that when I went past the waiting area at the other machines, it was pretty full. But when I got to machine "D" it was quite empty, the checkin still said 40 minutes delay though, hope it's not broken again.

As it was the delay was only about 15minutes. Richard came out, he said he had trouble keeping a straight face when he first saw me whilst getting the previous patient. He made Clare wait in the treatment room because he thought she would burst out laughing.

Well the last burst on the machine went fine. There was a slight pause after the head moved round to the top, I thought it was broken again, but it did finish the routine. I said my goodbyes to Richard and Clare - "hope not to see you again" - it's probably always like that. She said I had brightened up her day, which was great. It must be hard for them as they have to treat a lot of very ill people all the time. Unlike at the chemotherapy they only have a short time when they see people.

I took some cream cakes into work to celebrate the end of my treatment. It's a way of making everybody aware of it.

This evening I went out for a meal with Sam to celebrate. Also celebrating Sam's new job - she officially started today, although she's not in work until Thursday. We went into Southampton to an Indian called Poppadom Express. First time we've been out since we moved in to this house.

I have to start to adapt now to the concept of normality. I still have my antibiotics to take for another 7 weeks and I have an appointment to see the doctor on 28th September. But otherwise things can get back to normal.