Ten...

I arrived at the hospital at 07:30 this morning! You've guessed it - the traffic was much lighter than it is an hour later. The queues were just as long when I arrived on the edge of the city, but they were moving much more quickly. So, now I know that I don't need to leave home quite so early to arrive for my 08:30 appointment.

At least I was able to park very close to the hospital today. Indeed, if I'd wanted to, I could have parked in the hospital grounds. Because I resent paying the vast parking charges required for that privilege, as usual, I left my car in a neighbouring street, as do most of the staff and visitors, usually because it's impossible to find a parking space at the hospital itself.

I'm certainly learning a lot about travelling to hospital and finding somewhere to park, if nothing else! At least I'm able to transport myself into the city for treatment. It must be very annoying to have to wait for the ambulance to collect you and take you home; though an excellent service, it travels around all the outlying villages on its way to and from the hospital and that can take a long time (not to be recommended for patients past their second week of pelvic radiotherapy!). In fact, the radiographers have told me that appointments are arranged so that there's a two hour slot reserved specifically for patients who have to travel by ambulance. This seems to explain why my appointments are either very early in the morning or nearer to lunch time.

The side effects continue - if I hadn't once suffered from irritable bowel syndrome I might be worried! Luckily, I'm aware that all these things pass, and I find that the medication I've been provided with seems to work almost immediately. The only trouble is that I'm not supposed to take it pre-emptively, but have to wait until I'm quite sure there's an issue. I'm learning to eat little and often, since this counteracts the problem; it might not work for everyone, but it's worth trying, and I've certainly found it helpful. And, of course, drinking a lot of water deals with the dehydration effects.

This morning's treatment included x-rays again - these are done once a week - but I was in and out of the treatment room in less than ten minutes. The radiographer's words as I left cheered me tremendously, "Just you wait until your treatments are into single figures - you'll be surprised how quickly the time goes then."

So, that explains the title of this post...

Ten more sessions... and counting...