Appetite and Smoking

It’s been a very hard last couple of days since my last chemotherapy session and I have received a lot of messages from friends and family asking me for an update so I thought I’d try my best and put a blog out today.

As the title alludes,

Appetite:-

Well, I don’t have one, I am losing weight like it’s going out of fashion. I am a lowly 86 KG (Yanks Read: 190 lbs / Mum that’s 13st 5Lbs) which if this was just my diet and exercise I would be super proud of. However, we all know it isn’t and it’s a concern. I just don’t have an appetite. Kerry is doing her best at force feeding me when she can. She offers me food so much it’s most probably become a bore to her now.
But, if I can’t eat, then I’m not going to, am I?

All I can do is eat when I can, I have tried soup, I’ve tried solid food, I’ve tried yoghurt and fruit. I could be eating that gruel the crew of Nebuchadnezzar ate in the Matrix movie and it would taste the same as a Gordon Ramsay’s scrambled eggs…
Nothing tastes of anything anymore so it’s all for nought really.

I’m going out for dinner tonight with friends to Lola Jean‘s in Newcastle. I’ll report back my findings. I’ve got my eye on their cod fish tacos. I have kicked red meat, so I won’t be having a burger. I don’t think I could manage an entire burger anyways.
Perhaps being in a restaurant scene and being there for the soul purpose of eating may trigger something in my mind and make me actually wanna eat. It’s restaurant week this week, it will be a limited menu but I know what’s on and I’ve already decided on what to have already.

Oh come on, you’re all the same… Look at the menu online, decide what you want, then let it all go out of the window when the server asks you what you want and you panic order what you didn’t want?
No?

Just me then!

Well, we shall see. In other news then. Oh Yes.

Smoking: I’ve stopped smoking all together now. I’ve struggled in the past with cravings when I stopped smoking, and I will say I could go for one right now but I truly couldn’t. One of the reasons I found it so easy to stop this time was due to the vape making me want to throw up. Even one drag off the thing knocked me sick.
Amazing how quickly you can give up something that makes you feel sick.

Kerry is elated to say the least. She was the driving force to me stopping. She always has been, she bought me the vapouriser the day (or day after) we found out. She’s told me she wanted me off cigarettes right then. At the time I had reacted badly to her saying she didn’t want me to vape either. I hate how smoking changes people. Like its their god given right to smoke. However unless you’ve been a smoker you’ll not understand it. Well, it’s done now. I am done with smoking, it’s expensive, it stinks, and well you know… killing me.

Kerry and I both used to use tobacco recreationally for our weed smoking. That was something we had to knock on the head too. There’s still half a bag of Amber leaf kicking around my house somewhere. I’ll gift it to the first rollie smoker that comes round.
Kerry bought a new ‘dry herb’ vapouriser for weed too. Basically, you’re vaping it instead of smoking it. Not the same hit, still got you high. Well… That’s useless to me now too. They’ll both be up for sale in times to come.

I have started to use cannabis oil instead. You basically take it orally. It tastes absolutely awful, I can’t even begin to explain. It comes in a syringe, hang on, I’ll take a pic:-

So yeah, you get all of the goodies out of the herb but you’re not smoking it. Now I understand that there will be some of you out there that disapprove of cannabis and I am not really going to open the topic up for discussion. What I will say is that there are so many plusses for someone in my position and I am quite honest in the fact that well, I like to get a little high too. Sadly, not the same as it was, just a happy little tickle in the back ground.

Pre-Port Install meeting:
I was just up at the Q.E in Gateshead for a pre-treatment meeting. They had to take bloods so I was in typical fanny mode. They’ve explained the whole process to me now. I had done a bit of research and it turns out that the port I will be having installed is way better than the ones I had researched.
On the upside, this port will sit flush to my skin. contrary to the ones I had seen during my research, they seemed to protrude about a cm or two from the skin. They will also be able to take blood from the port. This is amazing news for me.
One of the nurses has one installed and she’s had it for about 3 years.
I asked why we don’t all have one installed at birth, totally amazing idea. However I then start to think of the heart plug any of you sci-fi fans out there will remember from Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune‘ and I think better of it.

Well sadly, the surgeon in the Q.E. who has been championing anyone that needs a port getting a port is on annual leave this week and next. Which does mean, I’ll have another round of chemotherapy before the port is installed. It’s not so bad, just one more.

Anyways, that’s about that for the moment.

Oh that and someone yet again decided to remodel the side of our car when we were parked at the hospital, we have checked the dash-cam footage and we can’t see anyone doing it but we can see the damage, it doesn’t look like it’s been dented or scratched through the paint to metal. We need to take the car for a wash, then assess if we need to go at it with some T-Cut. we’re going to ask the hospital if they’ve got any footage, sadly, we were in the hospital for like 4 hours that day. I doubt they give up the footage to us. Probably have to be the police that ask for it.

Why can’t people just own up when they bump your car?

Pain Today: 4-5/10 Pain over the last 3-4 days: 5-7/10
Mood Today: Bored, sick of feeling sick
Appetite Today: Utterly non-existant
Weight: 190 lbs / 86 KG