Covid, etc

Note: I updated this post on April 15th to give a more realistic picture regarding what was happening cancer-wise even before I got Covid.

I managed to avoid it for the best part of two years, but Covid finally caught up with me. I had a mild dose and I seem to have recovered well. Of the five days that I was out of sorts, there was just one day when I felt really rough.

I was more upset about the fact that a session of chemo had to be cancelled than about the fact I had Covid. The only thing worse than being on chemo is not being on it when you should be.

It didn’t end there. When I next went to the hospital to start back on chemo, they took my temperature at the entrance to the treatment unit as they always do. It was sky high. I hadn’t realised. Almost immediately it was decided I couldn’t possibly have treatment. Several hours later, I was tentatively diagnosed with a bacterial infection and sent home with a seven-day course of antibiotics. I had now missed two chemo sessions – the equivalent of a whole cycle. I felt lower then than I had felt in a long time. I reckoned the last thing my cancer needed was a free rein to cause even more havoc than it’s already caused.

Back to Covid. After testing positive, I took up the offer of one of the new antiviral drug treatments for Covid that are now available for “clinically extremely vulnerable” individuals such as myself. There’s no way of knowing whether the drugs made a difference but my dose remained mild and I’m glad I was offered them.

I sent off the priority PCR test that I had at home soon after testing positive on an LFT. The NHS has been issuing these priority kits to people classed as CEV as part of a programme to get us tested quickly if we develop symptoms and, if positive and if appropriate, onto one of the new treatments. 

The drugs have been shown to reduce the risk of CEV individuals with mild to moderate Covid from progressing to severe disease and all that entails – hospitalisation and worse. They have to be started within five days of you developing symptoms. 

It was all very efficient. I was notified of a positive PCR result less than 24 hours after sending off the test. I got a call some hours later from an infectious disease doctor from the Covid Medicines Delivery Unit based at the hospital in southwest London where I’m being treated for my secondary breast cancer. I took delivery of a five-day course of an antiviral treatment called Paxlovid that evening and I started taking the tablets immediately. I started the course around 2.5 days after developing my first symptom.

Paxlovid is the brand name for the treatment, which is a combination of an existing HIV drug called ritonavir and a new antiviral drug called nirmatrelvir. The former helps the latter stay active in the body longer.

These are strong drugs. As the patient information leaflet says, “not many people have taken Paxlovid” and “serious and unexpected side effects may happen”. Within the CEV category, there is clearly a broad spectrum. Currently, I am clearly not at the most-at-risk end of it. Nonetheless, I decided to take the extra help.

Those of you who follow this blog know that I really only fully shielded for a few weeks at the very beginning of lockdown, back in March 2020. I did take care, adhering to guidance on social distancing and avoiding shops, supermarkets and public transport for a very long time, for example. However, I jumped at the chance to get out and exercise, socialise and travel as soon as it was allowed. With the Omicron variant being so transmissible, I’m aware I certainly could have been more cautious over the period when I must have caught the virus.

I know people with no underlying health conditions who’ve been far more cautious than I’ve been throughout the whole pandemic. Everyone decides on their own risk threshold but I do think that many people who were classed as CEV and who shielded for many, many months – and who indeed may be still shielding – were done a disservice by the government. Blanket guidance was issued for what very clearly was not a one-size-fits-all situation.

I was quite happy self-isolating while I had Covid. I work from home and there are some weeks where I don’t leave the house for a few days at a time anyway other than to get fresh air or meet friends locally. My symptoms were a sore throat, a headache and tiredness. I slept through most of the day I felt roughest. I’m quite happy in my own company so I didn’t suffer on that front. I listened to a book on Audible, my first time. I recommend the book – Unsettled Ground by Clare Fuller. It covers issues such as homelessness and it took on a special resonance, reading it as I was in the comfort of a big, warm, comfortable house.

My husband kept me fed and watered throughout (as he does anyway, it has to be said). He too likes his own company. He asked me on Day 5 when I thought I might stop self-isolating. When I said “possibly tomorrow”, he quipped back “steady on, there’s no rush”. Cheeky or what? In the end, I was in isolation for seven days.

The self-isolation was fine logistically but the disruption it caused was hard to deal with, emotionally and practically. Among other things, I had to cancel a trip to Glasgow that I’d really been looking forward to. I felt I was letting a lot of people down by not going. I had to send multiple begging emails in an effort to get refunds or credit vouchers for the cost of unused train tickets, hotel reservations and theatre tickets. I also had to rearrange or cancel several appointments or events in London.

I currently have treatment with intravenous eribulin at the hospital on Day 1 and Day 8 of a 21-day cycle. I have blood tests on Day 7 and Day 21. I also tend to see the consultant on Day 21 or Day 1. When you’re tied to the hospital so much, you have to organise your time really carefully. I’ve become very skilled at this but the slightest change to what you think is going to be your routine can cause havoc. For example, the upset to my chemo routine caused by these recent events in combination with a rescheduled PET CT scan will mean having to cut short a trip to Spain in the run-up to Easter, with the extra cost and inconvenience this entails. First-world problems certainly, but they’re still problems. I was so low and frustrated at one point that I told my husband I wasn’t booking anything ever again. That’s how bad it was. That didn’t last for long, you won’t be surprised to read.

It doesn’t look like the four weeks I went without treatment made much difference to my situation. Having been at its lowest level since I was diagnosed almost three years ago, my tumour marker level had already started to edge up even before I got Covid. It continued to rise during my time off treatment and it’s risen again since I’ve been back on chemo. Nothing about that is good in any way.

More positively, I haven’t needed a red blood cell transfusion since January 17th. I started on eribulin on December 1st last year. Given that I’d been having transfusions at least monthly for almost a year, I’ve been delighted at this outcome. Even here, though, while my haemoglobin level went up, it didn’t stay at that level and has been slowly falling – again even before I got Covid.

Rising tumour marker levels and falling haemoglobin levels. That’s not a good combination.

As I’ve said before, I’ve generally largely felt really well on this chemo. In fact, I would say it’s been the easiest of all five treatments I’ve had in the past three years.

I have had a couple of MRI scans done in recent months on a specific area to check for problems there but I don’t want to dwell on that here.

Also, I will find out for sure soon whether my cancer is now spreading elsewhere; my first half-body PET CT scan since starting on this treatment is scheduled for April 14th. It was meant to have been on March 12th but the scanner was broken and the appointment had to be rescheduled.

Covid and the subsequent infection – followed by a rotten cold, because I hadn’t suffered enough – didn’t spoil everything.

The four of us (my husband, our two boys and I) still managed to get away to the French Alps for a few days’ skiing that coincided with my husband’s 60th birthday. We had a fabulous time. It was so lovely that we were able to spend this important milestone together, in the place where we’ve had such fabulous family holidays in the past.

I then went to the beautiful Spanish island of Mallorca and joined for a few days a women’s cycling camp I’d been to a few times before; I did precious little cycling but the achievement was doing any at all.

Even going was a big deal. I was so deflated at having to miss a second session of chemo that I totally lost my mojo and couldn’t see myself summoning the energy even to pack, never mind get on a plane. My husband persuaded me to go and I’m very glad he did. I didn’t do any group riding; that was never in the plan. However, despite not having been out on my bike back home since last October but hugely inspired by the enthusiasm of the other women on the camp, I hired a bike. Among other things, I did a short ride to a beautiful cove that I’d never have visited had I not been on the bike. It felt unbelievably good to be on the bike again. I got to spend some time with a friend from London who was also there, hang out with some women who are members of Bella Velo, the women’s club I’m still a member of here at home, and see again some women I’d met before on previous camps run by the same lovely company, Mellow Jersey. I am so grateful to Emma and Tony of Mellow Jersey for suggesting I come out. The last time I was there was right at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when in very dramatic fashion we had to evacuate the island from one day to the next.

Finally, just last weekend, I made it up to my native Glasgow for my older brother’s 60th birthday party. It was such a joyous occasion, filled with so much positive energy. It’s not often my five brothers and I all manage to get together at the same time and it always feels very special when we do. I think the last time we were together may have been at our mum’s funeral in September 2020, mid-pandemic. The pandemic is very much still with us, with rates particularly high in Scotland. Regardless, the party went ahead and there was lots of dancing and singing – including a Karaoke rendition by my older brother and me of an old family favourite, The Gambler, that would have had the original singer Kenny Rogers turning in his grave!

All three trips were priceless, especially as it really wasn’t certain that any of them would happen pretty much right up until the last minute.

I’m relieved to be back on chemo, even though I’m aware I may not get too much more out of this particular one. I’ve had both sessions of Cycle 6 of eribulin and am now a few days into the two-week break.

