My Birthday!

Ok, so this post is a little late as my birthday was on Tuesday.

I've been having little birthday type events happening since Sunday, where my wife, sister and I were going to lunch and lovely wifey had arranged for loads of family and friends to be there.  It was cool.  I ran out of steam about 5ish, went home had a quick sleep and by the time I had woke up, my wife was home with a few of the others, which was cool.

On Monday I said I wanted to go to Thorpe park (the roller coaster place).  A bit of a stupid plan really, but I was feeling ok and wanted to go on a roller coaster.  Doctor may not have agreed, but yaa-boo-sucks to him!.  We got there in the early afternoon.  It was bloody cold and amazingly busy.  We joined a queue (a massive one) determined to get on a ride.  What I didn't realise was how hard on me standing would be.  My skinny legs were not happy and I had to find things to lean on.  Just when it seemed like I'd have to give up, the glorious end was in sight.  The ride, Nemesis Inferno, was cool.  I enjoyed it, but the queuing had knackered me.

We went to sit down and have a coffee, which was good.  Stayed there a bit longer, had a drink elsewhere, some of the others did some other rides but I was content to sit and chat.

Next day was my actual birthday but I felt under the weather and had a temperature, so didn't end up getting up until afternoon.  Shame really, as there were quite a few birthday options available.  In the evening, my wife cooked mexican food (I love mexican food) and some friends came round for drinks.

Yesterday, my temperature was behaving and we had some friends round for dinner (wifey cooking again and very well).  

It's soppy, I know, but I love my wife.  She organised lots of birthday stuff for me, so if one day I wasn't feeling good there would be something the next.  She is one cool lady.

This morning my temperature started off well high (and if I was well behaved I would have rung the hospital - they would have had me come in and that's where I'd be for the next 4 days).  I gave it a couple of hours and it had started to come down nicely.  Stupid weird temperature.  I didn't feel hot, didn't look like I had a high temperature.  Wierd!

Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now...?

Grrr!  I'm not patient any more (although I am a patient, boom boom, puntastico!).  The doc has been to see me and checked everything off the list:  no puking, no fever, temperature under 38 for 24 hours, looking well, not dizzy, weight ok, etc, so-on-and-so-forth.  

The question was then raised again, "so, can I go then?"

She froze a moment.  Did a quick computation.  Not sure what it was.  

She said, "Possibly".

How bloody useful is that?  Still, if Hitler thought that way the 20th century may have been different:

"Fuhrer, shall we invade Poland?"

"Hmmm, possibly"

Many lives may have been saved and the Charlie Chaplin look-a-like may have lived a few more years preaching his own brand of hate filled rubbish.

Anyway, short dictators aside, she then said that she would need to run it by the consultant and get the go/no go decision.  Just to make sure this didn't go on all day, I ask when she could do that and let me know and she said in 30 minutes.  That was 2 hours ago.  I may restart digging my tunnel (code name Charlie, after tunnel Alfie was discovered by guards and after tunnel Blinky collapsed).

The wait goes on.  The trouble is, it could put my temperature up and result in me not being allowed to go!

The Incredible Puking Man

So they told me when my last bit of treatment was done, I'd pretty much be able to go home.  I was an excited kitten.  Sleeping in ones own bed and all that.  Well, the last slow bag of fluid crawled into me and I had a good nights sleep, all ready to be up and out the next morning but, shock horror, I had changed...

Into the incredible puking man!  I was woken at 6 (as normal), loaded with anti-sickness drugs and then proceeded to spend the morning feeling nauseous and doing some power puking.  It was horrible and very disappointing.  Apparently, Cisplatin (the drug I had been receiving for the last four days) is a mighty puke maker but the effects could have been dampened by the steroids, which were now done. 

So, that was the morning, then in the afternoon to seal the deal my temperature went climbing to 39 and I felt like crud.  My head ached and my body felt heavy and weak, so no going home.

Today, I woke up, feeling a bit weird.  Temperature was 38.4, so they won't let me go today, but I've been improving throughout the day and not been sick, so with luck, I may get out tomorrow.  I must be feeling ok, as I've got the lappy on and am typing this.  

