A walk in the countryside.

As proud Kiwis we tend to think that no where else in the world can possess the same clean, green image as we do in NZ.. well at least that's what I used to think anyway..

Sarah and I walked downstairs to the restaurant this morning and took our place at our table. All the tables have name tags, mine belongs to "Mr Scanlan" a name I usually only drag out for the Doctor and the Taxman.
I was plowing my way through yet another bowl of cornflakes, when something caught my eye outside the window. There in a large pine tree not five meters from where we sat was a little red squirrel.
He ran up and down the branches at a frenetic pace. Doing what ever it is squirrels do. I'm guessing he wasn't gathering nuts in a pine tree. He then took off running along the concrete balustrade that encompasses the patio directly outside the window. Very cute! Why do we only have pesky possums in our trees.. hardly seems fair really.

After getting through the mornings yukky bits, needles, IV's and infusions I was free to do what ever I liked for the day. Dr K suggested we get out for a walk in the countryside.
So as soon as lunch had settled, Sarah and I put on our sneakers and sunnies and headed off down the walking track that starts just a few hundreds metres from the Kliniks front door.

The tracks are somewhere in between a very narrow road or a very generous footpath. A mixture of walkers, bikers, tractors and cars all traverse the same narrow ribbons of winding roadway. After passing through luscious green pastures, musically accompanied by the constant clanging of a hundred cow bells, we headed on up into a forest area. The trees grow arrow-straight, probably Cedar or Fir. The scenery is straight off a chocolate box lid. I half expected to see Hansel and Gretal skipping along, breadcrumbs trailing behind.

(The one thing you do notice by their absence are birds. Between Sarah and I, we have seen two crows, a pair of largish pigeon looking specimens, a couple of Finches and one blackbird. And that's since Tuesday. The dawn chorus in Bad Heilbrun as far as I can tell, consists of the feeble twitters of a couple of dozen, yet to be seen Finches.)

From what as I can make out, all the rural areas are linked by these narrow roads. I guess they were once medieval highways and byways that would have connected all the villages and towns. Now they are glorified walking tracks, maintained by necessity for the farmers, and for tourism on the less traveled sections. I've found myself a map and we shall explore as many as we can now that I have the strength to get past the Kliniks front gate.

Today we managed to walk about five Km's. That really surprised me. To have regained so much energy in such a short time is just incredible. Three days ago I struggled to climb the stairs!.
Mind you I did stop a lot to rest. There are park benches every few hundred metres or so, ..would have been such a shame not to put them to good use!

It was while sitting at one such bench admiring the rolling green hills that lead up towards the woods and forests above, that I saw a wild cat, motionless in the grass, that almost, but not quite concealed it. Ginger in colour, it appeared to be stalking something. Probably a field mouse.
It moved one paw then another, creeping along slowly towards it's prey, body flattened towards the ground to minimise it's profile. Whether is was successful in catching it's afternoon tea, I do not know. We continued on our walk.

We strolled by green pastures with nothing in them, and wooded areas where timber had been cut and stacked for gathering. Once again stopping for a rest in a small clearing that contained a pair of horses, heads down, pulling clumps of grass from the ground, making that familiar crunching sound as the blades are torn from their roots.

Yup, It was a beautiful day for a walk.

..Ron




Chocolate Box scenery..

Past rolling green pastures..

Cat center of picture.


Sharing the path..

Day 19: Friday, A Summary.

I got a phone call last night on my mobile. It was Murray. In NZ it was 3am and he was driving a rented camper-van to some desolate out-of-the-way spot as part of the PP Rally team's 2008 WRC campaign.
First thing Murray says is "Gee you sound pretty good!". "Thanks.. yeah I'm not dead yet" I reply. Later I went online and checked my email, Blog comments and MSN contacts. Ashleigh was on MSN Messenger and she commented that I look really well in the photos I've posted.

That got me thinking, yeah I do look well. The point of getting treatment straight away was because I was in good shape. I didn't want to let myself run down to a point that I was so ill that I could barely handle the chemo.

So I thought I'd take a look at where I am at physically as of this morning, Friday August 29th 2008. ...
For some reason, of which I have no explanation, My hair is darker than it has naturally been in probably 20 years. The radiation racing stripes on the back of my neck have almost totally disappeared. (I had two large bald strips running from my neck to the top of my head, post radiation)

My weight is barely 69Kg's, I haven't been this light since I clicked over to 70kg on my way to 71 and beyond, one day back in 1978. The steroids have robbed me of bone density, and muscle. Sitting in a small room 24/7 doesn't exactly build muscle mass either.

