Well it was a bit of a trial but that’s round 6 completed, we knew bloods were borderline and they would repeat today , but as usual system had an extra test. The chemotherapy takes around 7 – 8 hours to complete , so he is literally first in as they are opening and last out as they are closing.
Have had to have bloods repeated a couple of times over this treatment , the nurse has always started him off on the 2 hour initial hydration whilst we wait the 90 minutes for the blood results to come up. Not today !! No today we get a head nurse that says we are to wait until after the results before hydration can start . After pointing out that if we did this , they wouldn’t have time to complete the treatment before they finished for the evening , was told in that case we would have to reschedule !!!
The stress of tube journey , night before when he doesn’t sleep , trauma of the whole day was NOT going to be repeated . After a relatively forceful discussion ,managed to get the hydration started as usual , then later got confirmation bloods OK, so all worked out in the end .
Very , very tired today as he had such a bad nights sleep last night, as well as usual anxiety, one of my cats found a ping – pong ball, combined with the laminate flooring , my how we laughed at 4.00 am this morning !!
Back to the usual routine now of steroids, anti sickness pills and trying to make sure he eats. Pizza and chips tonight , so off to a good start.
As will hopefully be quite some time before our next visit to Barts, took a few pictures of two gardens we walk past on our way. They are small city gardens, having watch them change and blossom over the last few months since the first treatment back in February, we always take a second to look at them and draw breath on our walk back to the tube.
One of them is the garden of Christchurch Greyfriars , now a ruin. The tower and spire, adorned with urns is, according to Pevsner, “a square version of St Mary-le-Bow”. The gutted church, the third on this site, was never rebuilt after it was destroyed in the Second World War. Instead, its nave was made into a rose garden with paths where the aisles would have been and pergolas where columns once stood. The hedged areas mark where the congregation would have sat. The steeple was restored by Lord Mottistone in 1960 and the tower was converted into an exclusive private residence in 2001.
Though the original buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church and the school were both rebuilt in the 1670s. Wren was the architect of both. It is surprising then, given Wren’s standing in the City, that the school buildings were demolished in the early 20th century. to make way for the General Post Office, which has now itself been demolished.
Three queens are buried here: Margaret, the second wife of Edward I; Isabella, the wife of Edward II; and Eleanor, the wife of Henry III, though only Eleanor’s heart is buried at Christchurch, the remainder of her body being interred in Aylesbury. Along with these, lies another notable woman: Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent. She was hanged at Tyburn for preaching against Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn.
Isabella, along with her lover Mortimer, was deeply involved in the death of her husband. She is said to have been buried along with the heart of the dead husband she betrayed. Unable to find rest eternal, her arms rise from the ground now, flailing and clutching at the air, accompanied by the sound of a gruesome and unholy rattling of chains.
Luckily she has never been about whilst I’ve been walking past , so have just been able to enjoy the garden instead
