So what has happened since my last adventure into the dark and nefarious world of weight loss. Well, I’ll tell you. But before I do I must just share something with you from my first round of chemo.
During my first round of chemo they wouldn’t proceed, on two consecutive attempts, due to low neutrophil and platelet levels respectively. For the neutrophils they were able to prescribe me medication that involved me stabbing myself for 5 days but did successfully increase my levels. For the platelets there is nothing they can prescribe, you have to wait until they get to the designated level. Fortunately, and third time lucky, my platelet levels were high enough to proceed. During my appointment with my consultant, prior to starting my second round of chemo, I raised this issue and asked whether they would proceed with the treatment, overriding their own procedures if I asked them to, following a low platelet (or anything else for that matter) result. No was the clear answer. I did mention about how rigidly following protocol without allowing human intervention wasn’t always sensible but I felt carrying on with the discussion was probably not going to get me anywhere so I didn’t pursue the matter.
Following my first course of chemo (and all the faffy things that go with it (ad passim)) I had my biweekly appointment with my consultant (mais bien sûr). The appointment ended up being quite long at almost 45 minutes. During the consultation my consultant spent around 20 minutes going over the side effects that a drug he was proposing to add to my chemo might have. I may have mentioned side effects in a previous post, and in particular how many there are. Even though I said straight away that I was happy to have the drug, he thankfully ignored me and still proceeded to go through, in great detail, the side effects (well only the first 28) that I may suffer. After these, clearly needed 20 minutes, I felt much better and I couldn’t understand why I had the temerity to agree to the medication before being told about all the possible life ending complications that may arise.
Not wishing to shorten my time with my favourite French person I then asked about blood platelets and what level he would consider to low to undergo my biweekly chemo session. Considering my previous experience with both platelet levels, the NHS rigidly sticking to policies and procedures and my appointment prior to starting my second round, I was expecting to have to launch into a pre-thought out critique of the danger of rigidly following policy without allowing any element of review. However and to my happy surprise, he said that, considering my circumstances and that I have always had low platelet counts since before records began, he would be happy to proceed with a level as low as 75-80 rather than the standard NHS level of 100. Quelle surprise!
45 minutes after starting we we were finished.