Please don’t ask to see my feet

I have three pieces of good news.

One, after getting pretty positive blood test results on Tuesday, I started on round three of oral chemo that evening.

Two, I have had a post-lockdown haircut.

Three, in another very welcome development, it turns out that the seven cases of COVID-19 that had been diagnosed at the care home where my mum lives in Glasgow were false positives.

I had blood tests done on Monday, on Day 21 of my second three-week cycle of the capecitabine that I’m taking as treatment for secondary breast cancer. I saw the consultant for the results the following day. The relevant tumour marker level has fallen again by a huge amount. In just two cycles of chemo, it has more than halved. It’s only one part of the jigsaw but that’s very good news.

My haemoglobin count was fine; it has held steady since the blood transfusion I had around a month ago after my first round of capecitabine. My white blood cell count is also healthy enough, and within that, without any additional pharmacological support, my neutrophil count is ok too. Various other measures – to do with my liver, for example – are also fine.

At my appointment with her, the oncologist talks me through the results and asks how I’ve been. She has previously warned me specifically to watch out for two main side effects of capecitabine – diarrhoea and palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, where your hands and feet can become red and sore and swollen.

No diarrhoea whatsoever, I report happily. “Hands and feet?”, she asks. Fine, I say, showing her my hands. My nails never recovered from chemo first time round and the treatment I was on for a year before I moved on to this current treatment made them even worse. They’re not at all painful but they are not pretty. That’s just my nails, though. My hands themselves are fine, with no sign of the dreaded syndrome. 

This is going well, I think. And then it hits me. “Please don’t ask to see my feet, please don’t ask to see my feet,” I think. I mustn’t give her any cause for concern, I think. My left foot in particular is a bit of a mess at the moment, with a couple of large and unsightly blisters at varying stages of healing (reasons below). What if she suspects they’re caused by the chemo?

Anyway, she doesn’t ask – at least not then. Next comes the physical examination. I undress to the waist and get on the examination table. The consultant does the usual (usual in normal times, that is; this is the first time this has happened since February), feeling for lumps and bumps in my chest and abdomen and getting me to take deep breaths in and out while she listens with her stethoscope. 

And then it happens. While I’m still on the table, she says “shall we have a look at your feet?” Shit. As I take my sandals off, I start wittering on about how she has to believe me when I say that the fact my feet are a mess has nothing to do with the treatment and everything to do with new pumps I bought and wore without socks and ended up with several big and really painful blood blisters and one popped and I had to cut away the skin because it was making it worse and that’s why it’s got a plaster on and I’m listening to myself and I’m saying to myself, “Maureen, shut up, just show her your feet” but I keep going and now I’m telling her – and the breast cancer nurse who’s also there – how I have a permanent flap of hard skin under my big toe as a result of a bunion-removal operation a million years ago that blisters really easily, and, really, really, this has nothing to do with the treatment.

I finally shut up. I take the plaster off to expose all. She looks and says, “that’s fine, it’s healing”, applies a fresh plaster, checks between my toes, and we’re done.

Next time, I’ll just show her.

Incidentally, these side effects can develop at any time while you’re on this drug. You can have been on it for months without any problems and then they appear.

Anyway, the end result is that I‘m on Day 3 of round three of capecitabine – at a slightly higher dose than I was on for the first two cycles. 

Everyone has a maximum dose based on their body surface area. I started on 85% of my maximum dose and now I’m on 87.5%. Ideally it would have been 90% but the tablets only come in certain strengths and that’s the closest they could get. It doesn’t seem much of an increase but these are highly toxic drugs and I guess you have to take things slowly. 

If there’s evidence that the capecitabine (also known as Xeloda) is working well  and you’re also tolerating it well, you can be switched from a 21-day cycle of two weeks on and one week off to a 28-day cycle of one week on, one week off, one week on, one week off. On this longer cycle, you have less capecitabine overall even at the higher dose and your body has more recovery time within each cycle. You also have fewer blood tests and fewer hospital trips; you have four weeks at a time to live your life, as it were, rather than three*. You may also be switched if you’re not tolerating the three-week cycle well. Luckily it looks as if I might be in the former category.

In terms of knowing whether the drug is working, we currently have the CA 15-3 tumour marker level and other blood test results to go on. My first scan or scans to assess the full impact will be sometime in the autumn.

As for the haircut, it looked great when I left the hairdressers – all moussed up, blow-dried and straightened. It won’t last five minutes under a bike helmet, I thought. Having done several bike rides since, I have been proved right, but at least I know what it can look like!

