Week 48-49 – Cape Town family visit

Been away in Cape Town for the last week. Catching up with all the family, and doing all the holiday things. Eating too much… I put on about 2 kgs in 7 days – not too good!

Started off feeling quite good, but after a few days it all caught up with me and I had to take a day off – Spent some time reading and generally keeping quiet. However much I would like to ignore it, the interferon has a continual effect. Some days are better than others. I have learned to take it as it comes – It is just very frustrating to want to do more than I can, and then be hit by fatigue for a day or two.

On Monday morning we went out early with my-nephew-the-pilot for a flip around the peninsula. Was absolutely fabulous, no bumps or turbulence. About an hour’s flight was over much too soon! This picture shows Table Bay with Table Mountain in the background, and a good view of the ever-present “tablecloth’ on top.

The mountain is just over 1000 metres at its highest, and it forces the wind to rise rather rapidly. The tablecloth forms at the level where the dew point causes moisture to condense. Although it looks static, if you watch carefully you can see it continually forming on the one side as the air rises, and evaporating again on the other side where the air drops.

Cape Town is one of my real favourites. We spent a year here on a contract, and I spent many weekends trying out all the climbing routes. Now that I am on interferon it is really frustrating – knowing I can’t do any climbing! But in a month’s time that will be over and I hope to be getting my strength back. So the next visit I will pack my boots again.

Tuesday we flew back home. Getting up early and getting to the airport etc was quite a strain. But once we were back home I really felt lousy – I think what really made it worse was leaving sea level, and returning to altitude – We live at about 1600 metres above sea level, and there is definitely less oxygen at this altitude!

Had a call from the PET/CT scan people today, and now I am scheduled for my scan on 20th March. I don’t mind admitting I am very apprehensive about this. But I have something great to look forward to, and that is getting to the end of the interferon treatment.