This week so far has been a whirlwind of pic lines, tooth (or no tooth)
dramas, RICE chemo, wee, cannulation, more chemo, more wee, no sleep, more chemo and
then more wee.
So first of all the pic line. After googling excessively in advance
(sometimes google is not your friend), I was very, very nervous about having it
done, I mean how can a thing that goes into a vein in your arm and finishes
near your heart not hurt for goodness sake?? Despite wanting to just run away
from the whole situation, I turned up punctually at 9 on Monday morning (thank
you Mr. J) and was seen straight away (more big ticks for the NHS). The lovely lady I saw reassured me that I
wouldn’t feel anything and thankfully she was right.
There was a hiccup when the x-ray showed that the line was a little long and would ‘tickle my heart’,
so needed to be shortened. Now ‘tickle
my heart’ might sound very sweet in some contexts, but apparently definitely
not in this one, so back I went for it to be re-jigged, then
back again to x-ray where it was confirmed that all was now well.
For those of you who are a bit squeamish,
I’ve included an image so you can suffer along with me. You're welcome. ;-)
Next step was to go to Adelaide Ward to be admitted and this
was where things started to look up – I had a private room! Yay! I
had been really worried about being on an open ward as I just didn’t want to
feel like I was surrounded by cancer sufferers.
I know that I am one, but in a private room you can close the door and
pretend. The fact that you don’t have to listen to other people snoring,
farting, belching and let’s be honest, talking, is also a bonus.
The first thing that happened was that I told the medical
team that the hole where my tooth used to be ‘til the previous Tuesday was
really, really painful and felt like it was getting worse rather than better.
Cue minor panic. I was summarily dispatched back to x-ray, so they could see what’s going on there, then back to the ward to have loads of bloods taken, then sent down to see Mac Vac (which
sounds like some sort of special forces section, but is in fact the dental
section) who pronounced that I was pre-infection – not good news. The dentist recommended that I be given IV
antibiotics and that chemo should be delayed for at least a day.
Pah!! said the Haematology team (after we’d walked about 5k
from x-ray to the ward and back again!) we won’t be held back by a paltry tooth (or
lack thereof). Well, clearly they didn’t say exactly that, but they
did decide to ignore the dentist’s advice by changing the prescription to more
monster antibiotics and by starting chemo anyway.
Then it all got a bit dull - just lying in bed with chemo
drugs, flushes and antibiotics streaming into me 24/7 for 36 hours and
counting. Hence the comment at the
beginning about the copious weeing – I have genuinely not passed so much water
since my marathon Vodka Lime & Soda drinking sessions in my younger days.
;-)
Oh there was one small bit of drama – one of the
drugs being used in this chemo regimen is called Rituximab which can trigger a ‘reaction’
in some patients. Reaction?!? To me a reaction is a laugh, a snarl or a surprised face. It is not a sudden sore throat that starts to
close up scarily quickly (meaning I wheezed like a 60/day for 60 years smoker
within minutes), and inner ears that start to feel very weird. Very frightening, but as usual, so well
managed by the wonder that is the NHS staff, that it was over in less than 15 mins.
This shit had better work.
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