I have no symptoms of disease, not an ache, a cough, an itch or a bead of sweat has occurred that is disease related since having the first cycle of Chemo 14 days ago.

I have a ringing in my ears that has gotten louder over the last couple of days, it's worse at night when I turn out the light, but I can hear it over most things.. even the TV. It was caused by the drug Cisplatin, part of the chemo regimen, and is a common side effect. However it can be blocked out mentally, I just need to program myself to do it. Earlier today I thought it had gone, and I had to refocus back on it, and there is was.. a constant high pitched ring.. like that of a dog whistle but just a few Hz lower. I figure if I can get to a point that I just accept it and block it as best I can, I'll be fine.. otherwise, I'm told sanity is over-rated anyway.

Veins are a mess, we put a new cannula into my right wrist this morning, I say we, but it was Dr Glonti who slid the 50mm long needle into the vein, I did the easy part, winced and turned grey. Oddly the needle will only flow one way, he tried to extract a blood sample from it but nothing flowed. IV Fluids rocket down the line no problem at all. Sooo that meant another needle had to be slid into a vein on the back of my hand for the test. I got all four Infusions out of the way really quickly this morning, cranking the drip rate up to several a second.

Bloods.. Well I'm mildly optimistic there too, White blood count has doubled again overnight and now sits at 1.1, still low but enough to be allowed outside and not to have everyone wearing masks anymore. Platelets dropped from 61 yesterday to 38 today. That was expected so I'm not concerned about that, we are nearly twice the figure that spontaneous bleeding can occur. I'll be hoping for an increase or at least no further drops over the next day or so. Overall the blood counts are good news and it looks like I am out of the danger zone now and on my way to growing some new marrow.

My sense of taste has taken a beating again, but nowhere near as bad as from radiation. I guess it's at about 60% of normal and should return in a week or so to the 90% figure it was at before I started treatment. Further taste improvement will come in time, and also improve as my saliva flow increases over the next 6 months or so.

I spoke to Dr K this morning about a schedule for treatment and he said he will have one typed up for me. He believes that perhaps by Monday I may be healthy enough to leave the clinic's care and stay elsewhere. If he postpones the second cycle of chemo until I have a platelet count higher than 100, we may try and return to NZ between times, however it would be second guessing to make any firm plans right now. This in itself is a constant cause of anxiety, not knowing how, where, when or if treatment will continue. Roll on Monday and some good blood counts.

Energy levels are good, I don't have to sit down after every movement greater than a four meter walk. I can handle the stairs again ok with just a slightly elevated heart rate to show for it.

So, over-all I feel completely normal, probably the same as any of you reading, maybe for some, better ;) My body has been decimated a little, but I'm sure that it's nothing six months of good eating and exercise can't fix.

Thursday round-up.

Being hooked up to an IV most of the day isn't what most people would call fun.

Certainly if this were a package holiday marketed towards the masochistic among us, then I'd definitely recommend it. But no, the element of fun is definitely in short supply on this particular Bavarian getaway. Bringing your partner along to share in the misery is about a thumb-screw short of sadism.

But she's here now so she might as well share in the pain. And share in it she is! I was woken this morning by the noise of her going out the door. I could see she was dressed in her running gear, all set to pound the pathways and walking tracks in search of blisters, pulled muscles and heat shock. You have to admit once she gets into something, Sarah really does give it her all.

I'll see if I can't arrange for a session in the Pizza Oven just to bring her completely up to speed on the suffering front.

Blood counts are only slightly better than yesterday, with the White Blood Count up to .6 from .4.

Platelets are now in a safe range at a very respectable (for me) 61. It's interesting that 2 units of whole blood didn't make more of a difference to the WBC. Had another GCSF this morning and I've started on my Goji juice as well. Here's hoping that the platelets stay put tomorrow and that we see a definate increase in WBC as well..

I'm supposed to be still under isolation today, I've been told I can walk around outside but only with a mask. However we snuck downstairs for breakfast, so having the kitchen staff deliver food to us in masks for lunch and dinner would have been little on the nose. To that end I asked Dr K if I could eat in the restaurant. He said we could, but not to tell anyone he said so. ..Ooops.