Regardless of what the PET CT scan shows, it appears that an unconnected issue is brewing that may need addressing in rather a brutal way. Thus the MRI scan.

Back to today, though. One son is back home from uni for the Easter holidays and I’m already enjoying basking in his presence. Also, I’m looking forward to heading off to Spain next weekend where my husband and I will spend time with some very good friends, eat some good food and hopefully feel some sun on our shoulders.

When a 5k run means so much more than a 5k run

The very slow 5k run I did this morning ranks among the sporting endeavours of which I am most proud. It is also almost certainly the slowest 5k I have ever run.

The idea that I might get out there and try running five kilometres began forming a week or so ago. I hadn’t done any running at all in more than two months. As a result of that and various other factors, I’d really lost my confidence. But the omens were good. 

The main thing was that the wounds I’d had on my right calf and right sole were finally healing. I had two pigmented and irregularly shaped lesions removed towards the end of April and the resulting wounds were taking longer to heal than I’d anticipated. Apart from the odd bike ride a month ago to see how the wounds would bear up – they didn’t – the only exercise I’d done since having the procedure done was walking.

Secondly, my feet were feeling better than they’d felt in many months. The side effects of capecitabine, the previous medication I was on, had worn off. The specific side effect from which I suffered is called palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, where you develop sore and red palms of hands and soles of feet. The skin may also begin to peel. With me, only my feet were affected. They would hurt even when I was walking and the pain would keep me awake at night. With running, I’d get huge blood blisters even in the most comfortable and supportive running shoes.

So as I say, the omens were good.

Then, to top it all, just three days ago on Friday last week, I had a blood transfusion. The reasons for needing a transfusion are never good but I know from experience that they give you an energy boost. In my case, the metastatic breast cancer that has spread to my bones and bone marrow is preventing my body from making healthy red blood cells. My haemoglobin keeps falling, making me anaemic. This was my fourth transfusion since being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer over two years ago. The third one was only a few weeks ago. The effects of a transfusion can last for up to two weeks.

So those were the reasons making me think I should do a run. On the flip side, it’s been a really difficult few weeks on the cancer front (more on that in another post) and I’ve been struggling to deal with it all. Also, I have a cold sore that’s taking forever to heal and that is making me feel really self-conscious, not to mention lethargic and down. 

One part of me was thinking “go for it”. Another part was saying it would be no big deal if I never ran again. 

Anyway, I can’t tell you how many pep talks I had with myself before I finally put on my running shoes, left the house, and walked to where I wanted to start the run. 

I reminded myself that I will probably have to change treatment again soon. It’s a dead cert that my ability to exercise will be curtailed further once that happens.

Also, hand-foot syndrome is a potential side effect of the treatment I’m currently on and have been on for just over two months. While my feet have indeed been fine for a while, very recently the tingling and throbbing has come back at night and my sleep has been badly disturbed a few times in just this past week.

If I didn’t attempt a 5k now, when would I? The answer to that was possibly never. 

I also tried to think of what the various cycling coaches I know would say to motivate me.

I’m pretty certain that when I was in my 20s, I ran a 10k in almost the time it took me this morning to do 5k. But it really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. What matters is that I ran at all today.

What makes it even better is that I did the local Parkrun route. Parkrun is a free, timed, mass-participation, volunteer-led 5k run that pre-pandemic took place on Saturday mornings in parks around the UK and indeed in many countries. I was a huge fan and ran my 100th Parkrun in January 2020. I managed one more before the very first lockdown began two months later. 

The route comprises three laps of Tooting Common, the green open space that starts at the bottom of our street in south west London.

I did stop once, to take a photo of a cluster of mushrooms (see above).

That probably added at least 20 seconds to my time. Anyone who’s pushing or over 58 will know how much effort and time it takes to get down into and back up from a squat!

It was hoped that Parkrun might start up again in England some time this month but it’s been postponed to the end of July. Initially I was really excited at the thought of it starting up again but now I’m not sure about running among large crowds. I wrote recently that I’d like to do at least one more Parkrun. After this morning, morally, I feel I’ve done it.

Well that didn’t last long

After four or five glorious days of respite during which once again I could eat whatever the heck I wanted, another blasted mouth sore developed. It was mild to start with but for the past few days it’s been as vicious, if not even more so, than the two I’d just got rid of. 

Managing these painful, spirit-sapping sores takes effort. For a start, when do you eat when frankly it’s the last thing you feel like doing? Also, what do you eat? 

Because of where this latest sore is, I can only open my mouth so far before it starts hurting. It also hurts to fully close my mouth. The other day in a cafe with friends, I had to cut the crusts off a toasted sandwich and cut the rest of the sandwich into tiny pieces before I was able to eat it. And rather than have a hot coffee, I had a healthy beetroot and carrot juice concoction that I drank through a paper straw. It was rather nice, if also rather expensive. 

And how do you brush your teeth without touching the sore and nearly fainting from the pain? I was always a hard-bristle kind of gal, but I have just bought some soft-bristle brushes.

And how often do you rinse with the various mouthwashes you have? They all sting.

When I had my appointment with the consultant oncologist who’s treating my secondary breast cancer and me on Thursday this past week, this new sore wasn’t causing too much trouble. I had thought that was as bad as it was going to get. I therefore bravely and, with hindsight, in far too cavalier a manner, told the consultant I’d stay on the highest dose of the tablet that’s the cause of the problem for another month. 

However, rather than improve, things got worse. I’m now seriously thinking that I will indeed have to reduce the dose. I’d really rather not do that but I may well have to as this really is no fun. If another sore appears after this one, my mind will be made up. I think. It’s a bit like a “good” childbirth. Once it’s over, you forget how painful it was. Until the next time.

That’s the bad news from this week. It’s been a busy one on the health front, with plenty of decent or even good news. I need to focus on that, really.

The chest x-ray I had on Wednesday was clear. That means that the new treatment regime of two drugs – mouth-sore inducing everolimus and exemestane, both taken as tablets, daily – hasn’t done any damage on that front. 

Also, the results of the biopsies on the pigmented lesions that I had excised on my right leg and foot, also four weeks ago, came back clear. We had suspected they would, but it’s good to have that confirmed. The wound on the sole of my foot that wasn’t healing well is looking much better. 

There’s more. The blood tests I had on Wednesday – immediately before I had the chest x-ray – showed that the all-important tumour marker is stable compared with two weeks ago. That’s the first time it hasn’t risen in many, many months. It’s early days but it shows that perhaps the new treatment will have a dampening effect on the tumour activity. That makes the mouth sore issue even more frustrating.

My kidney and liver are functioning ok too. However, my bone marrow is still struggling (the secondary breast cancer that I have is in my bones and bone marrow). 

I can walk for miles on the flat without any trouble but increasingly just walking up stairs had been making me breathless. The first thing I said to the oncologist when she asked how I’d been was that I reckoned my haemoglobin level had taken a bit of a dive. That was indeed the case.

The bottom line is that after seeing the consultant on Thursday morning, I spent four and a half hours in the Ambulatory Oncology Care Unit at the hospital having a blood transfusion. It takes around two hours to transfuse a single unit of blood and I had two, the same as on the two previous occasions where I’ve needed help on the red blood cell front.

I do feel much better now, energy wise. Never one to waste a good blood transfusion, I have planned two bike rides for this week, one short and one a bit longer. This will be the first exercise I’ll have done other than walking for over a month, specifically since I had the procedure done on my foot. Fingers crossed my foot wound and energy levels behave and that I manage if not both, then at least one.

Distractions are good. They take my mind off what’s going on in my mouth. There have been a few this week. 

Work continues, for example.*

Monday saw us have a meal out – inside at a pub restaurant – for the first time in many, many months. Gathering at the bar is not yet allowed so it’s all table service but it pretty much felt like nothing much had changed.

We went to the pub again (a different one) on Thursday evening to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. This time we were outside, as more people are allowed to gather together outside than in.

The wind did its best to blow us away; it did in fact blow a glass of wine into my lap! However, we held firm and had a lovely evening. I’d only been planning to stay for an hour as I’d been feeling miserable earlier that evening. However, such was the power of the blood transfusion I’d had that afternoon that I not only went out but stayed as long as everyone else, ie until closing time. I also remembered that white wine stings less than beer on the mouth sore front so, after one beer, white wine was my tipple of the evening.

Both those nights out were organised well in advance. On Saturday, though, we did something on impulse. Yes, read it again, on impulse! We went to the cinema and, as if that weren’t enough, we went for a meal afterwards – without booking!!!! There was social distancing in the cinema itself but it’s been a long 14 or 15 months since we’ve done anything that remotely “normal”. 

