Counting Coup and Nothing To Say

Well I am counting coup - it's my birthday in a couple of days. I haven’t updated for some time – perhaps because there isn’t much to say. The illness rolls gently on – probably becoming more severe but held in check by drugs and the care of the Doctors and Nurses – and of course and even more so the care and concern of family and friends. During the month since the last update I have seen both Dr. “KS” and Dr. “RB” and talked with nurse “LH” – Strangely the Father of one of my near neighbours was also cared for by Macmillan Nurse “LH” and they – like us have nothing but good to say of her. It was indeed the same neighbour who told me off for not updating and so here is the update.

It’s is – I suspect – a bit like being hit over the head with a sand bag. Although I often feel very tired, on a thankfully few occasions, sometimes I suddenly feel so tired that I can hardly move – certainly too tired to fall asleep or to move from chair to bed! It is overwhelming and absolute tiredness, it is a tiredness the like of which I have never felt before and I wish I knew what was causing it. It has to be cancer or drug related I suppose as having tested my blood sugars whilst having an attack I know that it is nothing to do with diabetics. The constant fatigue I feel most days is bad enough but these attacks of extreme fatigue are seriously debilitating...... Another problem is that I don’t really like sleeping – Oh! I sleep alright – more than I have ever slept before but the dreams, always about ships, are becoming weirder and weirder. Not exactly nightmares but unpleasant and every time I sleep.

A couple of weeks ago I was starting to cough more and so Macmillan Nurse “LH” increased my dosage of OxyContin – 15mg night and morning which seems an awful lot to me but apparently is as nothing compared to the dosage some patents are on – and it has once again more or less solved the coughing problem, but does that mean that as time goes on the dosage will slowly increase – there is a bit of good news on the lungs – which if correct makes me wonder why the dosage of OxyContin was increased – anyway I had a chest x-ray on the 16th of April and the report said “Multiple metastases in both lungs but no discernible change since 26.02.10” which is good news and not, in view of the increase in coughing, what I was expecting.

My anti-nausea medicine has also been increased – dosage doubled in fact and that has solved the nausea problem – but I am still not eating all that much – I just don’t seem to be interested in food which for me is a very, very strange symptom.

Nothing much else to report at the moment – It looks like being a nice day and it is good to have the windows open after such a long winter. It’s my birthday very soon on the 28th April and it seems strange that last year Dr Epurescu – my consultant in Medical Oncology – was counting coup that he got me to my last birthday which is why I'm counting coup that I got to this one!