I got my four "infusions" over and done with as soon as I could today. I hate having them and as Dr K said that I could have the line removed from my left wrist today in order to help with the healing of the inflamed cannula site on the same arm, I thought I'd get them out of the way as soon as possible and regain some relative freedom.

Major yuk factor.. When the nurse pulled the large adhesive bandage off my wrist, complete with much hair, the needle and a lot of pain, it opened a small hole in my wrist. She placed a swab on it and I asked if it would need a bandage. She said it would be ok if I held it in place for a few minutes then just leave it. Bzzzt wrong! I removed the swab after a short time and a little geyser of blood squirted out from my wrist and onto the cushion of my seat, also covering my wrist in just a few seconds. I quickly placed the swab back on the hole and waited another five minutes before trying, this time successfully, to uncover it.

Yesterday I asked that our TV be swapped for a better one as the 14" one we had didn't always work and had no AV inputs for my DVR (Digital Video Recorder) preventing me from watching my ..umm.. fully ligit "backups" of my movie collection.

Nothing came of it, so I asked again this morning. Some time later there's a knock on the door and then Andy enters carrying a television only slightly smaller than the doorway he had just struggled to manoeuvre it through. It's a 32" Panasonic widescreen, talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous! Once connected and turned on, he picked up the tiny 14" unit, placed it under his arm and left.

Pic below :)

Sarah Posts: ...Not so lost - really

I have just read Ron's journal entry from yesterday and am deeply wounded. I was not lost. I knew were I was. I was in the Bavarian countryside talking to cows with clanging bells around their necks.
I had, in fact, realized I had taken the wrong turning within 100 metres of walking down the gravel road, but decided a stroll through the shady woodland looked like a pleasant way to avoid the mid-afternoon sun. So I kept going. I came out of the woods and, as my Dad always told me to do, kept turning in the same direction. I turned right along a sealed lane that ran through the middle of a cow shed. The aroma of sickeningly sweet silage and baking cow excrement was fairly unpleasant but I smiled and thought how nice it was to be here compared to spending 40 hours in airports and on airplanes stressing about fog, missing connections, and lack of re-booking options.
I turned right at the next intersection, and right again at the next. And voila! I was back outside the Klinic. So Dad - again you were right. I found my way home without having to drop crumbs - just like when I got lost in the New Forest :-)

Ron gave me the good news about his bone marrow when I first arrived here. I gave him the hugest hug which, incidentally, was the last time I was able to touch him as he went straight in to isolation due to his blood counts being so low.
We still don't know whether Ron will be able to have the second round of Chemo within the next few weeks, or whether he will need to return to NZ for a few weeks to recover his marrow. But we are both less anxious about it now as we can talk to the Doctors and make decisions together.

I will leave the details of the horrors of my trip here for another time when I am a little more over it and can see the funny side - not yet.

cheers
sarah

Day 17: Bloods out for the count.

I did have some warning that the counts were low, I have to admit that. But you know it's getting scary when the doctor comes into your room wearing a mask.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry" Was pretty much the first thing he said. "Your white cell count is very, very low" "
How low" I ask.. He hands me the printout. Hmm 0.4.
That's more than low. That's almost non-existent!
4.3-10.8 is the normal range. My count is over tens times lower than the lower limit of the normal range.
Platelets counts are now 16, more than half what they were after yesterdays count and also a tenth of the lower limit for the normal range.
However there is still no scary bleeding from the eyes. :)

All of this has happened before, back in October 2005. The difference this time is that unlike last time where I was sent away from the hospital only to find out 2 weeks later that my counts were massively low. This time The German doctors are doing several tests a day and treating accordingly.

I've asked Dr K for both Neumega and GCSF. He said that he cannot give me Neumega to stimulate the platelets because this can cause an overabundance of megakaryocytes in the marrow which may in turn adversely affect white cell production. His first job is to get my white counts back into a safe range, and then see where the platelets are at and treat them later.

Today I've already had another shot of GCSF into the skin of my stomach. It's something I'm used to, as I was given a 5 day course to inject myself with, after each chemo cycle last year.
Next they plan to give me a blood transfusion and another 2 units of platelets this afternoon or evening. I should add that I'm feeling completely normal at the moment, not sick in anyway.

The infection (if that is what it is) at the site of my last cannula, seems to be OK and they are putting a special local anti-biotic on it every three hours.