The restaurant was Turkish, where we knew we’d be able to order lots of mouth-sore friendly dishes such as all sorts of tasty but not spicy dips with lovely warm, soft bread.

The film we saw was Nomadland, which was great to see on the big screen with all those amazing American landscapes.

I watched a lot of the film through tears. If you’ve seen it and you’re aware of my situation, you’ll understand why. This phrase from one of the characters, who has terminal cancer, spoke volumes to me: “I don’t want my sail boat to be in my drive when I die.” 

You can take that literally or figuratively. In my case, much as I’d love to do it, heading off on a yacht is not practical. I hope we can head off on foreign trips soon but, in the meantime, there are plenty of things close to home that bring joy.

I’m feeling quite sentimental so I’m going to mention a few.

There’s new life all around. Our revamped garden is bursting into life and everywhere I go it seems I see baby birds. With the ones in the photo here, at Kew Gardens this week, there was no drama – unlike the previous week at Richmond Park.

A friend giving me as an early birthday present a beautiful throw that she’d crocheted herself.

Another couple of friends handing in a surprise bunch of flowers.

Our sons, who are away at uni, WhatsApping us photos of things they’ve cooked for supper. Or one of them pretending he’d had his nose pierced and using it to encourage me to have mine done; I’ve been saying for ages that I want to do it but I’m too nervous.

One of my brothers who lives in Glasgow going out of his way to take one of my sons out for dinner when he was on a work trip in the north of England, near where his nephew’s at uni.

The many messages I get from friends asking how I am and sympathising with me on my “issues”.

And, most recently, my husband presenting me with a box of Tunnocks tea cakes “because they’re soft and they won’t hurt your mouth”.

Allow me a schmaltzy ending: “Take joy in the small things because one day you’ll realise that they were the big things.”

*My story about working with an advanced cancer diagnosis is featured in a campaign that has been launched by an organisation called Working with Cancer. I’m upfront about my prognosis right at the start so please only read it if you’re prepared for that – https://workingwithcancer.co.uk/2021/05/11/maureen-kenny/.

Completing a challenge amid joy and sorrow

Last Friday was one of those days where you experience a vast range of intense emotions over a short period of time and for hours afterwards they’re all spinning round your head, vying for attention.

It was the day I finished the challenge a friend had set for herself and me in December last year. We were to run, swim or cycle the 192 miles of the Coast to Coast route from St Bees in the Lake District in the northwest of England to Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire in the east. We would do it more or less together – virtually, of course – and we had three months in which to complete it, starting on January 1st.

I decided I would try to run a third of the route and cycle two thirds. I am so slow at running these days but I reckoned running 64 miles and cycling 128 miles over three months was manageable. My friend was running the whole thing. However, once we started, it soon became clear that she would finish in early March. I knew I’d have to up my game to keep up with her.

I’m not going to lie. The running was hard.

I already had a permanent tingling in the balls of my feet and my toes as a result of the nerves being damaged by the chemo I had in 2015 for primary breast cancer. I’ve said before that it’s annoying rather than painful; I am constantly aware of it but it’s just something I live with.

Making things worse, though, was the fact that I think I have developed over the past few months one of the more common side effects of the oral chemotherapy that I’m on as part of my treatment for secondary breast cancer – palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, whereby the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet can become red and sore and numb and swollen and the skin can become dry and blister and peel. Luckily I only have it in my feet and even then I mainly only experience soreness and numbness. It’s more pronounced than the existing tingling (or chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy to give it its officially name) and I’m in no doubt that running exacerbates it. Long walks do too – the friction from walking can result in large and painful blood blisters as the skin is more sensitive than it would usually be.

On one of the secondary support forums I’m on, we refer to it as “cape feet” – “cape” being shorthand for capecitabine, one of the chemo drugs that can cause this particular side effect.

The bottom line is that my feet hurt when I run and the further I run the more they hurt. I therefore decided that I’d do lots of short runs than than fewer, longer runs. If I was meeting a friend for a walk a mile away, for example, I’d run the mile there. I also ran the couple of miles to or back from the hospital a good few times – once after having had blood taken for my latest round of blood tests and another time after having had an MRI scan of my spine, one of the places the cancer has spread to.

Inspired by Parkrun and an associated initiative known as Cancer 5k Your Way, I saw 5k as a good distance to aim for if I was feeling up to it. Parkruns are free, timed Saturday morning 5k runs organised by local volunteers that take place in parks and open spaces around the country and indeed the world. I was a huge fan before the pandemic-related restrictions put a halt to organised outdoor sporting events and, of course, to so much more.

“Cape feet” undoubtedly affects my quality of life. However, as long as I was still able to run, there was no way I was not going to complete the running part of this challenge. I’ve stopped looking at how long it takes me to do stuff now and I’m just grateful that I’m still able to do them. I’ve embraced the concept of “it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it”. Plus, I’d treated myself to a new pair of running shoes and bluetooth headphones!

To encourage myself to get out there and run, I’d been listening to podcasts. Given the foot issue, I realised something more motivational was needed. So I put together two playlists on Spotify – one is called “Mo Is Dancing” (I’m Mo) and the other is “Women in Country”. I love both and it’s always hard to decide which to listen to.

Talking of motivation, I remember on one occasion standing in my running kit outside the hospital after a scan, my feet already throbbing. I was thinking that I really didn’t feel like running home. Then I thought “what if this were going to be your last run?”. That did it, and I set off. Some people say you should live every day as if it were your last. I’ve always thought that was kind of daft because that would mean every day would be exactly the same – and potentially very boring or very exhausting depending on how you’d chosen to spend it. However, it did come in handy that day at least.

It also helped that another online breast cancer support group I’m a member of was holding a challenge of its own throughout the month of February – for its members collectively to virtually walk round the coast of the UK. In addition, my company was running a February Fitness challenge, with around 250 teams from around the world all competing to clock up the biggest number hours of exercise over the month. All the runs and bike rides I did for the Coast to Coast counted towards those challenges too.

In case you’re wondering, running doesn’t seem to cause long-term damage. You do have to put up with some sleepless nights after you’ve been on a run that’s longer than a couple of miles. The symptoms recede to a large degree after a few days of rest (ie no running or long walks) but I have to be honest, the discomfort even when I haven’t been running does still cause the odd disturbed night.

I kept up with my friend by putting in some miles on my bike (mostly outdoors, but there were also a few indoor sessions) whenever she got too far ahead. We decided to run the last few miles at the same time so we’d finish more or less together. We video-called each other a few minutes before our agreed start time and then set off, me in south London on my own and my friend in south Wales with two of her lovely three daughters. We video-called again once we’d finished. It was all quite exciting! And the medal you get for finishing is rather smart.

The challenge was organised by a company called My Virtual Medal (myvirtualmedal.co.uk). You log your miles on a website that tracks where you are on the route. My friend and I had virtual tea and cake together in some lovely coffee shops and stayed in some very nice hotels along the way! Maybe one day we’ll visit some of these places in real life. I also dropped in for a virtual coffee with a friend who lives not far off the route as it enters Yorkshire! I did in fact call her up and we had a good old chat.

It couldn’t have ended in a nicer way. Towards the end of my run, on Tooting Common, my local stomping ground, I bumped into a friend who was also out running. His wife is a senior intensive care nurse at the hospital where I’m being treated. She’s been in the thick of it during the pandemic. Her husband and I hadn’t seen each other in person for a while and we stopped to chat.

Mid-catch up, a dog runs up to me and drops a ball at my feet. I recognise her immediately. It’s Ruby, our friends’ and neighbours’ beautiful black labrador. As it happens, I am chief ball thrower for Ruby when we’re out on walks with our friends. She’d clearly recognised me and wanted to play.

Her “master”, our friend Dave, wasn’t far away. How could I say no? I laughed and kicked the ball for Ruby while half-running the last few hundred metres of my run.

Coincidentally, Dave knows Robin’s Hood Bay really well and told to enjoy myself while I was there!

Dave is a good few years younger than me. He’s been living with Parkinson’s disease for ten years. I’ve mentioned Dave before in various posts. I had the pleasure of joining him and a group of friends last summer on yet another of his fundraising events for Parkinson’s UK – this time walking the Hadrian’s Wall Way during one of those periods when the pandemic restrictions were lowered. Dave’s a bit of a legend in the Parkinson’s community and in the world of darts, having been a presenter of Sky Sports Darts for many years. Check him out on Twitter at @daveclarktv.

While I was writing this post, Dave dropped off a prize – a memento from Robin’s Hood Bay (see photo) – for having completed the challenge. I love it!

