Only five more sessions of radiotherapy!

I now only have five more sessions of radiotherapy to go before my treatment will end ... and I can hardly wait to get back to what passes for normal.

I seem to have lived the past eight weeks with what I can best describe as having my brakes on. The weekends have not been too bad, but during the week my life seems to have been dominated by the need to keep hydrated (which is essential for my treatment to be successful) and visiting the hospital.

Yesterday was a good example of a typical weekday for me. After getting up and eating breakfast, I did about half an hour renovating some 20mm Russian figures for my Eastern Front/Great Patriotic War project. It was then time to have a drink of water. Having consumed about 200ml, I then read and answered my emails ... and had another 200ml of water.

This pattern of doing something (e.g. thirty minutes of gardening, about the same amount of time watching the TV news etc.) interspersed with drinking water continued until lunchtime, after which – at 2.00pm – I set off for the hospital. I got there about an hour before my treatment session was due so that there was time for me to have my bladder to be scanned using the ultrasound scanner and for me to 'fill up' with more water should the need arise. As it turned out, I did need to take in more water.

In order to give the water I had drunk time to pass through my system, I went to the review session I was due to have with one of the senior radiotherapists. After that I returned to the radiotherapy area where my bladder was scanned for a second time. It was still not full enough, and I had to wait another thirty minutes before it was. By this time it was almost 4.30pm and I didn't actually get changed until 4.45pm. As a result, I did not get treated until nearly 5.00pm ... and it was close to 5.20pm before I was dressed and on my way back to my car to drive home. The traffic was quite heavy, and it was almost 6.00pm when I arrived home and had parked my car ... nearly four hours after I had left for the hospital.

By the time I did get home I was feeling very tired and had little enthusiasm to do very much. I did try to do some work on a talk I am writing about Sir Artur Conan Doyle, but after about half an hour I began to feel drowsy and stopped. I then spent the rest of the evening eating or watching TV.

I think that most people could cope with this sort of regime for several days or even a couple of weeks ... but eight weeks of doing this has proven to be very physically, emotionally, and mentally draining. At least I can se the light at the end of the tunnel ... and I know that it isn't a train hurtling towards me!