I'm stuck here in my room under isolation conditions. Everyone that enters must wear a mask.
So I'm dead bored and the TV won't accept my Arcos DVR player, so I can't even watch movies.
They said they would upgrade the TV but that was before the isolation came into effect.
So I've taken to reading my book "Where Underpants come from". It's a fascinating and humorous tale of author Joe Bennett's travels through China and Thailand as he attempts to trace the origins of a pair of Warehouse Underpants right back to their component source in the cotton fields of China.

I've given Sarah directions to the grocery store, less than 1/2 a Km from here. So she is off doing a bit of shopping.

..an hour and a half pass.
Sarah, despite being told that it's just a case of walking down the hill and turning right at the main road, managed to get lost. She turned right into a farmer's field and proceeded to walk about 5km's in a circle, finally ending up where she was supposed to be, purely, I believe, by chance.
She returned hot and flustered but seemingly proud of herself for finding somewhere she could run for exercise without getting lost. Her circuitous logic and navigation skills, never ceases to amuse me.

...Just getting some IV Antibiotics as I post this.


Update: 9 PM.
Blood and platelet transfusions have arrived, pic below shows me hooked up and taking them in. Wonder if the doc can be convinced to follow them up with an IV whisky chaser? :)

Wednesday Morning.

Sarah arrived last night and has settled in. It's 8am here, I thought I'd post a short update on where I'm at.

My blood counts are continuing to fall, my white cell count which was originally good is now very low. Platelets are 34 and that's with the transfusion!
The biggest threat to me health-wise is an out of control infection. Without a decent neutrophil count a person can go from healthy to life support in a few hours..

Luckily, last night, just as I was about to turn in for the evening, I noticed I had a painful area on my left wrist near the elbow. It felt like it had a deep bruise, when I touched it it was painful, firm and hot. The skin had turned red. I called the doctor to my room and he has treated it with local antibiotics as well as a systemic one. It looks like one of the needle sites from the other day day has become infected around the vein. Yuk!. I half expected to wake this morning to find half my arm involved.. It isn't, but we are keeping a close eye on it.

I did manage to get out yesterday for a walk to the grocery store. It's well stocked with everything you could need, so when Sarah and I do finally leave here and stay at a guesthouse or similar, we should have no problems with food etc. I bought Sarah a nice bottle of Shiraz so we could celebrate the marrow results when she arrived. (I won't mention the pringles and chocolate I got for me ;)

I'm not allowed out today, in fact the doctor said I should wear a mask if I leave my room. I'll see what's happening with the counts. I got a shot of GCSF last night that should help. I would expect to have one everyday for the 5 days to see a sustained increase. I'll be suggesting that to Dr K today and asking for the neumega shots too.

Right.. breakfast! :)

THE VERY BEST NEWS!!

Dr Kopic has just visited me on his morning rounds.
The very first thing he said as he entered the room and shook my hand was..

"I have very good news.. Your bone marrow is clear"

This is the absolute best news I could have.. To have no bone marrow involvement is just fantastic! The doctors at Wgtn told me my marrow was involved, but I could never understand how they knew that without testing. I guess they believed that because it had been wiped out so badly by the chemo that it must have been as a result of involvement. The chances of long term remission are now greatly improved.

I talked to Dr K about a few other things.. One of which is the tinnitus that has developed as a result taking the Cisplatin component of the DHAP regimen. I've always had a little bit of tinnitus.. a ringing in my ears as a result of a misspent youth. Too many loud concerts, stereos and angle grinders without ear protection. However this has now increased to the point that it is a constant ring that could drive you nuts if you were to focus on it. I just block it out, being alive to hear it is what counts. It's a small price to pay..
The Doctor says he can give me something to help it and will give me extra protection for the second round of chemo.

OK.. shall go now and enjoy my happiness.. It's a fantastic day! ..Yahooo! I don't have cancer in my bone marrow!!!! :-)


8pm.. Sarah has arrived safe and happy. :)

Tuesday Morning Day 16

I stayed up late last night, My platelet transfusion didn't start until 11pm. It was all done by around midnight but by then I'd had a reaction to the foreign platelets and my body was producing histamines as it's first line of defence. I became incredibly itchy! I asked nurse Manja for some anti-histamine and she offered me some cream.. I said I'd need to bath in it!
She gave me the choice of an injection or a pill. I chose the pill.
That made very drowsy and I slept for the next nine hours. Even now 12 hours later I am very sleepy.

