Back to Dr G. Researcher P, of course, wants your blood, so this comes first, along with questionnaires about pain and how your bowels are working. For all that you are used to being poked, prodded and generally messed about with, it is still strange to discuss and identify your poo shapes.
Then, you run through the chemotherapy options with Dr G. As so often, by not thinking about it, putting it to the back of your mind, the answer has quietly presented itself and seeped through - the trials are just that, trials, tests, experiments. They are the very definition of a lack of a guarantee of any effectiveness. And given the travelling, and general inconvenience they present, they're not for you. Talking through each option with Dr G, he seems to agree, and in the end you decide between you to follow one of the established "second line" options, a drug called Docetaxel.
This can be given at your local hospital, and will, depressingly, cause hair loss this time. Hat shopping beckons. There may also be more nausea, which had begun to feel like a thing of the past. But you can only think positively - you are so well cared for it is ridiculous. There are people itching to help, and all you can do is sit in front of the fire, tap away on the keyboard, allow yourself to be looked after, draw comfort from it all.
