Last day

of injections passed this morning. Designed to raise my white blood cell count, they are honestly the most stinging I have ever had and it doesn't matter who gives them. I have a variety of wonderful district nurses who visit my house and give them to me... My left arm is still swollen and bruised from the chemo - due to the virulence of the drugs given during the chemotherapy, the veins start to collapse which has happened now in my left hand and arm. When I bend it, it feels like there is a cord tightened along the length of the arm. Unfortunately though, my right arm could only manage the first three treatments before its veins collapsed so my left arm has born the brunt of the treatments...but now, now it is over, really over. Somehow having the last injection has just reinforced it as, for me, it is only when the post treatment treatments are over, that I can hear the fat lady singing.

One third though - no surgery date yet, no radiation date yet, but everyone that I have spoken to reinforces the debilitating and enervating effects of chemotherapy. Even the foods and drinks that I have managed to stomach during the treatments, are now anathemas to me. I never ever want to have ginger biscuits again, the thought of anything coloured the same as epirubicin, ie, bright red, makes me want to hurl multicoloured chunks all over my house... Cranberry juice is out, methinks...

And so we have crossed our mountains - they lie behind us, conquered and beaten, shrouded in mist. I will, dieu volant, never ever have to open that map again and retrace those hard worn steps. If I have to, I will know that I have done it once, and if really really necessary, I will be able to do it again...but now my body turns to the next stages of my journey. The lake of surgery lies before me, sharks of fear swimming beneath its apparently placid surface and after that? After that the deserts of radiation....

But for now? For now, we rest in the foothills of chemo and recover..

Minerva