Dave and I are among each other’s biggest fans, supporting and admiring each other through adversity. It was therefore lovely to bump into him and Ruby. However, it also felt quite strange, given that just a few minutes before, I’d been standing in front of a bench a few hundred metres away with tears streaming down my face.The bench is dedicated to the memory of a good friend of one of my sons, who took his own life last October. He was 21.

I’d known the bench was there but this was the first time I’d seen it. I’d looked for it before while out running but in the wrong place and coming across it at that point really took me by surprise. The bench was covered in flowers and looked beautiful. I had this most tragic of events in my mind* when I bumped into my running friend and Dave and Ruby soon afterwards. It all felt quite surreal.

I’ll finish by saying that it was good to complete the Coast to Coast challenge early. It meant I was able to finish it before I get the results of my latest set of scans. I had an MRI scan of my spine (the first in almost a year) and a near full-body PET CT scan the week before last (the first since last September). I get the results tomorrow. As we know, there’s no point trying to second guess the results. That said, if they show progression and I have to change treatment, it’ll be better to head into the next phase with a shiny new medal than with 60 plus miles of running and cycling left to go.

*If you’re in the UK and you or someone you know is struggling, you or they can get help from organisations such as The Samaritans (https://www.samaritans.org/) or CALM (https://www.thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm/). It’s only by encouraging people – and men in particular – to reach out and seek help that we’ll make inroads towards lowering the numbers of those who see suicide as their only option.

An update

In the grand scheme of things, I’m quite relieved at the results of my latest round of blood tests.

I met the oncologist earlier this week to discuss the results of the tests I’d had done the previous day. The best I could have hoped for was for my tumour marker to have stayed at the level it had jumped to in December. I figured that was unlikely given that it had risen by a whopping 20% between the November and December blood tests. In the event, it went up by around another 10%.

On the upside, on the blood front things are good. The secondary breast cancer that has spread to my bones has also infiltrated my bone marrow and so reduces my body’s ability to make healthy blood. It was therefore good to hear that my haemoglobin count is up from last month and is again within the normal range, albeit at the very lower end. My neutrophils, while still below the normal range (they’ll never be there again), are 40% up on last month. That means I’m a little better placed to face any infection that comes my way – a positive in the current climate.

Once again, it’s swings and roundabouts. The tumour marker is up but bloods are ok.

With the pandemic still on the rampage, every effort is being made to minimise the number of trips patients on treatment make to hospital. For example, every other appointment with the consultant over the past nine months has been on the phone rather than in person. In fact, I may have had more over the phone than not. Some people don’t like this way of communicating but it’s fine by me. In addition, for my next two rounds of treatment, I’m going to self-inject at home the bone strengthening drug (denosumab/Xgeva) that I have at the start of every new cycle. It’s usually done by one of the oncology nurses at the day treatment unit at the hospital. I did it myself last month at the unit under supervision and that too was fine.

The fact that the marker is going up indicates that there is increased cancer activity somewhere in my body. That’s what happens with secondary cancer. It eventually outwits every possibly treatment. While these latest results were far from disastrous, you do have to be practical. The oncologist therefore discussed with me what drug(s) I might move onto if the scans I’m to have in seven weeks show signs that the cancer has progressed to the extent that we need to change to another treatment. The scans could show any number of things. While you can’t predict a precise course of action in advance as you don’t know what you’ll see, you can be thinking of what might need to happen under various scenarios.

The discussion was quite sobering. But let’s not pre-empt things. That decision – if indeed a decision needs to be taken – is eight weeks away. In the meantime, I carry on with my current treatment and just get on with things.

One of those things is reporting my health status daily on the Covid Symptom Study app – covid.joinzoe.com – that is used to study the symptoms of COVID-19 and track the spread of this virus that is causing such devastation and unimaginable heartache to so many. (On a personal level, next week will see the funeral of a good friend’s husband who died from COVID-19 just after Christmas. His death was heartbreaking on many levels.)

It seems heartless to carry on writing about my own experiences having just written those previous two sentences, but the case is that I reported having a runny nose on the Zoe app, as it’s known, one day last week. While a runny nose is not a symptom of infection with the virus, I, together with any other household members, was “invited” via the app to take a test. It was all very efficient. The test kits were delivered the day after we requested them, we posted them back the following day and got the results – negative in the case of both myself and my husband – 36 hours later via text and email.

I reckoned the results would be negative but, with transmission rates as high as they are, you can obviously never be sure. Our two boys are back at uni and so it’s just my husband and me in the house. I work from home so it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been out for anything other than to exercise or attend hospital appointments. In my husband’s case, it’s for exercise or shopping. I now exercise on my own; I’ve even stopped the walks with friends that had become such a regular and welcome feature of life.

I’m feeling well on the whole and another thing that I’m doing now that I don’t meet up with friends for walks is go out almost every day either for a run or a bike ride. The reason is that I have signed up to a bit of a mad challenge that involves running and/or cycling a total of 192 miles between the beginning of January and the end of March. I could do it all on the bike but I’ve decided to do as much of it as I can on my own two feet rather than on two wheels. Running is so much more challenging than cycling, at least it is for me given the pace at which I cycle. I run incredibly slowly but I guess it still counts as running in that I do overtake people who are simply walking!

There’s no way I’d be running if a friend hadn’t suggested we both sign up for this challenge. Even after having signed up, I’ve had to come up with an incentive to get me out running. I wanted to listen to Transmissions, a multi-episode podcast that I’d heard was really good – about the iconic Manchester bands from the 1980s, Joy Division and New Order. I decided I would only listen to the podcast while running. It was a good plan and it works both ways. I’m loving the podcast so much that I go out running so I can listen to another episode and listening to the podcast makes the runs easier.

This has been a good week for running. I’ve got the week off work, so I’ve got no excuse really. I’m in the category of people for whom work has never been busier and I worked part, if not all, of each of the four working days between December 24th and 31st. It has been so relaxing to have a big chunk of time off. The house is very quiet now that the boys are away again. We had a lovely Christmas together. It’s usually just the four of us anyway on Christmas Day so in that sense at least it wasn’t so different from other years.

The photo above on the left is of me on the 25th, relaxing on the sofa with two of my presents after an almost two-hour spin on the bike – out to Richmond Park, a favourite destination around seven miles away.

The photo on the right was taken in our garden by my husband not long after the bells on New Year’s Eve.

Hogmanay, as we Scots say, normally makes me feel quite melancholic. This year, though, presumably because of all the sadness that 2020 held, it felt important to celebrate and look forward – both because of and despite what the future may bring.

Expectations? It’s hard not to have them.

It’s sometimes good to have positive expectations – I think as humans we need them – but I should know by now that it really doesn’t do to raise your hopes in this cancer business. 

I don’t want to overdramatise things, but I have to confess to feeling rather annoyed at myself for daring to hope that things might have been different from how they turned out last week.

After just two months of staying where it was, that old tumour marker level is up again. This cancer of mine is doing a damn good job of fighting against the drugs that I’m on to try and contain it.

I’m – still – a glass half-full person and I couldn’t help but let myself hope that this “period of stability” might last for slightly longer than two paltry months. In fact, it wasn’t even two months; it was eight weeks. But it wasn’t to be. 

There I was, early Wednesday afternoon last week, feeling pretty good, in the middle of a regular, super busy day at work – working from home, of course. My oncologist was due to call with the results of the blood tests I’d had the previous day, at the end of my latest four-week cycle of oral chemotherapy for the secondary breast cancer that’s in my bones and bone marrow.

Was it too much to ask that the tumour marker level might have remained stable for even just another month? Apparently so.

The results showed my haemoglobin level was down. That’s not such a big deal as it fluctuates from month to month and it’s still at a decent enough level. My neutrophils were also down – to the level where it is just ok to go ahead with the next cycle of chemo. That’s ok, they’ve been there before. But, disappointingly, my tumour marker level was up by almost 20% over last month and is back up to where it was in August. I said already that I don’t want to overdramatise things. Specifically, it’s nowhere near as high as it was when I was first diagnosed in Spring 2019 or when I switched on to the drug I’m on now, in May this year. But that period of stability I had dared hope for never materialised. Also, the level never got as low on this drug as it did with the first drug I was on.

My oncologist knew I’d be disappointed and said she wished she had better news for me. We’ll carry on as is. My next scans are due early on in 2021 anyway. They may or may not show what’s causing the rise in the tumour marker level. I don’t expect the level will go down again although I guess it’s possible. It could stay where it is or it could be that it’s on an upward trajectory that will ultimately lead to my having to change on to the next line of treatment – whatever and whenever that may be. What will be, will be.

