'Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the ward, not a creature was stirring; not even the irrepressible Dr. Tansey. He'll be in tomorrow, though.

Mum's got my little room looking quite festive, with lights and a jar of baubles and a little plastic tree from Habitat. She complains that the nursing staff gave her a row for not making the place up earlier. I've even got a Christmas stocking hanging from my gas cylinder bracket, with a present or two waiting for me. The family will come up tomorrow morning to open their presents with me, so I'll wait. It'll be interesting to see what Santa brings The Man Who Has Everything Including Cancer.

I felt slightly better today than I have done, I don't know whether it's the last vestiges of the infection leaving me or if I'm just getting used to the trauma the antibiotics are visiting on my system. Hopefully I'll be well enough tomorrow to eat the roast potatoes which the kitchen have promised to send up for my Christmas lunch. If not, it'll be festive rice cakes and Lucozade for me. The nutritionist will be very disappointed with the missed opportunity to put on weight.

Nothing interesting happened with my treatment, today. I officially finished the second week of phase two, with the fourth injection of cytarabine, so I suppose that's worthy of a milestone; only two weeks of chemo left in this block. The decision seems to have been made to put in a new Hickman line at the end of the week, once I'm off the antibiotics; this one is really starting to fray at the edges, and they're quite worried that it'll be colonised by bacteria sooner, now, rather than later. It's been quite a while since I last went under the knife.

Anyway, slightly better or no, I still feel pretty rotten. I'm going back to sleep.