This day last year I started chemotherapy for my relapse of Hairy Cell Leukaemia. It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 months but thankfully, here we are! At the time, my calendar was filled with chemotherapy appointments and blood tests, every two weeks running until end of May, but in our minds, we were taking it one day at a time. Looking forward at the time, all we had to go on was what happened during my initial treatment, neutropenia,…
Long overdue a post on my blog – will start with some upcoming concerts! It does appear to be a mini-tour of “St James’s” Churches… 🙂 London International Orchestra St James’s Church, Piccadilly Thursday 23rd November – 7:30pm Conductor: Alexander Walker Tickets from Eventbrite London Euphonia Orchestra St James’s Church, Sussex Gardens Saturday 25th November – 7:30pm Conductor: Dario Peluso Tickets on Eventbrite Hitchin Band – The Snowman Saturday 2nd December Performances at St Mary’s Church, Hitchin at the following…
It’s been a couple of weeks since the ride so about time for me to do a write up! In summary, this year it was a very smooth ride, in that I wasn’t held up by any incidents, there were no warnings of thumb tacks on the road, the weather was just right, wasn’t too windy, wasn’t too warm.. just right. I set off from the house shortly after 5am on the morning of the ride. In previous rides, I…
This weekend is more or less the end of the initial 6 month period that I was informed I would be having treatment. Cutting a long story a bit shorter (sorry, I do waffle a bit), I responded well to treatment so didn’t require the 13 or so cycles of treatment that I was expecting in that 6 month period. Since my last blog, I’ve had 2 more cycles, at the beginning and end of April. I had a blood…
Time for an update! It’s been a while 🙂 In my previous post was written just before cycle 4. I went on to have 3 more cycles before my consultant suggested we take a break and do a biopsy to see where we are. Only so much can be analysed from blood results so biopsy it was. I had the results from this a couple of weeks ago, where my consultant informed me I am responding very well to treatment,…
It has been over a month now since my last update, so I thought it was about time to gather my thoughts! Looking back to my first post on this relapse, I was due to start my treatment on November 17th and would be approaching cycle 6 this week, however, this isn’t exactly how things have panned out. The original start date date slipped 2 weeks to December 1st as pharmacy at Lister did not have the chemo drug I…
I start my treatment for my HCL relapse this Thursday (17th Nov). It seems quite a long time since the initial warning signs were found in my annual check-up in July, but as bizarre as it sounds, it’s good to finally have a start date, because, a start date, means an end date! I am facing 6 months of fortnightly chemotherapy (at the Lister in Stevenage) – where I will be given Pentostation by IV drip. This is a very…
Another year, another holiday in the UK. We’d planned to go abroad and were looking at Split in Croatia but I couldn’t get travel insurance (more on that below). MrsQ put out a request for recommendations on Facebook and received lots of replies. We chose to do a 2 location trip, with very different accommodation at each! Shepherds Hut Yes, we went “glamping” for 3 nights at a location just outside Tisbury in Wiltshire, a Shepherds Hut with nearby kitchen…
I made the trip back to Waterford earlier this month to catch the National Youth Orchestra concert. The main reason was to see my nephew Adam play (in the trumpet section of course), but there was a bonus secondary reason, I got to see Gearoid Grant conduct them on his farewell tour. I played in the Junior Youth Orchestra (see below) under Gearoid in the mid to late 80’s. He is inspirational today as he was all those years ago,…
Having domestic Solar Energy is something that I always had in mind as a house owner, originally more a contribution to being more environmentally friendly rather than as a pure cost saving benefit. However, as we know with recent domestic energy price rises (how are those profits and tax cuts that the Energy Companies are enjoying sitting with you???) the cost has obviously come in to play, however, this wasn’t necessarily the driver at the time of ordering. One of…