The standard regimen for the capecitabine oral chemo that I’m on is two weeks on, one week off. You take tablets every morning and evening for fourteen days then you have a week off and have blood tests at the end of the three-week cycle. I had been tolerating treatment well and my cancer was also responding well so a few months ago I switched to a four-week cycle under which you have one week on tablets followed by one week followed by the same again. It’s easier on the body. Should we go back to the more intensive regime, I asked my oncologist, thinking that might give the cancer more of a run for its money. But it’s not as simple as that. She doesn’t think my bone marrow would tolerate well “two weeks on, one week off” and that if I were to switch, I’d end up needing a dose reduction, which would defeat the purpose of switching.

How can this be, I think to myself. Physically I’ve been feeling really great. In the past few weeks, I’ve played tennis, I’ve been on the bike (outdoors and indoors), and I’ve done a 7k run – a very slow one with two stops for errands but it was still a run. Feeling well physically makes you feel well mentally so, to be fair to me, those two things probably contributed to my allowing myself to think things might have been under control cancer-wise.

I started my latest four-week cycle of capecitabine at the beginning of this week. Four weeks will take me well beyond the pandemic-restricted Christmas season, which we plan to enjoy regardless.  

The tree has been up for a while and I indulged myself this year and bought three funny-to-start-with-then-really-annoying singing trolls. They sing The Jingle Bell Rock and it impossible to get them all singing it at the same time. They do make you laugh when you set them off, though, and laughs are just what we need at the moment.

My husband has not only already made the gravy for Christmas dinner in advance, he has also prepared the stuffing and made a Christmas cake. Our two sons are home from uni, which is lovely.  Their very presence lifts the sprits. I’ve even made myself appreciate the sound of them singing in the shower to music, much of which is really not my taste and is far too loud even when I like it! What I really find amusing is coming down in the morning and trying to work out what they’ve eaten since I  went to bed the previous evening. This morning there was an empty cereal box beside the recycling bin and an empty hummus container in the bin itself  – neither of which was there at midnight last night! It reminds me of my own youth back in Glasgow, although with me it was cheese toasties rather than cereal. As for hummus, I’d never even heard the word, never mind eaten the stuff!

We have plenty of things planned over the Cristmas break – either with or without the boys, in case they read this and start panicking that they will be asked to go on a walk. There will be indoor and outdoor games, films, long walks, bike rides, and Christmas Day catch-ups on Zoom with friends and family. I will enjoy the four weeks of this cycle and will aim to have no expectations one way or the other in advance of my next blood tests and appointments in mid-January.

I had got used to taking things a month at a time and will pretty easily revert to having that mindset. Interestingly, the pandemic is forcing everyone to focus on the shorter term. This is something those of us with life-limiting illnesses have already had to learn to enable us to live with some modicum of peace. It’s not such a bad way to live your life. 

Still looking on the brighter side of things, it seems there’s no reason I shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID-19 when the time comes. It doesn’t feel like it when I’m on the tennis courts or sweating buckets during an indoor cycling session on my newly purchased smart turbo trainer, but I’m in the “clinically extremely vulnerable” category.

That means I’m pretty high up there in terms of who gets offered the vaccine, although it will still be some time before it’s my turn.

No cancer patients were included in the trials of the vaccine; the big question is how much immunity it will give people like me, on chemo with compromised immune systems. I guess like many things relating to the pandemic, we won’t know until we know.

Before this latest lockdown, we’d gone out for a few pub meals – outside, as was allowed, in heated beer garden areas. At the beginning of this week, the NHS Covid app alerted me to the fact that I had been in contact with someone who had the virus and advised me to isolate for all of two days, which I did. I’m assuming it was related to eating out. I had to cancel a trip to the bike shop and a long walk with a friend that I was very much looking forward to; you’ve got to do the right thing. I’ve had no symptoms and so haven’t had a test myself.

I’ve had much to celebrate and enjoy this year but there’s also been a lot of sadness and sorrow, related to the pandemic or otherwise.

There have been too many deaths and too much serious illness among relatives, friends and acquaintances. A couple of the deaths have been far too premature and/or have happened in heartbreaking circumstances.

Even when a death goes well, as it were (as it did with my mum , this past August), it’s still hard. When I was diagnosed with primary cancer back in the summer of 2015, I wrote a piece about how it was ok to cry. Well this year, I have cried so many tears. Just the other day, Everybody Hurts by REM was playing on Spotify and half-way through I felt the floodgates open and there was nothing I could do except go with it. Sometimes you just have to let it all out. Grieving is a process that lasts a long time, and that’s ok. Also, I think the pandemic has made many of us more fragile than we were before. Things you might have batted off easily in pre-pandemic times can these days tip you over the edge.

Along with the grief, there has been a lot of joy. I will remember this year with fondness along with extreme sadness. Fundamentally, I am so grateful still to be so well physically. Also, the pandemic has led to people showing so much kindness and generosity of spirit. The older you get and/or the more the going gets tough, the more you appreciate that it’s connections with others and taking pleasure from everyday occurrences that matter most. I can’t deny that managing to do the Hadrian’s Wall Walk in northern England in September and escaping to Greece for ten days in early October also helped! 

Anyway, enough about me. Even in the best of times, it can’t be easy to make calls such as the one I received from my oncologist, can it? And let’s face it, there’s news far worse than that that they have to impart. So let’s spare a thought for all the healthcare professionals who are under intense and immense pressure at the moment, trying to manage the pandemic on top of everything else. This article by Lucy Gossage, the oncologist who co-founded the ‘5K Your Way, Move Against Cancer’ initiative, provides a great insight into how challenging things are, and that’s just in oncology – https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/29/watching-cancer-patients-treatment-alone-heartbreaking

Back to me (that didn’t take long!). This year I’ve found it hard to write Christmas cards. My heart has just not been in it. The naively exuberant words that that are printed in some of the cards somehow seem inappropriate when for so many it’s been a really dreadful year. The last thing lots of people will be having is the “wonderful Christmas” they’re being wished in the cards we send. Perhaps I should have made more of an effort, though, as I do appreciate how nice it is to receive cards.

I really do hope for a safer, saner and brighter year for everyone in 2021. If that’s not possible, then I wish calm and peace for those who are grieving or struggling or dealing with problems of whatever kind. 

Let’s finish with a smile, with a photo that was “Christmassed up” by my brother Stephen – so many thanks to him for that.

The original photo is from when my husband, the boys and I went wakeboarding in London’s Docklands for our younger son’s 20th birthday in August. I love this photo.

That day was one of the many highlights of 2020. I fully expect – here come those expectations again – that whatever 2021 brings, it too will have plenty of highlights. Best wishes to all. Thanks for reading.

 

•  

Back on treatment, feeling mellow

Thankfully the break in my treatment for secondary breast cancer lasted only five days.

I saw the consultant on Tuesday to find out how my blood was looking after the blood transfusion and filgrastim injection the previous week. The answer was good and I was straight on to my second round of capecitabine oral chemotherapy that very evening.

I’d had blood tests the day before. The results showed that the transfusion and injection did what they were expected to do on the haemoglobin and neutrophil front respectively. My haemoglobin count was up by a whopping 36% (it has to be said it was rather low to start with) and my neutrophil count had almost trebled.

Apparently the rise in the haemoglobin level could be accounted for partially by the fact that I’d been doing a fair amount of cycling. More on that below. Also, we don’t know how much of the fall was due to the new treatment and how much was due to the cancer. Whatever the reason, my haemoglobin was at a decent level.

The consultant is as pleased as I am about the big fall in the tumour marker level. The details are all in my previous post but, after just one cycle of capecitabine (two weeks of daily tablets), it had fallen by almost a third. While the chemo had a negative effect on my bone marrow function, it also clearly had a marked anti-cancer effect. The sooner I got back on treatment the better, the consultant and I agreed. The only objective of the breast cancer that’s already spread to my bones and infiltrated my bone marrow is to grow and spread further and cause even more havoc. You don’t want to leave that untreated any longer than is absolutely necessary.

I’m on the same dose of capecitabine as during the first cycle – 85% of my maximum possible dose, three tablets on the morning and four more 12 hours later. Because there was such a dive in my haemoglobin during the first cycle, I’m to have a blood test half way through this second cycle to check how things are going. So it’s back to the hospital – I’m lucky to live so close – first thing on Wednesday this coming week to have blood taken. The consultant will call me later that day, hopefully to say it’s ok for me to continue with the second week of the tablets. If things have gone awry again… well, we’ll face that bridge if we come to it.

I should have been back at the hospital on Thursday for my monthly injection of the bone strengthening drug, denosumab. However, the consultant brought the appointment forward so I wouldn’t have to make yet another trip to hospital that week. Instead I had the injection at the day treatment unit when I went to pick up my capecitabine tablets a couple of hours after having seen the consultant.