Anyway, just a quick post.

Oh yeah, if there is anyone with a blog out there in the blog-o-sphere who wishes to swap links with me, let me know.

Waltzing on the Ambassador's Lawn

I'm still incarcerated in the Wexham Hospital of correction without being charged.

Remember Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout, many years ago?  He was like a spring with a head on and used to boing around everywhere?  Well, my temperature has decided to become just like him.  One minute nice and low, the next it flies up to the highest heights (accompanied by the sound of Kenny Rogers and that woman whose name I can't remember singing some song about something being lifted up where it belongs.  If that makes any sense to you, you're doing better than me).  Now, Mr. Holmes, where it gets even weirder, is that sometimes, when the temp is high I feel ragged and just want to sleep and maybe grunt occasionally and other times I feel footloose and fancy free, desiring nothing less than to waltz, Viennese style (is there such a thing?) across the ambassadors lawn (okay, slight exaggeration, I feel okay and am content sitting up, reading, typing on the laptop and not just wanting to doze.)

Not a lot happening otherwise.  I either lie here, wanting to go home or lie here wanting to go to sleep. 

Almost forgot.  I received a couple of units of blood in a transfusion (sorry if that loses me any Jehovah's witness readers, of which I am guessing there are a fairly vast number).  No one had warning me and when I saw the nurse approaching with a bag of blood I was strangely freaked out.  Apparently, my red blood count had been slowly dipping and they wanted to raise it up.  It seemed to help and made me reconsider my move to not join that marauding vampire gang back in '96.

Well, I think that was one of my most bizarre posts to date.  Not sure what is going on with my brain today, but thought I'd share its outbursts with you, gentle reader.

Until next time...

Go for blood and nearly get locked away

Well, I've just got back from the hospital and it was touch and go whether they were going to let me out again. I went in for a blood test and a cheeky CT scan of my sinuses (as part of the ongoing investigation into why I keep getting a temperature and getting ill). Had those, but my stomach has not fully recovered since leaving hospital last time. It's generally grumbly and not being very polite and after I eat it has the audacity to hurt. Most un-british like of it. So, I thought, as I was there and as I felt a bit under the weather anyway, I'd pop in and see the doc and see if they had any amazing ideas. They didn't but as my temperature was 37.7 they were umming and arring about incarcerating me again.
"I've served my time, damn it! ", I protested.
"Guards! Take him down", was almost the reply. Instead, they checked some more results and as nothing was untoward, they let me go with a caution.

Oh yeah, the blood test. It only took two goes this time, but it was the lord high supervisor doing it, who is normally top of the pops and gets blood quick and with prowess. I guess my leather veins are a force to be reckoned with. Hopefully, I will leave a legend behind me, which trainee blood letters can be scared with by their supervisors.

Hospital, Chemo, Hospital again

So, I once again had a high temperature, had to go to A&E, wait around for hours, get xrayed, tagged and poked, I was admitted. My temp went up to 39, then after numerous different anti-biotics it dropped down to normal.
I was in from Tuesday till Friday (Chemo day) and seemed pretty good on friday, so they said to go ahead with chemo 8 of 8 (yes, final CHOP). Chemo went okay and I was told that I could go home but had to come back in on saturday and sunday for an anti-biotic injection. All good.

So, I went home, came in on Saturday. Felt pretty good for a post chemo day. I then went in to hospital later and they took 3 goes to get a canula in, ow, then I did the anti-biotic and went home. Then Sunday came along. Not so great. I woke up and felt rubbish. Spent all day in bed with my stomach doing loop-the-loops and feeling ill. I checked my temperature and it was 39, so it was back to hospital. They still had my bed free, ready for injections, so back in I went. There I remained until today.
Free again, free again! The taste of creamed potatoes still is stuck in my mouth and the smell of disinfectant lingers too, but I'm out and feeling okay. So there you go. Chemos done, got a Rituximab to have in 3 weeks and then my first scan. No more CHOPs, hooray and hurrah!

TGI Friday?

