24. The Countdown has started

Well this week has been a welcome rest for me but also time to overthink the next couple of months and get a bit twitchy about what's coming. Earlier in the week, I think it was Wednesday, my phone started pinging and when I looked it was the hospital app sending me alerts that loads of appointments were being added to my dashboard. It took a couple of days, but by Thursday lunch time all 30, well 31, as they have over booked me in xmas week, radiotherapy slots have been allocated to me. So now it feels more real. I have a hairdressers on Tuesday, a quick fit me in for a few highlights as I wont be having my hair done now until at least March, and back to Addenbrookes on Thursday for the mask and mapping appointment. I'll have 1 week then to get myself together and be ready for the first week of 5 treatments. I sat yesterday and viewed through Holly's blogs, a girl on Facebook who has just had head and neck treatment, to try and work out when she started getting symptoms and at what stage it got really unpleasant. I realise everyone's different and she is half my age, but I'm really hoping the worst doesn't hit me until at least week 3 or hopefully week 4 ( the week of xmas) I'm struggling with thrush in my throat at the moment, gritty, fuzzy feeling at the back of my tongue and I'm sure its because I have constantly been having to rinse my mouth out with mouth wash and salt water since having my tonsils out and then my tooth. I haven't got any natural bacteria left to fight the yeast over growth.

Natural live yoghurt seems to help, but its really annoying and feels like I constantly need to drink to wash the gritty feeling off the back of my tongue and roof of my mouth. Last night I made myself gag constantly brushing it with my toothbrush. I've arranged for Lottie to spend most of the second week of treatment, whilst Paul is away, at Ella's which I know she won't mind as she loves being with the other dogs. Mind you we have never left her there this long before, so she might be actually missing us by the time I pick her up on the Friday. Although I don't really like putting them up too early I think I'm going to have to put most of the Xmas decorations up at the beginning of December as I probably wont feel that jolly by the time I normally start doing them 10 days before, and just leave the tree until last minute so all the needles don't drop off. I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst as far as side effects go, and I have spent hundreds on an arsenal of pills, potions, creams, humidifiers, foods and drinks and basically anything anyone has mentioned might help. I know I am prepared organised wise. Treatment, Christmas shopping, arranging transport, care for the dog, but I still think when the first day for me to go and be zapped comes its going to come as a huge shock that its finally happening and I'm going to get into a bit of a panic. I am however looking forward to getting Thursday over and know how I'm going to cope in the mask. I'm determined to try and just lay there with my eyes shut, like I tend to do for all the scans when they put you in a tunnel, but I'm worried with the pressure of something over my face, I'm not going to be able to turn that off and just need to run! Hopefully everything will be fine and I'll just get on with it, and take it in my stride like I have managed to do, in the main, so far. The time for fear is later, but for now its just time to crack on and get it sorted.