Ithaca

This is a statue of Odysseus on the island of Ithaca, his home. He looks a bit worn out, but he got there in the end. As spring begins to make itself felt, I may be approaching the end of my medical odyssey as well, or at least reached a safe harbour. The angry Gods seem to have relented.

The latest PET scan after my stay in St Mary's shows continued improvement in the swollen nodes and no resurgence of infection. The CRP, which indicates infection, has continued to fall and is now more or less normal. At home I am moving about normally, continuing a light exercise regime and now that the weather is more inviting I am getting out for a walk or ride every day. Oxygen levels and heart rate are back to normal. It looks as if I have come ashore on a sandy beach free of rocks and rip tides.

Nevertheless, we are being cautious. There will be another PET scan in a couple of months' time. I am getting blood tests done locally in the meantime. The last one showed a low count of red blood cells, which explains some continued shortness of breath, but that is due to the chemotherapy. It can take a surprisingly long time for the depleted cells to be replaced. However, white blood cells are being steadily replaced and my immune system seems to be slowly recovering. This is good news, but it will still take some time before it is back to normal.

The main way of finding out what is going on internally is by analysing that very special juice, blood. The main external indication of a return to normality is my hair. This is the first time in my life I have moulted and then grown a new head of hair. Being entirely new growth from the roots, it is different from the old one, being finer, like the hair of a baby, and coloured a variegated mix of grey shades, ranging from dark to light. As the hairs are still quite short, they lack the weight to bend over and tend to stand up with no clear parting, giving me a somewhat Mohican look. As I don't want to be taken for a punk, I decided to have my first hair cut in months, which did indeed make it look more conventional, but only through the use of conditioner. That did not last long of course so it is now standing up again, though less aggressively. I'm curious about how it will end up.

When Odysseus returned to Ithaca he recovered his old home. When the stoats and weasels were evicted from Toad Hall, Toad and his companions had the place cleaned up and celebrated re-possession with a banquet. We have gone one step further by acquiring a new home. We have just completed on a house purchase, becoming owners once more after several years of renting. There is work to be done on it and we will not move in until the late summer. However, the banquet cannot wait and we have managed to get a table at The Fat Duck in time for a tenth wedding anniversary.

The first anniversary of my chemotherapy is on 6th June, when I am booked in for what should be a final consultation with the medical team. If things continue along their current trajectory that should see the end of my medical Odyssey. I will mark it with a final blog post - and of course a visit to Le Colombier.