I've moved rooms. Karina offered to show me one more room before I moved and I have decided not to go with the large one with the huge TV.
In hindsight the room was wasted.. it had a large separate room off to the side that was no good for anything. The area for the computer was taken up by the LCD TV and their was no balcony.
The room I have chosen now is exactly the same as my last room only it's a mirror image.
The TV is tiny, 14" but I think that its' fitting that the telly's size be representative of quality of the broadcasts it shows. :)

Sarah texted me to say her plane was delayed due to a computer fault on board, she's now expected to arrive in Munich an hour late at 6:35pm.
I don't have any real plans for today other sleep and possibly a short walk to find Tenenbaums grocery store. Right now I am fighting to stay awake.. I'm so incredibly drowsy and it's only 11am.

Hey one really cool thing that happens here are fighter jets that roar across the sky every now and then. They fly quite low and at amazing speeds! When I was a young boy I used to see formations of air-force trainers and jets flying low up the Hutt Valley at various times. Not likely to ever see that again in NZ since Helen sold off our air-force trainers and moth-balled what was left of our Jets. Ooh another one just went over so fast I missed it! The screaming jet engine roar is just a pure adrenaline rush! OK I'm awake now! :)

The sky is criss-crossed with vapour trails.

New room pics below for those of you with voyeuristic tendencies ;)

Five minutes in Bad Tolz: The recall to clinic.

Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!
It's not like I didn't warn them, I certainly told you all here last week that it would happen..
My platelet count is now a miserly 24. That's ten fold less than the average.

So there I was sitting at the back of the bus on my way to Bad Tolz for an afternoon of ice-cream, shopping and exploring, when my phone rings. I knew I should have left it behind!.
It was Christine from the clinic, she asked where I was.. "On the bus to Bad Tolz" I replied..
"Can you please get off the bus at the depot and wait for Andy our driver to pick you up?"
She sounded concerned.. "Your blood count is very low". I asked her what it was.. 24. I told her I've had worse. I wasn't in a position to argue. Tripping on a curb or a slight bang to the head could be fatal.

"In an adult, a normal count is about 150,000 to 450,000 platelets per microliter (x 10–6/Liter) of blood.
If platelet levels fall below 20,000 per microliter, spontaneous bleeding may occur and is considered a life-threatening risk."

Pam and Angela waited with me for Andy to arrive at the bus depot and from there we went our separate ways.
So here I am stuck in my room with nothing to look forward to but another line to be installed in my sunken veins and yet another round of infusions.
When Dr K stops in I shall give him a rev! I warned him days ago that we would miss the point where we could pull out of an uncontrolled dive in my platelets and he just assumed they would get better. Sheesh, it's not like I haven't been through this all before! Bring on the Goji juice I say! I'll have those little suckers numbering back in the billions in no time. :)

Oh I have chosen my new room. It's really big and has a huge LCD TV so I can watch the same mind numbingly boring crap in wide-screen! I can hardly wait!.

Right I'll go find someplace soft to lay down and try to avoid sneezing.. will post if anything exciting happens like spontaneous bleeding from the eyes.. ;-)


...thirty minutes pass..
I was just about hit the "post" button when Dr K and a nurse entered my room with a large collections of needles, swabs and bandages in a tray.
Knowing what I was in for, I chose to lay on the bed. Dr K Inserted a new line into one of my few remaining visible veins. There are so few of them left now that I should give them names.
He found one in my left wrist. It's hurting slightly and slows my two finger typing down to a crawl.
I'm on an IV now too.. don't know what, don't really care. They aren't my friends those IV's..
They took another 3 vials of blood for testing.. That's five today already. Needle phobia anyone??
The plan is to give me 2 units of platelets this afternoon. Woohoo! I'll be feeling like crap tomorrow!

Ok as you were.. :)

Day 15: Monday morning.

Monday is here, I've just had breakfast and am now relaxing in my room before hopefully getting on a bus to Badd Tolz after lunch. I'll tag along behind Pam and Angela.

