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? :)