Up The Farway Tree

Hanging on in there..

I'm just passing mid cycle again and hopefully it will be smooth sailing between now and chemo next Friday.   I was feeling not bad after the last chemo - bar the usual nausea and sore mouth.  I seemed to have a lot of nervous energy though (I think steroid induced) and was finding it hard to be inactive - I kept sorting through drawers and trying to organise the playroom, in anticipation of Christmas.  It's good having the energy to get some things done but to be honest the internal feeling of restlessness is quite unpleasant.  I find it hard to sleep and switch off during these periods despite knowing my body probably needs to slow down.  On stopping the steroids after the 5 days I then did crash energy wise and more or less ground to a halt!  I have piles of clothes sitting out mid sorting that I didn't have energy to finish - will have to wait until my next steroid boost haha.

I have actually feeling quite rough this week and have had a borderline fever, headache, achiness and a general feeling of being unwell.  I honestly thought I was headed for another sepsis as that's how it started the last time!  I spoke to the Beatson and the CF team - as my temperature was borderline and seemed to be settling,  they were keen for me to stay at home unless worsened.  Thankfully my temperature has stayed down and I've certainly not got any worse.   This decision not to be reviewed unless really necessary was influenced by the covid situation locally and weighing up the risks of attending a hospital when rates are so high.  For this reason, I am more than glad we have moved to level 4 in an effort to drive down numbers.  I could argue that the restrictions in level 4 maybe don't even go far enough - a lot of places will still be open and it's nowhere near the measures taken at the start of lockdown, but I really hope it will be enough to bring things a bit more under control.  It would certainly help make me feel safer going for treatments.

On a similar note, I am not sure how I feel about all the ongoing discussions about relaxing the rules for Christmas.   I understand how desperate people are to see family at this time of year, but it does seem really counterintuitive to relax the rules for the sake of one day - and possibly then have an increase in cases mid winter when hospitals will already be under strain.  I think people will make their own decisions anyway but if the government gives the green light for family gatherings, will people then feel under pressure to meet up, when they might not be completely comfortable?  I wouldn't like to think anyone would be on their own, and would hope the bubbles idea would make sure this wouldn't happen.   I am honestly not sure what the answer is  - I guess there isn't one!  I love Christmas and I feel sad thinking of not seeing people - but I have also spent so long shielding, coping with hospital admissions alone and making hard decisions about protecting myself, that it would seem ridiculous to throw that away!  I guess we will just have to see what happens in the coming weeks..

The emerging vaccines is a great positive in the news just now.   At the moment we don't know how long the immunity from them will last, or if they are effective in various patient groups...but it's still a huge step forward!   I was reading the government website detailing the interim advice on vaccine priority and was quite surprised to see that people with underlying health issues are actually quite far down the priority list (I would be no. 6 group)  - read here.  Obviously care home staff and NHS staff are first in line, then those over 80; over 75; over 70;  over 65 ...then high risk adults under 65.  It's interesting to note that age really is a huge factor in covid risk -  simply being over 65 is more risky than people realise.  Hopefully once vaccines are approved, the programmes can be rolled out quickly so that we all can get a degree of protection and start getting back towards some normality!

In other news Estelle is getting excited about Christmas and having a hard time deciding what to put in her letter to Santa haha.   It will be a much quieter build up this year, but Estelle is happy just doing things at home  - especially a bit of Christmas crafting, baking and just enjoying having mummy and daddy playing lego and playmobil.  In some ways I'm quite glad not to have so many commercial events - the year before last we saw so many Santa's that even Estelle was getting oversaturated....and also wondering why none of them looked exactly the same!  You can get quite caught up in booking all these 'magical' events, then run yourself ragged trying to fit everything in.  Maybe we can benefit from slowing down a bit this year :-)