Sun. 1st Feb. 2009 - Cold & Snowy

Pleased to report that my cold seems to have subsided, maybe my 'feed a cold' approach is working. I am however going to cut down on food now especially from Tuesday onwards as this will lessen the 'In France' effect, plus I'll will start increasing my fluid intake. I'm now eating natural yoghurt with blueberries and cranberries for breakfast and two or three prunes.

Haven't done much today, it's been too cold. We listened to our friend Alan's radio programme and had a visit from John and Annie who live just down the road. I can't do much cross stitch or knitting at the moment as my eyes are very sore. I don't know if this is a side effect, but its very annoying as I have a couple of projects on the go and come Thursday I won't feel like doing them for a while.

I'm spending some time at the moment looking at how chemotherapy works and it's helping me to understand what's happening to my body and why I get the side effects I do. Basically the chemotherapy drugs attack the DNA of the cancer cells, killing them off and stopping them from replicating. Unfortunately they also attack some of the body's healthy cells, but the DNA of the healthy cells is stronger, so they are able to recover and reproduce again. The healthy cells which suffer are commonly those of the bone marrow (where blood cells are made), hair follicles, the mouth including taste buds and the digestive system.

So here ends the first biology lesson!