August 2nd

Pete's Points
I am afraid that the radiation burns are becoming worse. It now looks like my neck and upper chest area have been exposed to so much radiation that I am starting to turn a funny shade of reddish brown. Alas my various ways of coping with real sunshine do NOT seem to be doing the job when it comes to x rays!

I have been told that I need to moisturize the area regularly and so I have been putting more and more of the Sorbelene product on trying to keep it moist.

There has been no let up this week as it is five days in a row with the LINAC 2 machine NOT going off line on the Wednesday. As it becomes itchy and sore the nursing staff are saying that we will be able to move to regulating the situation with cortisone creams - this is NOT something I would like to do until the situation becomes really unbearable. At present the creams are more or less doing their job and the area is moist. I hope that the weekend break will be sufficient to bring things back under some control as the body tries to recover.

I had more blood taken yesterday as they are of course finding that I appear to have an iron deficiency. I suspect that this is due to the fact that the body requires Vitamin C to be able to absorb iron and caffeine, apparently either actually leaches Vitamin C out of the system.

Those who know my habits regarding food will of course know that I love my coffee however this is NOT the problem. I have been putting up with Decaf for a while - however there is also caffeine in both tea and believe it or not chocolate. I suspect that these are the culprits - so I think I will have to go back and get some more Vitamin C tablets and/or Iron supplements for the time being to get back on track. They are also testing for new tumour markers and I hope that when the results come back they will not show the markers as being high which could of course indicate a further spread of this cancer.

Still I am optimistic, at present. The treatment is nearly over and so far I have not experienced the worst possible side effects - something I am enormously grateful for.

Back on the grill again today for another roasting and then home.

I have discovered the joys of borrowing entire series of certain TV shows on DVD instead of being annoyed beyond belief when you miss one crucial episode that is available on free to air TV. While I was absent on leave or with this illness and was not (for one reason or another) in a position to see a crucial episode I just put it down to another unfortunate side effect of the treatment and recovery phase. Now I can recover from this situation by getting the DVDs for a whole series on loan and then selectively making up for the missing episodes.

Modern technology is wonderful!