The consultant again emphasised the need for good foot care given the fact that a common side effect of capecitabine is the dreaded palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, where your hands and feet can become red and sore and swollen. This, I’ve just found out, is caused when small amounts of chemo leak out of your capillaries, affecting, most commonly, the skin on your hands and your feet. Nasty.

So what does good feet hygiene entail?

To start with, plenty of moisturising, and, basically, socks at all times – even at home. Yes, really. No more padding about bare-footed  in the house, to lower the risk of getting small cuts that might get infected. No wearing flip flops or sandals that have that a strap that goes between your toes in case the friction caused by the strap causes the skin, which is likely to be fragile, to break. Given that I’m not prepared to walk round the house in trainers or shoes, that leaves me pretty much with the option of that footwear which is de rigeur for Young Folk but pretty much a criminal offence for anyone over the age of 30 – sliders and socks!

We used to laugh at our dads for wearing socks with sandals but now it’s an art form. Even if it does become the norm for me indoors, I’m not sure I could ever own it quite to the extent our elder son is doing in this photo!

On the coronavirus front, my thoughts are now turning to when I might be able to go up to Scotland and see my mum and my brothers and their families. That would be very nice indeed. Our younger son gets access to his second year university accommodation in Leeds at the beginning of July. He’s keen to go up sooner than later to settle in and spend some time with his new housemates. I can’t say I blame him. A plan is forming; we could drive together up to Leeds, drop him off then drive on up to Scotland.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself but it’s nice even to think that I might get to see my mum again soon. I haven’t seen her since November. She’s in a care home in Glasgow that thankfully has managed to keep the coronavirus at bay, but she’s struggling with the lack of contact. My brothers up in Glasgow have been as brilliant as ever. They’ve “visited” regularly and talked to her, sang with her and played games with her through a slightly open window but it’s hard on everyone.

Going on a trip – if and when it happens – will be weird. Everyone’s experience of the pandemic is different but it has made a lot of people’s lives much smaller in a geographical sense.

In my case, my policy of “not shielding but being careful” and working from home means that until a couple of weeks ago I hadn’t been inside a building that wasn’t my own house for more than three months – excluding the hospital and the odd cafe for a takeaway coffee or cold drink when I’d been out for a walk or out on the bike.

Also, other than going on long bike rides, I hadn’t been travelling much further than a two-mile radius from the house. The only car journeys I’d been on until very recently were to the hospital, which is less than two miles away. I really should cycle there but I still can’t bring myself to lock my bike up at the hospital. I have PTSD from April 2019 when my bike got stolen outside the breast cancer centre on the very day my diagnosis of advanced breast cancer was confirmed. (Note to self: “You really need to get over that. Just make sure you have decent locks.”)

I know there are lots of issues and challenges regarding the loosening of lockdown restrictions. For me personally, it’s been a joy. Playing tennis in the sunshine with friends you’ve been keeping in touch with through WhatsApp or the odd Zoom call. Meeting up with friends on the common at the bottom of our road to share socially distanced coffees or cold beers or Prosecco on picnic blankets. Stopping off for cold water, a cup of tea and a chat at friends’ houses on the way back from bike rides on scorching hot days. And, more recently, an even bigger change, and all the more pleasurable for it – suppers with friends in their back gardens. One was local; the other I drove to. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, we’d have taken public transport and probably got a taxi back; I’m not ready for either yet if I have the choice. I’m still being careful, like any sensible person.

I’m four days into this second round of oral chemo and I’m feeling good. I’m writing this sitting on the sofa, feeling mellow and enjoying the view – of flowers inside and out, bike sheds and bins, and blue skies and clouds.

In my previous blog, I said I was going to put that blood transfusion  to good use by going on a long bike ride. Father’s Day dawned last Sunday, the weather was beautiful, and off my other half and I went – on a beautiful, flat and slow 100 kilometre cycle from home in Balham in southwest London into the leafy lanes of Surrey and back. It was my husband’s first 100k ride. Flat or not, that is a fair distance for anyone. I‘ve done a fair few rides of that distance and more, but I‘d be lying if I didn’t admit to being amazed and grateful that, with all this shit going on inside, I can still manage it.

We got back just in time to have showers before settling down to the classy Father’s Day supper our two boys had prepared while we were out. It was pretty much a perfect day.

Moving to oral chemo: different treatment, different approach, fingers crossed

It was pretty clear to me even before I got my latest blood test and scan results that I’d got as much benefit as I was going to get from the treatment I was on for advanced breast cancer. I more or less knew that when I had my next meeting with the oncologist, I’d be moving to a new treatment.

That was indeed what happened. On direction from the oncologist when we met at the end of May, I agreed to stop the treatment I’d been on since I was diagnosed a little over a year ago, skip the next possible treatment and move on to an oral chemotherapy drug called capecitabine. The treatment I’d been on didn’t involve chemo.

A change had been on the cards and while it’s disappointing to know that one’s exhausted the first in a finite number of potential treatments, at least it wasn’t a surprise or a shock. 

This new treatment is in tablet form.

You take it orally but it’s still chemo, as you’re reminded by the yellow warning sticker on the box the tablets come in telling you that the contents are cytotoxic and should be “handled with care“.

On to the rationale for moving on to capecitabine, which is also known by its brand name Xeloda. 

Well, there is no sign of any cancer outside of my bones and nor is there any sign that the cancer that’s in my spine is pressing on my spinal cord, where it could do serious damage – positives among the negatives. Things have progressed, though. There are new “skeletal lesions” in certain areas including in my pelvis and sacrum and in my right hip and left collarbone. In addition, my bone marrow is “more infiltrated”.

There are two aspects to my disease. The breast cancer for which I was originally treated for in 2015/16 has spread, or metastasised, to my bones. “Bone mets” weakens your bones and this in turn increases the risk of fracture among other things. It can also cause immense pain. As if that weren’t enough, the breast cancer has also “infiltrated” my bone marrow and so reduces my body’s ability to make healthy blood. Both aspects need to be managed in parallel. 

We’d known for months there was increasing cancer activity. Monthly blood tests had shown that levels of the relevant breast tumour marker (CA 15-3) had been rising since November. My bone marrow function remained stable, though, and rising tumour markers weren’t enough on their own to prompt a change of treatment. Also, the scans I’d had in November and February hadn’t picked up any meaningful or actionable change.

More recently, though, the blood test results overall had been showing a “continued though minor deterioration”. Among other things, my haemoglobin level had been falling. Despite this, I’d been feeling fine but over the past couple of months I’d become increasingly aware that certain physical exertions were leaving me breathless or were becoming too hard even to do.

So even before I got the results from the scans I had in mid-May, I knew things had changed. This time round, to no-one’s surprise, there was something to see.

Bone mets is hard to measure radiologically but there was enough change in the combined near full-body PET CT scan that I had compared to previous scans to be able to say for the first time that things were worse. According to the official report, “The interval change within the skeletal lesions in particular within the pelvis raises suspicion of disease progression.”

I’m in no pain so all this is happening without my having any awareness of it.

As for the MRI scan I had of my spine, “The pattern of marrow infiltration appears to be slightly more diffuse than previously and is concerning for progression.” It also confirmed “extensive metastatic disease throughout the visualised spine and sacrum.”

The blood tests confirmed that the tumour marker is still rising and that my haemoglobin level had indeed continued to fall. The former is not yet at the high level it was at when I was diagnosed in April 2019 although given the rate at which it’s been rising, it’d be there in a couple of months. As for the haemoglobin level, it’s near to what it was when, this time last year, the oncologist started discussing the potential need for a blood transfusion – which I subsequently had.

The results regarding the haemoglobin didn’t surprise me. Most obviously, just briskly walking up the two flights of stairs in our house to the loo had been leaving me breathless. (We’re lucky enough to have two bathrooms. At the moment, while we’re in pandemic mode, the one in the loft extension has been designated for my sole use.) 

Also, I’m playing tennis now that the courts are open and, while I love it, those explosive movements you make all the time have my poor heart pounding. As for running, I’ve more or less given up as I can’t even run fast enough to break a sweat.

Cycling is absolutely fine – you go at your own pace, you can stop and start when you want – and I’ve been doing plenty of that. The photo on the right was taken at the top of Reigate Hill in Surrey, half-way through a hilly, 40-mile ride with my husband a few days after moving on to chemo.

When I started treatment last May with abemaciclib (Verzenios) and fulvestrant (Faslodex), I was one of the first people in my situation to be put on this new combination at the hospital in southwest London where I’m being treated.

The most obvious next treatment was what I’d have been given had the abemaciclib/fulvestrant combination not been available then – a combination of two drugs called everolimus (Afinitor) and exemestane (Aromasin). While everolimus is also oral chemo, the combination is aimed at doing much the same thing as the drugs I’d been on, both over the past year and in the three years between finishing active treatment for primary breast cancer and being diagnosed with secondary – that is, stopping my cancer one way or another from getting the oestrogen it needs to grow. Capecitabine uses a different approach.