I wrote about the COVID-19 scare at my mum’s care home in my previous blog post. A few days later, the seven people who had tested positive were retested and the results came back negative. To everyone’s huge relief, the original results were deemed to have been false positives. I’m getting closer and closer to deciding to go up and visit, even if it’s through a window. The fact that two friends have just very recently lost their mums has made me even more aware that this is something I have to find a way of doing, pandemic or not.

*It’s hard to keep everything in sync when you’re on treatments with different dosing schedules. For example, I have to go back to the hospital next week, just one week into my three-week cycle, for the other part of my treatment. That’s the monthly injection of denosumab, the bone strengthener that’s given to people like me whose primary cancer has spread to their bones, to reduce the incidence of “skeletal-related events” such as fractures, radiation or surgery to the bone, and spinal cord compression. Hopefully from next month I’ll be able to give myself that injection at home.

Cycling jersey memoirs, Part 1

Shortly after I moved on to oral chemotherapy at the end of May, I got it into my head that I would do a bike ride of over 50 kilometres in each of the seven cycling jerseys that I own.

There’s a story to each jersey. This challenge, I reckoned, would provide me with an opportunity to reflect on each one of those stories. As for the distance, I reckoned fifty kilometres constituted a proper bike ride. It’s sufficiently long that you have to plan and decide where you’re going, but not so long as to feel intimidating before you even set off. 

There will come a time for most of us when we’re no longer able to do the things we love. In my case, that time is likely to come far sooner than it will for most people my age. I was 57 a couple of days ago* and I view every day that I can still get on my bike and ride any distance at all as a bonus. 

I’m on treatment for advanced, currently treatable but ultimately incurable breast cancer. I’ve been on treatment for just over a year, since May 2019, but I only recently moved on to chemotherapy. I take tablets of a chemo drug called capecitabine (also known as Xeloda) in the morning and evening every day for two weeks then I have a week off. I’m coming to the end of the week off in the second cycle. I have blood tests tomorrow and I see the consultant for the results on Tuesday and she’ll tell me whether I can move on to round number three.

I’ve cycled all my life but it was only after I was treated for primary breast cancer in 2015/16 that I took up road cycling in a serious way. Before then, I’d never owned a cycling jersey. Four years on, I have seven. You may think that’s a lot. All I can say is don’t judge until you’ve read the stories. 

There wasn’t a hint of sadness involved in the decision about the jerseys and the rides. It was more a case of providing myself with an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate all the great times I’ve had on and off the bike in the past few years. Also, as I say above, it was a challenge and, as everyone who knows me is aware, I’m a bit of a fan of those.

I managed to complete the seven rides in exactly one calendar month. Or rather, I almost did. One was 42 kilometres, but it was such a nice ride that I’ve decided to include it. It’s my game and I make the rules! Anyway, I’ve included an eighth ride, which was longer than 50k and so more than makes up for the shorter one. 

This post covers three jerseys and the first three rides, in chronological order. I originally meant to cover all the rides in the one blog post but I found myself writing more than I had intended. I did these three rides with my husband, who has only just started riding a road bike again after many years of riding a hybrid for commuting and short leisure rides. He’s loving it and for me it’s great having a new and enthusiastic riding buddy who very conveniently lives in the same household!

Number 1

31 May, 68k

I wore my Mellow Jersey top for this fabulous ride of 68k from our house in Balham in southwest London out to a place in the county of Surrey called Reigate Hill. This was on 31 May, just three days after I’d started taking the capecitabine tablets and I was feeling fine. It was one of the sunniest – and hottest – days of the year so far and there was a lot of climbing involved. This was the first time my husband had used a road bike in more than three decades. Also, he hadn’t ridden anywhere near that distance before. On top of that, it was the first time he’d ridden with cycling cleats.

There was a real sense of freedom with this ride. The sun was shining and it was blazing hot, I was just grateful be out riding and my husband was loving it too. The view from the top of Reigate Hill was amazing, as you can see from the photo. Cafes were opening again in the wake of the loosening of the coronavirus restrictions and there was almost a party atmosphere at the cafe where we stopped for a break. Everyone was clearly happy to be out and about; we were no exception.

As for the kit, I hadn’t really given any thought to which jersey I’d wear for which ride. However, given that there was a lot of climbing, it was fitting that I chose the Mellow Jersey top for this one.

Mellow Jersey is a cycling tour company that runs cycling camps in the UK, France and on the stunning Spanish island of Mallorca. I’ve been to Mallorca with Mellow Jersey three times now on women-only camps and I cannot praise the organisers of these camps highly enough. My most recent trip, in March this year, was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, but each time I’ve gone, the team has been incredibly accommodating and supportive and has got me up hills I never would have dreamt of tackling on my own.

