Just back from second lot of Chemo today and feeling well enough to post this so it can't have been that bad.

But just what is chemotherapy and what happens when someone "has chemo".

Glad you asked. Here's how it rolled for me today.

The Chemotherapy Unit at Broomfield Hospital is in a lovely new building, light and airy, free of noise and disturbance. The nurses (who are very kind) wear their own clothes and do everything they can to make it a pleasant and comfortable place to be poisoned.

Imagine 20 or so of the best adjustable chairs in the world each paired with a comfortable visitors chair. You find a chair, adjust it to your taste and your companion can sit beside you. Newspapers and free flowing caffeine plus a couple of trolley visits add to the colour.

Here's how a typical session goes for me:

* Arrive and hand in my Chemotherapy diary (see picture). In this they record my vitals and details of the exact treatments I'm having and the drugs I have to take afterwards.

* Next, see the Doctor. The Doc reviews recent blood test results and basically checks that you are fit to go ahead.

This time she showed me the pictures from my CT scan showing a large (15 x 10 cm) mass lurking in my left pelvis and various other nasties. No wonder my leg has been hurting. I wished I'd asked for a print. Not quite as tasteful as showing people your new baby scans but would have made a good talking point.

* Only at this point, and if everything is OK do they order your poisons. I've lost quite a bit of weight (13kg) so the doses all needed adjusting.

* While this is going on I've picked a chair and put a warming pad on my arm. The warming pad is supposed to make it easier for my veins to come to the surface so they can put the canula in. My veins, however, have got wise to this trick and seem to bury themselves as deep as possible if they get the slightest whiff of a needle.

* You can see the canula in my left hand (picture) and it's through this that all the chemo happens; roughly in this order:

First I have to swallow some pills - paracetamol and first doses of the steroid Prednisolone (the P of RCHOP). Then they inject an anti-sickness drug into the line to stop me vomiting. And then a dose of Piriton - which parents will recognise as an all purpose anti-histamine to damp down any reaction to the drugs.

Piriton leaves me nicely drowsy and ready to begin with the main event:

* Saline flush
* Rituximab - antibody that locks onto bad cells to kill them. As you can see from the picture it is light sensitive so has to be delivered from a sinister black plastic bag. * Saline flush
* Doxorubicin - that's the red one you can see being injected into my cannula. Turns my pee red.
* Saline flush

* Vincristine - tiny little bag, another poison. Also from a sinister plastic bag - zoom into the photo and you see these reassuring words "FOR INTRAVENOUS USE ONLY Fatal if given another way" Nice.

* Saline flush
* Cyclosphosphamide - slightly bigger bad, another chemo drug.
* Last 5 min saline flush

During all of this I'm reading, snoozing, listening to podcasts and generally not doing very much. Some of these things make you very drowsy and they are keen that someone else drives you home (thanks Mum!)

No internet access or phone service in the Unit. It's like a Faraday cage. Probably a good thing.

All of this, including the waiting around at the beginning, took about 6 hours.

* I also come home with a bag full of pills including a steroid called Prednisalone which is the last part of the Chemotheraphy. - 4 tablets a day for the next four days. As well as assorted antibiotics, anti-sickness meds and mouthwash.

So what's the point of Chemo?

My cancer, Lymphoma, arises from rogue white blood cells that have thrown off their genetic destiny and decided to go into business for themselves - growing, dividing and generally fucking things up. The Chemo does everything possible to kill them off, also killing off all the good parts of immune system in the meantime.

After 10 days or so the body starts manufacturing good guys again. Ideally the bad ones will never come back but it is rarely that simple, hence the need to repeat this cycle 6 - 8 times.

(Apologies to any medical folks reading for my laymen's explanations, any mistakes are entirely mine. And chemo treatments vary - this may not be typical)