There was no reason to suggest the everolimus and exemestane combination wouldn’t work so I understand why the oncologist said things weren’t straightforward. However, to paraphrase in an extremely liberal way, I think her bottom-line recommendation was “let’s not faff about with more of the same and see instead if we can get a quick response with capecitabine”.

Depending on how things go, I could go back and try the treatment I’m skipping. Clearly at this stage I have no idea how likely that is but it is good to know.

With capecitabine, it’s a three-week cycle initially; two weeks on the tablets and one week off, with blood tests at the end of each three-week period. It can take time to find to right dosage.

If I tolerate capecitabine ok and it keeps things in check (remember we have the cancer in the bones and in the bone marrow to worry about), I’ll be on it for as long as it keeps working. Whether that’ll be weeks, months or years, we don’t know. It’ll be at least nine weeks before I have a scan to determine what effect it might be having. In the meantime, the regular blood tests that I’ll be having will give us some idea.

Also in the meantime, I continue with the four-weekly injections of the bone-strengthening drug denosumab at the day treatment unit.

My appointment with the oncologist – in-person, with masks – was on the last Thursday in May. I started on capecitabine the very next day. Having seen the way things were going, the oncologist had me tested a couple of months ago to see if I was in the group of people whose bodies are unable to metabolise capecitabine and would be likely to develop very severe side effects. I wasn’t. It’s strange what you become thankful for.

I was forced to make lifestyle changes from Day 1. For years on weekdays I’ve rarely eaten anything before 11am. However, I need to take these new tablets twice a day, at more or less 12 hours apart, within half an hour of eating. Given we have supper at about 8pm, I have to have had something to eat by around 9am. That really is not me but it’s amazing how quickly you adapt when you have no choice.

For breakfast on the first day, I had stewed prunes and yoghurt – a strange choice given that one of the very common side effects of capecitabine is diarrhoea. On that particular day, though, there happened to be some prunes in the fridge and, since I’m the only one in the family who likes them, I couldn’t let them go to waste. In fact, more than simply disliking them, my long-suffering husband can’t stand the smell of either prunes or yoghurt and refuses to be in the kitchen when I’m eating them! I usually drizzle some warm honey on top but he still can’t bear it.

The second day, a Saturday, I had a poached egg on toast. If I’m going to be forced to have an early breakfast, I decided, it may as well be nice. My resolve has petered out already, however; now I have a quick slice of toast and marmalade or jam, some fruit and a cup of tea, and I’m done.

Capecitabine can cause many of the same horrible side effects as other chemo drugs that are given via infusion. However, it works in a more targeted way compared with regular chemo and some of the standard side effects can be less severe. For good measure, though, there are some additional side effects that are specific to capecitabine.

On the hair front, I’ve been told to expect thinning but not loss. That’s something. I really wouldn’t have thought my hair could get much thinner than it is already but I guess I’m about to be proved wrong.

One of the more common side effects – that I’m looking out for and dreading getting – is palmar-plantar, or hand-feet, syndrome. With this, the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet can become red and  dry and flaky and sore and numb and swollen. It sounds horrendous and some people get it really badly. No-one needs that but for someone who plays tennis and cycles, it seems particularly cruel. I have already started moisturising my feet morning and evening in anticipation.

Exhausting one treatment and moving on to another is quite a sobering milestone psychologically.

Physically, ten days in on cycle #1 and I’m feeling fine. I wanted to write and post this before any side effects rear their ugly head. Once again, we can but hope for the best and see how it all goes.

Chocolate deliveries, bike rides, giraffes and scans

I have taken delivery of not one but two substantial amounts of chocolate over the past week or so.

How so?

I posted on facebook that I’d had to enlist our elder son to buy me some chocolate because my husband, who’s doing the shopping at the moment, eats too healthily and it just doesn’t occur to him to chuck a couple of chocolate bars in the trolley as he makes his way round the supermarket. It took a while, but at least now he does deign to bring home as standard a couple of packets of biscuits – but still no chocolate bars. 

Now I’m no addict, but I do have the odd bar on an ad hoc basis. However, I can’t currently indulge that habit while we’re in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic. My immunity is low as a result of the anti-cancer treatment I’m on and while I do go outside quite a lot now for walks and to exercise, I generally tend to not to go into shops. So no impulse buying of chocolate bars for me!

The photo I posted of me looking gleeful holding the bars my son brought back for me made a lot of people laugh and sympathise.

A couple of chocolate-loving friends – a huge thank you again, you know who you are! – were clearly feeling my pain to such an extent that they took things a step further and actually sent me supplies. We haven’t laughed so much in ages. My husband says he’s going to post that he’s got a craving for beer.

As you can see from the photo, I am now spoilt for choice. And that’s just one box.

I’ve given some away, the boys and I have been partaking, and the rest are “hidden for safe-keeping”, if you get my meaning. 

On the micro level things are still going largely fine on the lockdown front.

There are the chocolate deliveries for a start. Also, I’ve got most of this week off work and the weather is glorious. The roses in our garden have started blooming; they are gorgeous and there are dozens and dozens of buds, so it’ll only get more and more beautiful. Don’t look too closely or you’ll see all the aphids.

Yesterday I went out for a bike ride with a friend that involved seeking out and tackling the not insubstantial hills of south-east London, around Crystal Palace. There was blazing sunshine, there’s still far less traffic than there normally would be, and we enjoyed some incredible views over central London from the tops of the hills. 

We slogged up a fair few hills (with my friend overtaking me every time) and were rewarded with some lovely descents (with me doing the overtaking here). Before heading home, we bought some take-away coffee and chilled soft drinks and drank them in the welcome shade of a tree in Dulwich Park. It felt like we were genuinely on holiday.

On another bike ride, this time with my husband, we cycled past London Zoo in Regent’s Park and were delighted to see that the giraffes had come out for a stroll. There are two and there’s a sign there with their names on (I’ve forgotten their names*). Like everything else, the zoo is closed but we shouted over the gate and asked the zookeepers in attendance which was which. We don’t know, they told us excitedly, we’re from the other side of the zoo and don’t often get to see the giraffes. Their excitement was lovely to see.

On yet another ride into central London, we enjoyed great views of the river.

Those clear skies are good to see but they’ve come at a dreadful human and economic cost. We must never forget that.

Part of the reason I took time off work this week was that I was already taking time off to have scans. It’s that time again. I had a half-body PET CT scan this morning and tomorrow I’ll have an MRI scan of my spine. Both tests are to check to see whether there’s been any meaningful spread of the metastatic breast cancer I was diagnosed with just over a year ago. If there has been, we’ll be moving on to the next appropriate line of treatment.

I tell myself that I don’t generally get what’s known as “scanxiety”, ie worrying in the run-up to having the scans themselves and then again while you wait for the results (a week in this case). However, I really don’t think you can avoid it entirely.

You think it’s all fine then you realise you’re more argumentative at home than usual – and as those of you who know me are well aware, I’m pretty darn argumentative at the best of times. Or you’ll catch yourself doing too much forward thinking, dwelling on things you usually manage not to think about. Realising I’m doing this is usually enough to bring me back to the present. You just find yourself doing it more often than usual around scan time.

In this particular present, there’s a hedge that’s needs trimming out front. And afterwards, of course, there’s chocolate to be had as a reward!

* The giraffes are called Molly and Maggie, London Zoo told me in a reply to my tweet asking what their names were! I love Twitter when it works like that. Thanks to London Zoo for the reply!

The busy business of living under lockdown

Another four weeks gone by, another round of treatment started.

Last Wednesday, I had the usual blood tests – plus a couple of additional ones that I have every so often. The following morning, I got the all-clear to go ahead with treatment in a phone call from the oncologist, so off I went to the hospital later that day.

I had my temperature taken and was given a face mask before I could enter the oncology day unit, which has been re-sited to a stand-alone building away from the main hospital buildings to reduce the risk of patients catching or spreading the coronavirus. I had my various injections (fulvestrant, denosumab and filgrastim), was given my next 28-day supply of abemaciclib tablets and an extra filgrastim injection to give myself mid-cycle to boost my white blood cell production and headed home again.

That’s cycle #13 under way with the core drugs I started on a year ago now. On 23 April, I passed the first anniversary of my unofficial diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. Official confirmation came shortly after that the primary breast cancer that I’d been treated for almost four years earlier had spread to my bones (mainly my spine) and was also in my bone marrow.

