This week is (or was) my last week of chemo. I’d been expecting, and looking forward to writing a short post here to update all the lovely people who’ve sent me such supportive messages. It was going to be a post celebrating having reached this stage, having got through all the challenges of the chemo side effects and most importantly stuck it to the tumour cells. I was even contemplating getting my nails done in an outrageous colour to celebrate (talk is cheap).

But it’s not worked out like that.

About 10 days ago, a rash started to appear on my legs, torso and arms. We weren’t worried for a couple of days because I’d been out blackberrying the day before and it was in the same places I’d been stung by nettles. But the spots didn’t go away. They grew bigger and redder, and they started to spread a little. We still weren’t that worried. I didn’t have a temperature or any other symptoms. But boy were they itchy and it got worse as it got hotter.

I won’t go through the whole sorry saga, but three days ago, after a number of calls to the oncology nurse team, a visit to the GP and a conversation with an oncology registrar it was decided that it was probably a bad reaction to one of the drugs I’d been taking, most likely the chemotherapy drug. I was told, with three days of pills left, to stop taking the drug and to check into the Emergency Ambulatory Care Unit (EACU) the next day.

I woke up on Wednesday with the boxes of chemo beside me. Boxes with pills I could no longer take. I hadn’t slept very well, the itching was worse and the spots were bigger and redder.

There were so many feelings swirling round. My plans for a celebration were dashed. I felt like I’d failed. I knew even then that this is not true, but the sense of failure was physical. I was also worried about what missing the last three days meant for my treatment. And I was worried about the spots and whether the rash was the result of a reaction to the chemo, to a different drug or an infection. I struggled to write this, but putting it together, I was scared.

We spent hours on Thursday in the EACU. The building we were in was built in the late sixties. It was sweltering and airless – an aside, but we’re really not ready for climate change. The diagnosis was confirmed, a cream prescribed, and the remaining three days of chemo are on hold until the rash is gone. Whether or not I take them will be decided later.

I’m in a better place now. Missing three days of chemo out of forty isn’t that many, the tumour isn’t showing on the last MRI and we’ve got a plan to get rid of the rash. Even though the finish line isn’t visible yet, I’m physically fit, soon to go back to work, and surrounded and supported by so many wonderful people.

8 September 2023

Image description: A tarmac road with a grass verge at the top of the picture. A while line is painted across the road. On the left hand side of the line the word START is painted. On the left the word FINISH is painted, upside down.
Image credit: Andrew Hurley