Chemo 21
27 Nov 2011, Sunday - As the heading says, this is the final post I will do under the CHEMO heading and I hope to now start posting about cycling and other lekker things.
Since last Saturday when I posted nothing much or rather different happened except...
Shortly after posting last Saturday we had an attempted burglary at our house and the only thing that I was liberated of was my cell phone. It was quite an amateur job and most likely the work of my gardener that was retrenched a few months back. I think he was doing Christmas shopping. I have upped the security a bit and will spend some time in the coming week to get it even tighter.
On Friday morning I woke with a little bit of a sore throat and in the afternoon I had to go and pick up my lawnmower and passed close by the oncology hospital. I popped in and the Doc was quite worried. So I had to get a blood test on the spot, wait an hour for the results and then she wanted to admit me to hospital. My white blood cell count was seriously low. Eventually I convinced her I would be better off at home in real isolation than at hospital where the chances of picking up a serious bug is so much better. So they injected me with something similar to EPO, the banned-for-sportsmen red blood cell booster. This product stimulates and boosts the production of white blood cells. Together with this I was to monitor my temperature and take a course of super antibiotics. It is now Sunday Morning and although my throat is still sore, there were no rise in temperature and also no sign of the side effects of this booster injection. I managed to finish the layout of a collection of poems yesterday and in the afternoon we had a lovely braai and kuier with our good friends, Bennie and Hester. I plan to do as little as possible today and monitor my temperature, but I hope that by next weekend I will be feeling better and start a light cycling program.
In the mean time I got a new cell phone and tomorrow I must take it in to the service provider and see if I can get it sorted out. Maybe I will post an entry from the phone shortly just to see if it works...
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Chemo 21
Chemo 22
Chemo 20
19 Nov 2011, Saturday - Last week Wednesday was still much the same story with the recipe books, except that I spent the day in a very hot showroom at Océ, running the first print of the Dis Mos Kos book on one of their machines. Our printer apparently could not handle the type of paper that we wanted to print the books on, but it turned out to be an entirely different problem after all. If Océ pays me enough I will tell them what the problem is... I also popped into one of my favorite bike shops on my way back and came across a frame that was now seriously going out of fashion, brand new but a 2010 model and 2012 bikes are starting to dot the shop floors. So I made a deal that I could not refuse, and bought the frame.
By Thursday mid morning our own machine was running splendidly and I was waiting to hear from Robert and Machai from America who were busy cycling from Johannesburg to our place. I am glad I did not offer to cycle with them. Not only did they choose to cycle the second busiest road in the whole of SA, but they also chose the warmest day of a very warm heatwave that hit SA. I had some errands to run and my route coincided with theirs, so it was a very relieved Machai that loaded her bike and luggage into the Pajero and enjoyed the little bit of relieve that the air conditioner was able to bring. We had a splendid time with them and took them for a trip to the most Afrikaans of Afrikaner symbols in SA, the Voortrekkermonument, as well as entertained them with another very Afrikaans tradition, the Braaivleis (Barbeque).
Their plan was to leave here early on Monday morning and by 13h30 they got going on their way to Cullinan. I booked into Oncology long before then for my sixth chemo session. This was a predictable affair except that the nurse battled with her aim and had to try 4 times to get the drip needle into my vein and not into the tissue next to it. By Tuesday evening 22:00 I was back at home and starting to feel very groggy, like a hang over without the prelude of pleasure... This was much the case for Wednesday and Thursday, but yesterday morning I felt better and wanted to spend some time in the office, but we had a hint of a thunderstorm on Thursday evening and was without electricity for most of the morning. So I used the time to work on the new frame and by yesterday afternoon I had a 95% complete bike. 2 small problems reared their ugly little heads. The front derailleur dos not fit on the new frame. This I will fix this morning by buying the correct one. The second snag is that the distance between the back wheel and the bottom bracket is slightly longer so the chain is very marginal on the big-big combination. Since that is one combination that one hardly ever uses and should never use, that is something I will live with for this chain cassette combination. When I replace the chain I will be able to cut the new chain to the correct length.
Chemo 20
19 Nov 2011, Saturday - Last week Wednesday was still much the same story with the recipe books, except that I spent the day in a very hot showroom at Océ, running the first print of the Dis Mos Kos book on one of their machines. Our printer apparently could not handle the type of paper that we wanted to print the books on, but it turned out to be an entirely different problem after all. If Océ pays me enough I will tell them what the problem is... I also popped into one of my favorite bike shops on my way back and came across a frame that was now seriously going out of fashion, brand new but a 2010 model and 2012 bikes are starting to dot the shop floors. So I made a deal that I could not refuse, and bought the frame.
By Thursday mid morning our own machine was running splendidly and I was waiting to hear from Robert and Machai from America who were busy cycling from Johannesburg to our place. I am glad I did not offer to cycle with them. Not only did they choose to cycle the second busiest road in the whole of SA, but they also chose the warmest day of a very warm heatwave that hit SA. I had some errands to run and my route coincided with theirs, so it was a very relieved Machai that loaded her bike and luggage into the Pajero and enjoyed the little bit of relieve that the air conditioner was able to bring. We had a splendid time with them and took them for a trip to the most Afrikaans of Afrikaner symbols in SA, the Voortrekkermonument, as well as entertained them with another very Afrikaans tradition, the Braaivleis (Barbeque).
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| The hint of "Kindel" 1838 |
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| The Pretty One, Machai and Robert (Bob) at the Voortrekkermonument |
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| Me in hospital getting chemo |
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| The new steed nearing completion |
Monday, November 7, 2011
Chemo 20
Chemo 21
Chemo 19
8 Nov 2011, Tuesday - It's been a while since I could even think of writing a blog entry or doing anything else but WORK. We are busy with 2 new recipe books and the one book 'Dis Mos Kos' or translated 'It's real food'. It is quite a job to put a book like this together and then there is a deadline and then the clients keep on changing their minds about the layout. This meant I worked Saturday and Sunday to try and get it completed before yesterday morning. I went to hospital yesterday early for my 6th and last chemo treatment, only to be sent back because my white blood cell count is way to low to get chemo. So I will have to go back on Monday 14th. This is a bummer. It means I can start training a week later, so I will be a week "unfitter" (the spell checker is screaming about this one) when I want to do my first serious ride on 17 March 2012, but that is how it is.
In the mean time I am feeling great, so this week is really a GOOD week with no funny feelings. I am also looking forward to meet 2 cycling tourists from America that is currently riding through SA and want to spend a few nights with us from Wednesday. It will be good to know people in The States. I still have it in the back of my head to go and ride The Great Divide.
Chemo 19
8 Nov 2011, Tuesday - It's been a while since I could even think of writing a blog entry or doing anything else but WORK. We are busy with 2 new recipe books and the one book 'Dis Mos Kos' or translated 'It's real food'. It is quite a job to put a book like this together and then there is a deadline and then the clients keep on changing their minds about the layout. This meant I worked Saturday and Sunday to try and get it completed before yesterday morning. I went to hospital yesterday early for my 6th and last chemo treatment, only to be sent back because my white blood cell count is way to low to get chemo. So I will have to go back on Monday 14th. This is a bummer. It means I can start training a week later, so I will be a week "unfitter" (the spell checker is screaming about this one) when I want to do my first serious ride on 17 March 2012, but that is how it is.
In the mean time I am feeling great, so this week is really a GOOD week with no funny feelings. I am also looking forward to meet 2 cycling tourists from America that is currently riding through SA and want to spend a few nights with us from Wednesday. It will be good to know people in The States. I still have it in the back of my head to go and ride The Great Divide.
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