Race for Life

This year, Mum, Verity and my Aunt Jill did the Race for Life again! Jill's 4th year of doing it and Mum's 3rd year. We went to watch them run/walk the race in Bedford. I had never been to a Race for Life event before but it was surprisingly emotional, everyone is there really, just for one reason because they have been affected by cancer, either personally or through someone they know. I loved reading all the pink notes on peoples' backs.

Before, after and during shots!

They all did extremely well, Mum and Verity beating Mum's previous years time, coming in at 28.03 minutes and Jill power walked around coming in a little after. People of all ages, fitness levels and for different reasons came over that finish line but hopefully next year I won't be stood watching I will be trying to beat 28.03! We finished the evening off with a BBQ although due to English Summertime had to eat it inside because of the rain, typical!


Monday we went to Cambridge for a bit of retail therapy and I had to get some stuff for my summer holiday before they whipped all the summer stuff out of the shops and put the Autumn stuff in. It was quite a successful trip, managed to get quite a lot of stuff. Had to have an hours sleep in the afternoon though, after only 3 hours of shopping it is not very good.

Tuesday was chemo day - ABVD Cycle 7, Day 1. They had to redo my bloods when I got there because my neutrophills were really low. With chemotherapy it destroys lymphoma cells by preventing all cells from growing and dividing. Your blood count can become temporarily low during treatment because chemotherapy is unable to distinguish between growing cancer cells or normal cells.


It is a particular concern when white bloods cells are low, neutrophills are a type of these. There are several different types of white cells, all of which function in various ways to protect the body from infection. Neutrophils, for example, protect the body by eating microbes and other potentially risky particles. They produce pus and help to alert you to the fact that an infection may be present, by causing pain, swelling and redness. White blood cells are important as they provide the body’s main protection against infection. When the number of white cells, specifically neutrophils, is low, this is known as neutropenia.


With my bloods being redone I had to wait over an hour before the start of treatment. They had a few issues with my port, at the beginning it wasn't behaving, the nurse said that sometimes it can become pressed against the vein wall, because it is such a big vein it is in with a huge blood flow and can become stuck against the wall, so she had to fire it off the vein wall with saline solution! Started chemotherapy before lunchtime, had my 2 injections and then 2 drips. While the drips were going through I watched Broke back Mountain, was a bit bored to be honest!


Because my neutrophills were so low, I had to take a PEG (Neulasta to give it its full name) injection with me to have down at the surgery tomorrow. This should engourage my bone marrow to produce more white blood cells helping me fight infection and hopefully make me feel less tired.


Felt very tired by the end of the day and icky - ABVD Cylce 7, Day 1 - DONE!