I’ve always been a very slow climber and I’m even more so now. My haemoglobin count is low as a result of the disease and the treatment and I just don’t have anything extra to give on the hills. I make up for it somewhat on the descents, though, and I’ve never ridden faster than I have in Mallorca with the folks at Mellow Jersey!

Such great memories every time I wear this jersey – especially as all the times I’ve been on these camps, I’ve been in the company of friends and/or fellow cyclists from either one or both of the two cycling clubs I’m a member of here in London.

Number 2

7 June, 56k

The jersey I wore on the 56k ride we did on 7 June is part of the kit for one of the two clubs I’m a member of, in this case the Balham Cycling Club. 

I largely have this club to thank for the fact that I can call myself a road cyclist. I joined this super friendly and open group early in 2017, not long after I’d decided to sign up for a closed-road, mass participation, 100-mile charity bike ride known as Ride London. I did some googling and it turned out my luck was in. The club had just re-established itself, having originally been set up in 1897!

I got in touch, signed up and started riding out with the club straight away, in the “steadiest” (ie slowest – love that euphemism) group. I loved it right from the start. I told a few friends who were also cyclists about it and they joined too. Soon I was regularly doing rides of between 60 and 80k. As Ride London neared, the club organised recces of the three main hills on the 100-mile route so that those who hadn’t done it before knew what to expect on the day. It was the perfect preparation for the ride itself (more on this in the next post).

As for the kit, this was my first cycling jersey.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to all club cycling being cancelled. Even before the outbreak, I hadn’t ridden with the club for a good while. I can do distances but I’m slow and I don’t like the thought of potentially holding back even the steadiest group. I’m fine with that. I still do plenty of cycling in the club kit and am in regular contact through various social media groups.

It’s great when you’re out on a ride and you come across fellow club members. Also, it’s a truly local club; there’s even one member who lives on the same road as me and another few who live close by that you bump into off the bike from time to time.

The friends I introduced to the club have become quite involved, which has been nice to see. I have huge affection for this and my other club, BellaVelo. Last October, in a hugely moving gesture, the two clubs came together and organised a 100 kilometre bike ride in my honour and to raise funds for research into secondary breast cancer.

As for the ride in mid-June, it was put together by the club’s ride captain during lockdown. It too has some beautiful views – not to mention some sharp hills that appear from nowhere!

Number 3

14 June, 59k

I bought the jersey I wore on this mid-June ride of almost 60k in Manhattan when I was there almost a year ago, in September 2019.

I’d gone to New York to visit two aunts of whom I’m extremely fond. They’re my late dad’s sisters and one of them is my godmother.

Wearing this jersey reminds me of that lovely trip and also of the almost two years I spent living in New York in the mid 1990s.

The make of this jersey is Rapha. It’s a high-end brand, is very expensive and cyclists either love it or hate it. As for me, I loved this jersey as soon as I tried it on and I decided to buy it there and then, as a massive treat to myself. You can imagine how pleased I was to find out when I went to pay that it was in the sale at a vastly reduced price! 

The photo here is of me enjoying a well-deserved ice cream near the end of what turned out to be yet another hilly ride on yet another very hot day. If I look sweaty and exhausted, it’s because I was!  

Writing about these rides has reminded me just how much of what we enjoy about life has to do with the people we share it with. 

I didn’t know what to expect when I was first diagnosed with this life-limiting illness in March 2019.  I’m not sure I thought that almost 16 months on I’d be managing to cycle 50 kilometre rides once or twice a week. Who knows for how much longer I’ll be able to do that? At this precise moment, I don’t feel any need to dwell on that question.

The stories for jerseys and rides four to eight will follow.

*My birthday on Friday involved family, friends, tennis, cycling, cake, prosecco, being cooked for, and some very nice gifts. How could that be anything other than hugely enjoyable? On the downside, yesterday we heard that seven cases of COVID-19 – all asymptomatic – have been identified among the residents and the staff and the nuns who run the care home my mum is in up in my native city of Glasgow. They had done so well; these are the first cases they’ve had, or at least identified, and everyone is devastated. Just as they’d announced that limited face-to-face visiting would be allowed for the first time since the start of the epidemic in March, they’re having to impose even stricter restrictions. My mum has dementia and is really struggling with the isolation. Where will it end? Things like this really ram home what a very difficult time this is for so, so many people.