It seems weird, like I've already done Monday.. you see last night I stayed up quite late and checked in on Sarah and Kurt via MSN. By the time I went to bed it was already nearly midday Monday in NZ. Sarah managed to lock herself out of the flat (again) and despite me going to great lengths in the past to make sure that both Murray and Sarah had a secret spare key to both their flats, (Murray is also always locking himself out) The system failed when Murray lost that key also. Sigh.. ;) It all worked out OK in the end as I have extra spare keys at work. Sometimes it pays to be totally anal about these things! :-) Anyway Sarah is now well on her way, so no harm done. (She texted me as she boarded her flight to San Francisco)

After breakfast I got a call to go to the nurses station to have my blood taken. The blood testing machine here is out of order today and so they needed to take a sample and courier it off urgently to another lab. My veins have almost totally disappeared! It took the nurse several failed attempts before Dr Glonti found a vein in my wrist that had failed to completely hide itself.
I had turned completely grey by this stage. I can handle one needle but by the time you have had someone jab you four times it gets all a bit much!

Next up I will go and choose a new room to stay in. This one is a single, so there's no room for Sarah. Hopefully I can find a nice one.
I'll know my platelet count by lunchtime, I'll post the result before days end. It will greatly affect the treatment time if it keeps dropping. Bone marrow result is still not in. Dr Kopic told me this morning that it is being reviewed by the German Hodgkin's Study Group and they will advise him of their findings shortly. Sounds like a very good excuse to me, I don't mind waiting if it's because the best in the world are studying it. Dr K said this morning that if both the platelets recover soon and the bone marrow is good he will look at the second cycle of chemo being in three weeks time. I will have forgotten what home looks like by then.

I do feel very positive about the treatment, In my mind the lymphoma in my chest is already dissolved away. I have asked that I be given no more Ibuprofen for now so I can test to see what happens with my back-ache. I certainly don't have any more night sweats, that in itself is a huge psychological boost.

OK.. Shall post later on the trip to Badd Tolz.. (that's assuming I make it as far as the bus stop!)

..Ron

Sunday, Sunday...

It's a beautiful day outside! Shame I don't have the energy to get out there and do some exploring. I might try later and see how far I can manage.. Have to wait till the doctors have done their rounds first.

Everyday they come and visit you in your room and go through what they have to say.
Only problem is I just can't get enough info out of Dr Kopic to be able to completely understand where things are heading. I'm sure he knows, But when I ask he will lock onto one or two key words and assume they are the basis of the question.

Today I have a list of things I will raise with him. First up is my platelet count. Down to 38 or so.
They should have started me on Neumega last week, but I think they held off thinking there would not be such a big drop, despite my warnings that this would be the biggest concern.
Platelet counts have been the single biggest factor in Wgtn hospital avoiding salvage chemo. In NZ Neumega is not available.

I found that during my chemo last year, if I took Goji berry puree, my blood counts held very well and it allowed me to get through all 6 cycles of chemo with modest counts. Sarah will bring me some over with her. It's been shown in clinical tests that the Goji berry can stimulate blood growth factors. It worked for me last year during chemo, so I'll use it again. The nurses could not understand how someone could double their counts while receiving chemo, however when I told the doctor what it was I was taking, he said it was "Snake oil". ..Guess you can't argue with a closed mind. By comparison, I told Dr Kopic about it and he said if something works then you should use it.

... Two hours pass..
A lot can happen in a hurry around here! The doctors came to visit and I asked them about all the things I've mentioned above. I told them that they will need to do something about my platelets before they get much lower. They said that tomorrow they will take a look and see which way they are going and treat accordingly. Dr K has informed me that he is looking to have my stem cells moved to a storage facility, and he said he has been adding liquid nitrogen everyday since they arrived, so that puts my mind at ease a little more.

I then asked about my treatment plan, how long I need to stay and when they want to do the second cycle of chemo. They said that as soon as my platelets start to return I can stay elsewhere and return later for the second cycle. This could be up to three weeks away. After that I would need a week or so to recover again. The dendritic cell vaccine is on a similar time period.
I also mentioned the fatigue and they said that the steroids would be causing it (or the lack of them now) as my red blood cell and hemoglobin counts are ok.

Treatment schedule-wise, What this leaves me with is the option of staying in Munich at a guest house or similar cheaper accommodation saving around $30K on treatment costs. Then returning for a short visit for the second cycle. Staying in Germany is the best bet as doing two long haul flights so close together with a weak immune system would be asking for trouble.

I've been planning to make an escape tomorrow. I've been told by Pam and Angela where to find a grocery store called "Tenenbaums" which sells all manner of goodies! I shall go in search of something yummy to eat! My saliva glands are starting to work again, so it's time to see if I can eat potato chips! :)

Just finished lunch.. shall post this to the blog, wait for my food to settle and go for a slow walk outside.

..Ron