So once again I have been pretty quiet for a while, a week and a half or so, so we'll see how I do this one, might have to split it in two or just condense it down a little.
On Thursday night I done a bit of research into the SSP and ESA thing and as I said I wasn't quite sure how it was going to work but it would one way or another. But wasn't going to worry about it too much until after my chemo cleared up over the weekend. That night I did go and get some snacks for over the weekend and some supplies for a new mini project I am starting up on, you'll see that a little later though.
On Friday morning had my normal tri-weekly ritual of going to the hospital nice and early to get the counts checked and speak with the doctor at which point I told them about the problems that I've been having over the last few weeks with what I think is the glands and the feeling pretty crap, not as bad as what I was in August or September but still going in that direction. They were a bit concerned about it and were thinking of pushing forward the scan that I have later in the month (21st) to see if the chemo is working or not, but I told them not to as I've a few other appointments that it could clash with and may not be a good idea. They were happy enough with this and so was I so they have left it as it is.
that window....
After the initial appointment I went into town and to work and told them about the situation with the SSP and they gave me an SSP1 form and an ESA form as well, this should have came from head office and not from them but they were very helpful in doing so and I popped round to California for some lunch before going back to hospital to get the chemo. There was nothing of any real interest this time around when it came to the whole hospital day out and when I got home I started feeling rough, had some food and just lay around in bed and at the computer that evening. Woke up at about 2 feeling very nauseous and took another anti sickness tablet and that seemed to do the trick, combined with falling asleep, until morning.
Movember
On the Saturday when I got up had breakfast and took my tablets, but never took my anti sickness ones, in the end this turned out to be a good idea, felt much better the rest of the day for it and didn't get nauseous at all, I had planned to hold off and if I did take some but thankfully that was not needed. Seen a few offers on things so ended up ordering my secret Santa pressie, or what I plan to use as my secret Santa pressie but will have to wait just to make sure that I can use it for that person. Not find out for a few weeks yet. But most of today was spent reading and lying around not doing very much, was still a bit run down from the chemo yesterday.
Sunday morning I got up and still no need for the anti sickness tablets thankfully and went ahead and had breakfast and washed nice and early, not because I was going anywhere, just to feel sparkling clean at such an early stage in the day. In the early afternoon I was beginning my new mini project, which I had asked my mum to help me with but she was a bit busy with the kids so I made a start on it myself. It was making cookies/biscuits, was a very straight forward task as, well, it was the first time that I had done anything like that, the only change I had to make to the recipe was that instead of using Golden Syrup, I used honey... seemed to work just fine. They were quite tasty although I couldn't eat many or much of them, they were a bit too sweet for my liking but I still ate two of them. Later in the day I watched the MotoGP and read, that was basically my day.
Monday morning I had to phone up to get some advice on the ESA/SSP situation but the person I needed to talk to wasn't in again today, so instead I just started filling in the forms myself anyway and if they weren't the right ones ah well, it gave me something to do anyway. Got a bit bored at one stage doing that and decided to go for a bit of a walk, which wrecked me, got really tired and sore very quick, think this is a combination of the chemo, sitting around and the lymphoma playing up again, but I got home and went for a bit of a sleep again. After dinner I was in two minds about going to the quiz, I wanted to go but then I was up early in the morning to go to the GP for some blood tests but finally decided at the very last minute I would go, so I just drove over and it was only Victoria, Rosemary and me that went. We done very well considering it was only the 3 of us, we came 3rd with only 3 points difference from first and won a bottle of wine. By the end I was pretty tired and needed to get home to sleep but of course once I got into bed I was wide awake and took a while to get over.
Tuesday morning was a nice early start, I forgot how good early starts made me feel, I quite like them, considering I'm definitively more of a night person. Got round to the GP for the blood tests to make sure I wasn't a druggy and to get base lines of my counts and booked into the open surgery too to get a new sick line, when I got home I phoned up about getting the help with ESA and they said to call round, which after having breakfast I did and we went through the notes and got them completed and after that went into town to drop my sick line into work and ended up going to watch Philomena, wasn't a bad film, but wasn't great either, it was watchable but it wasn't a Sci-Fi so not my type of film. When I got home and after a bit of sitting around and reading I looked out and seen this lovely moon out the front and got the telescope and took a few snaps of that, it was really night with the craters along the sunrise, was nice to see again. Think I'll get the telescope out a bit more than what I have. One thing I did find out today was that I needed a sick line back dated from when I need to apply for the ESA so that means another early morning tomorrow to get that.
Just like yesterday first thing I done was get up and go to the GP to get a back dated sick line, had a photocopy of the one that I handed into work yesterday and I was able to get that no bother. After I headed into hospital to request a letter from them as evidence for the reasons to not be working, I was only there a couple of minutes and away, but on the way back home I started feeling quite rough, had thought of maybe doing a few things but thought better and just went straight on home, had breakfast and looked up where I needed to send the ESA forms to, which unfortunately I turned out there was nowhere to send those specific ones and needed to get in contact with the Social Security Agency and I ended up just doing it over the phone with the lady, which only took about 20 minutes as I had everything that I needed right there in front of me which was quite handy, as my handwriting isn't exactly... neat... But after the call in which I found out I needed originals of the sick lines to send off so I called work to see if they still had the one I gave in yesterday and that I would pick it up a bit later, had lunch and headed back to there to pick it up, so all sorted now, just need to send them off.