There were a couple of changes but no big surprises on the blood test front. The relevant tumour marker has gone up as it has done every month since November. And while my red blood cell or haemoglobin level varies by the month, this time it had dropped to slightly below the normal range for the first time since September. It’s been going down since February or March. That unsettles me. I feel fine largely, but maybe that explains why my running has become little more than a brisk walk! I need some excuse so I’ll take that one.

During the phone call with the oncologist, I decided to take the opportunity to ask her to talk me through every possible drug treatment option from here on. She did, in great detail. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I spent much of the following day really out of sorts thinking about the enormity of it all. Plenty of good things happened that day but overall I would not describe it as a good day. Days like that are allowed every so often.

It’s been an eventful few weeks, despite lockdown.

For starters, I had a week off work. It’s been super busy and it was good to get some time off, especially so when it coincided with some fantastic weather here in my little part of south west London.

I read a couple of books. I got my summer clothes out and had a bit of a wardrobe clear-out. I polished four pairs of shoes that were sorely in need of cleaning and I replaced a pair of shoe laces that had needed replacing for at least a year. I prepped the garden for some plants I’m hoping will be delivered this week or next. I thought I’d mastered making flapjacks, but then promptly burnt the next batch.

I’m in the category that I’m terming “vulnerable but no longer shielding” – my oncologist said last month that she was happy for me to go out for exercise. I decided I could safely do socially distanced cycling, so in that week off I went for a couple of longish bike rides, through a beautiful and largely deserted central London. Being out on the bike felt very good indeed.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve also had a clear-out of my “memory box”, which in my case was a suitcase. It was a joyous thing to do and I highly recommend it.

There was the odd photo; not many though – the boxes and files of photos are  another thing entirely.

There were dozens and dozens of cards. Mother’s Day cards. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. Valentine’s Day cards. Wedding cards. Postcards from friends and family. Letters from old boyfriends. Dozens of cards and letters from my now husband. Wedding invitations. Orders of service from funerals. Letters from my brothers when they were away travelling, from Sri Lanka and Australia.The two cards I received from friends asking me to be godmother to their children.

There’s a letter from my late dad from when I was living in Spain in the mid 1980s. That’s one to keep – my dad never wrote. There’s also a cutting from a Spanish newspaper; it’s a photo of me on my now husband’s shoulders at a march in Madrid from around the same time (see below). Ticket stubs from dozens of concerts, going back to when I was in my final years at school the late 1970s. The ticket from my first flight. My first pay packet, from 40 years ago – four hours work in a grocer’s at 74p an hour. My first proper job offer in London. Exam certificates and indeed exam papers, that I couldn’t possibly answer now.

Madrid, December 1984

There are also medals and certificates from various 10k runs and the odd half marathon done over the years. My fastest recorded time for a 10k run, in London in 1993 when I would have been 29 or 30, was just under 50 minutes. Not brilliant, but not bad. It would take me more than half an hour longer at my current speed.

I was brought up a catholic and there was also the certificate from my first holy communion when I was seven and the rosary beads I had as a child. It seems really strange to me now that I kept these. I’ve been lapsed for so long, but perhaps there’s something in the saying “once a catholic, always a catholic”.

I came across an English project from secondary school. I got an A*, which came with a comment of “very competent”. For an A*? That seems rather harsh. I don’t recall feeling anything other than pleased at the time but I’m outraged now! Surely an A* deserved very good, or even perhaps excellent.

And then there’s the certificate thanking me for having been a blood donor. I gave blood 22 times in the UK before a gastrointestinal complaint I had nearly ten years ago meant I could no longer donate. I remember being gutted at having to stop. I loved giving blood – it made me feel part of something bigger. I donated 23 times in total. My first donation was at a mobile unit that had pitched up at the campsite I was staying at in the south of France for the summer between first and second year at uni. The incentive was that they handed out free sandwiches after you’d donated. None of us there had much money so it was a no-brainer! As you can see, I have the certificate from that too.

I’d gone to France on the train from Glasgow with a friend from uni after seeing a notice for summer jobs on the student union notice board. We ended up selling apple donuts (no hole in the middle) and ice creams on a nudist beach for six weeks. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I’d turned 18 just days before I left for France and was still pretty naive – I was less so by the time I came back! 

I’m going to get on my high horse here and say that if you don’t give blood and there’s no medical reason preventing you from doing so, you need to have a word with yourself. Having a genuine phobia of needles also gets you off the hook but just being a bit nervous around needles or can’t be bothered really doesn’t cut it. Say you get sick and you need, for example, chemo or antibiotics via a drip, or indeed, a blood transfusion. Are you going to refuse on the grounds that you don’t like needles? No, I didn’t think so. Do it, it’s your civic duty. You won’t regret it. Incidentally, I’ve had all three procedures I mentioned. That’s incidental, though; I’ve always felt strongly about this.

Other things have happened.

Some exciting cycling plans I had for the summer have been scuppered, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. My diagnosis last Spring meant I had to give up on plans to ride a few stages of the Tour de France a week before the real thing in July as part of a big fundraising event known as Le Loop. My heart therefore skipped a beat in December last year when they released the route of the 2020 tour and I saw there were going to be two back-to-back flat stages. Flat is not usually a word you associate with the tour, and my interest was piqued. Each stage was 100 miles but I was feeling much fitter than I thought I’d be. I mulled it over for a bit and decided that if I were still well and suitably fit come July, I’d go for it. I wouldn’t have to raise any money as the money I raised last year would roll over.

No-one knew of my plans other than my oncologist, my husband and two boys, and the lovely people at Le Loop. My plan was to crack on with the training – quietly and without any of the fanfare that accompanied my plans last year – then do the event, completing what I saw as unfinished business. Anyway, like many charitable events and so much else, this year’s Le Loop has been cancelled, having initially been moved to the end of August. It’s disappointing, but for me what matters is that I felt well enough to at least consider going for it. There may be a chance to do it next year, or there may not. There’s no need to think about that at present.

I heard someone say on the radio the other day that no matter how inconvenient things were for them under lockdown, they were very much aware that they “weren’t the victim here”. That resonates with me. Of course it gets you down and you fear for the future, but I can’t feel too sorry for myself. Too many people are losing loved ones and there’s too much real suffering going on. As for the fall-out of it all, we have no idea.

My family’s safe so far. My mum is in a care home in Glasgow. That’s a big worry in itself but to date thankfully the home has managed to stay cononavirus-free. I haven’t seen my mum since last November. That’s also tough, but we know she’s well cared for and we’re relieved she’s well. Those of my brothers who live locally pay regular visits and chat to mum from outside, through the window of her room on the ground floor.

Here in London, somewhat selfishly, my husband and I are relishing having our boys back home. They were both away at uni, in their first year and having fun, and while it’s only right that they’d much rather still be away, their very presence makes us happy. They probably find us as annoying as you’re meant to find your parents at that age, but I hope they’re at least feeling the love. They’ve reverted to pre-uni status whereby they spend a lot of time in their rooms, but supper together is sacrosanct (we all take turns at cooking) and we have carefully negotiated film dates. I am regularly woken up in the middle of the night by the smell of baking. I can’t complain when the result the following morning is freshly baked chocolate cake.

We’re being careful with hygiene in the house and while the boys do go out, they haven’t been able to consider getting jobs, for example, as they’re being careful not to put themselves at risk in light of my situation. We’ve just now started looking at potential less risky employment options for them.

My husband’s well. The boys are well. I’m well (apart from the obvious). I’m working, I can cycle, I can run (just), we live next to a lovely common, we’re in touch with lots of people and, very close to the top of the list if not at the very top, my treatment is unaffected. This isn’t the case for a lot of people.

Also recently, I had a call from the GP, asking me to arrange a care plan in case I catch Covid-19 and need to be hospitalised. It wasn’t a shock to have to think about this. I’ve already made my end-of-life preferences clear in the context of having a terminal illness. It’s written into the power of attorney document I arranged last year. If I’m in the final stages of breast cancer, I told the GP, I want to go quietly and gently, but if I get Covid-19, do whatever it takes to keep me alive. Everyone should have a care plan. No-one wants to think about their own death, but the point is to make things easier for your nearest and dearest at an already very difficult time – should the occasion arise.

It’s time for my next set of scans. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three months since the last lot. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll have an MRI scan of my spine and a half-body (essentially from the top of my head to above the knee) combined PET CT scan to check for any disease progression. If they pick up what’s been causing the blood tumour marker to rise and there’s evidence the cancer’s spread beyond a certain point, we’ll be looking at moving on to the next appropriate line of treatment. That would be a big step. I’ll get the scan results when I next talk to – or possibly even see – the oncologist, at the end of April.

That’s more than three weeks away. That’s another three weeks to get on with the busy business of living.