coming off Gleevec?

[Guest guest]

Hi Lottie and all,

I'm not sure it would be so easy to change my meds. It doesn't work like that in

UK. In USA you seem to be much more in control of handling your own treatment

(seems like a lot of hard work too!) but I don't have private health insurance

and am dependent on the good people who work for the NHS. As far as I

understand, the powers that be, who decide what meds you can have, are happy to

allow Gleevec to be prescibed but it might be a bit of a struggle to get

anything else unless it was necessary. Apparently Gleevec will be out of

copyright (or the medical equivalent) soon and will therefore become much

cheaper.

So, being in a passive frame of mind with regards to my treatment (it's a great

team and I have no complaints) I'm not about to suggest anything radical but

will wait for a suggestion to come from my oncologist or his pharmacist. Then we

can talk about it.

My side effects are not horrendous. The biggest nuisance is a sort of hay fever

- smarting running eyes. We've been out for a long walk today and I was forever

stopping to wipe tear drops off my glasses. My eyes feel red-raw and itchy. I

never had this before Gleevec. I take anti-histamines but they don't do much

good. Cycling is even worse as I keep going into a wobble while I try to wipe

the tears away! But onwards and upwards, I keep trogging on.

We were going to take off for a few days this week. We recently traded in our

trailer tent for a touring caravan and haven't tried it out yet. But the long

range weather forecast wasn't so good so we decided to stay home and have days

out instead. I'm itching to try this caravan - height of luxury from what we're

used to - central heating and a proper bathroom! There'll be no stopping us. The

only thing that'll slow us down a bit is the horrendous price of diesel here at

the moment. £1.40 per litre in some places. About $3 I think.

Shocking news about the Japan earthquake etc! I have a friend in Japan. Managed

to contact her and she's OK. She's a riding instructor. All the retired horses

that had been moved down to the coast have drowned. How awful! (And the people

of course.) But what about the nuclear leaks? Horrors! I feel very lucky to be

living in UK. We might be broke but not much in the way of natural disasters -

so far!

We're probably all doomed so eat, drink and be merry etc.

Cheers! Shelagh