Very good news, excellent news, and slightly less excellent news (but only slightly)

Hello. Since my last post, I've been hobbling around as my burns heal, and they're well on their way to being 'done'. The skin graft has gone from being described by the specialist burns nurses as 'lovely' to 'beautiful' and has now reached the heady heights of 'gorgeous'! Well done those doctors! (And well done my leg, obviously). And most importantly, I got back on my bike yesterday for the first time since Burns-Gate! Very good news!

In the main news, the first cycle of the new-style chemotherapy appears to have been pretty successful. The doctor had said that if the post-treatment scan pictures showed that things had stayed the same, that'd be good enough for him. It turns out that there has actually been a small improvement. We're over the moon. Excellent news!

I was due to start the next cycle last week. One of the side effects of chemotherapy is that it compromises your immune system. Last week, my 'blood counts' (which show the state of your immune system) were too low to go ahead with treatment. Less good news. So it had to be deferred a week, to give the blood counts more time to recover. Today was the next attempt - blood tests to see if we could go ahead with treatment tomorrow. And it wasn't good news: my blood counts still haven't recovered enough. This is disappointing, and even more so because we were due to go on holiday to Ireland this Friday. But now I've got to stay here until next week, to try again with the wretched blood counts. This time I've got some drugs that should help. So fingers crossed. And plans are afoot to work out a way for me to get to Ireland for at least some of our holiday (despite protests, I'm insisting that Stephen and Joseph go on ahead - they have to get the holiday started). There are many factors to consider in the planning of these plans, but I'm pretty determined to get myself to the emerald isle, one way or another. I'll cycle if I have to (see above)!

So it's all a bit of a roller coaster. But the upside of deferring treatment again is that I can take my mum out tomorrow for a posh birthday lunch!

Until next time, love xxx