This week I've been...

I've not been up to an awful lot actually. Hubby had planned on taking me on a day trip to the Lake District but with me being neutropenic, we abandoned those plans.

After going to S Club 7 last week and staying over at my friend's house, we saw how lovely his spare room was and that inspired us to redo our bedroom! When we moved in 5 years ago, we did it on pretty much a student, shoe-string budget the the room was in dire need of an upgrade.

Spot the dog....

We managed to re-paint in one day, re-arranged the furniture and hubby put up new curtains. That was a bit of a trial as the wall was a structural wall and our drill wasn't up to the job! Luckily, one of our neighbours has a hammer drill and kindly let us use theirs. As you can see, we still have a painting to go up on the wall. There's also a couple of bits of furniture coming from Ikea. All in all a much more grown up bedroom and I'm rather proud of us! Next to tackle the spare room...or the dumping ground as we've taken to calling it!

I did also go to the gym last week. Before the whole cancer thing I was a little bit of a gym bunny, couple of classes a week and a couple of gym sessions. Unsurprisingly, having chemo and surgery kinda gets in the way of these pursuits, but my lovely chemo nurses referred me for exercise so I basically get personal training sessions for very little money. I use the council gym anyway, so got personal training sessions with my Body Pump instructor who I've known for about a year, so that was lovely...kind of like hanging out with a mate but I'm sweaty and out of breath! It felt really good to get back into the gym as it's something I really enjoy. It's really important to me to keep trying to do things I enjoy and the gym used to be a huge part of my life and its a part that I desperately want back. Unfortunately, not long after my session I got the news that I was neutropenic and so I haven't ventured back to the gym yet. But at least I've started and once my neutrophils come back up, hell and high water won't be able to keep me away! If there's one positive thing to come out of all this, I really appreciate my body more and how it's come through surgery and getting me through chemo.

Have a great week and fingers crossed for my neutrophils coming back up!

This week I've been...

So I had Cycle 6 of chemo this week (only 6 more to go!!). It was pretty hard work and I felt quite tired and poorly for about 6 days after. My lovely mama came down from Scotland to keep an eye on me, made sure I was fed and watered since hubby was working all weekend.

For those who don't follow my inane tweets or instagram posts, I thought I could do a weekly round up of what I've been up to. Filling my good days with positive things is getting me through this chemo!

Monday felt well enough to go and have pub lunch with the hubby. With him working all weekend and then on nights, it feels like we don't see each other for like a week, so it was nice that we could spend some time together.

Home cooking again! Oven roasted mackerel with crushed baby potatoes and stir fried broccoli. Since being diagnosed with bowel cancer, we've been trying to avoid processed foods and red meat as it's linked with bowel cancer. I really, really miss steak and will probably incorporate bits of red meat back into my diet later, but for now I'm rediscovering my love of fish. My dad has gout arthritis, so I was basically brought up on fish and chicken. But when I headed off to university, fish pretty much dropped off my diet because I saw it as fiddly. This is a recipe out of one of Gordon Ramsay's books and it's stunning, I can get it on the table in about 20 minutes and it only costs around £3 a portion. Fish is sustainable and incredibly cheap compared to meat and even my fussy husband eats this happily.

 I voted! Yes, I'm one of those horrible people who took a selfie outside their polling station. #SorryNotSorry I think it's incredibly important that we vote and take the opportunity to make our voices heard, regardless of political viewpoints. The 18 - 35 age bracket are the least likely to turn out to vote, yet we are the ones who work under the new government, pay taxes etc, you'd be silly not to put your 2 cents in! As a woman, you can't let all the work the suffragettes did go to waste by not exercising your right to vote!

We went to see S Club 7 in Manchester!! It was a lot better than I expected, they did all their greatest hits and a couple of other tunes. I was worried they'd all be rubbish and it would taint my childhood memories but they were definitely very good. Very obviously singing along to pre-recorded backing tracks, but we really enjoyed it. Got me a bit misty eyed and nostalgic in the end ha! Here are some more snaps from the night.

Have a great week everyone! It's chemo time again on Thursday.

It's All About the Juice

The world seems to have gone juicing crazy. Everywhere I look, I seem to see super fit people sipping on suspicious looking green concoctions.

I have no problem with anything that makes people get more fruit and veg, that can only be a good thing - right? Although I do worry this is another flash in the pan kind of phase.

In saying that though, I would love a Nutribullet, it looks pretty awesome, I wonder if it really does pulverise everything as well as they claim.

If anyone wants to be my Fairy Godmother/father and get it for me that would be great heehee. 

I can see me using this on days where I'm not really feeling my usual eggs or yoghurt for breakfast. Wonder what it would add to my grocery bill though!