It's Friday and it's nearly 4.30. I went to hospital for 9.30, joined the queue for blood letting. I then waited. Waited a bit more and finally did a bit of waiting. Was then invited in to be drained of the beautiful red life sustaining fluid known as blood. I sat in the chair (imagine an electric chair, but without the wiring. Oh and they don't strap you in. At least, I've not seen it happen) and they fastened on a little strap at the top of my arm and pulled it tight. Then they prod your arm, hunting down the most juicy looking veins. Recently, it has taken them a few goes to get all the blood they needed out of my dried up leather veins, that is, they have had to go prospecting, drilling in extra holes and looking for blood. Not fun. I mentioned this to my current vampire, I mean blood letter and she said, "yes, some of the nurses have difficulty finding good veins but we are too well trained for that. We wouldn't need to go in 3 times". She laughed, I guess amused at the nurse's lack of blood letting skills. This time I thought I was in luck, as the first blood container started to fill up, but then it sputtered to a stop. Oh no, I thought, not again. She withdrew the needle slightly, rooted around for the vein. Ow. She poked and rooted, then tried rooting and poking but to no avail. She look at bit sheepish and explained that she'd need to try again on the other arm. Well, at least two attempts is better than three. I'm happy to have one less hole poked in me. She moved the tourniquet to my other arm, poked some veins, found one that was a bit tender and jammed the spike in. I winced a little bit and she raised a professional eyebrow at the wussbag sat in the chair. The next container filled up, she unplugged it and plugged in the final one and....doh! the blood flow stopped. Stupid veins, I cursed. I didn't want a third spiking, but it was looking like one was in the mail and heading my way. She laughed awkwardly and went into root and poke mode again. Apparently, she hadn't learnt yet that when one of my veins says "no" it means "no". She did the poke and root routine a few times, to my discomfort, finally giving up, smiling unconvincingly and announcing/muttering that she had better find another vein. Whoopee! Third time better be a charm! She found another vein, with her supervisor looking over her shoulder, nodding and pointing and having the occasional vein prod too. "This looks like a good one", she stated and without so much as a "sharp scratch coming" announcement, she rammed home number three. Resulting blood flow: nada, zilch, nil. I started to giggle. I got a dark look. I carried on giggling. She rooted and prodded and thankfully, this time the root/prod method brough home the bacon. The last container filled up and I got a third bit of cotton wool and sticky tape slapped over the new hole. She quickly slipped away with the blood containers and I headed out.

Next, I had to wait around until the blood tests were completed. This takes about an hour. Not sure if it really takes that long or if the blood test people are in cahoots with the car parking people and get a cut of the extra hours car park fee. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but those blood testers all drive Jags and wear hefty Rolexes, so who knows.
When hanging around, waiting in hospital, there are loads of fun things to do. You can see how many people there are that look worse that you do. That can be fun. You can see if you can find the oldest edition of Home and Garden magazine in the pile available to read or just simply sit and make random grunts and squeals and see how many people you can get to move away.
After an hour or grunting and squealing, a nurse ambled by and whispered a list of mispronounced names. Thankfully, mine is quite hard to mispronounced (although she did try, bless her). I followed her, to another queue and was shortly invited in. There I was given some more tablet, but thankfully told that I don't need to keep injecting myself with Fragmin. Yay!

I forgot to mention that I was in hospital on Wednesday too. Tuesday night I was feeling unwell (again) and my temperature was high (38). I theory I should have gone in to A&E that night but being a belligerent git and having not long escaped from hospital and feeling not too bad, I decided I'd go in the morning, unless I got worse. Typically, my wife was away on a course and my little one decided to try and fall out of bed in the night and to wake up later after having a nightmare and be a bit freaked out and crazy. Basically, I didn't sleep too well. Anyhoo, my temp wasn't too bad and I was alriht dropping the kids off to school and child minder. I then zoomed over to the ma-in-laws and she dropped me at hospital. There, I, guess what, that's right, had a blood test (which took two people and three attempts) and then got to loiter and wait around for an hour, see a doctor, get a prescription for some GCSF (as my neutrophil count was below 1) pre-filled injections (so I can do it myself), wait 40 minutes at pharmacy whilst they took the box out of the fridge (or whatever they do) and then got home in the afternoon.

Anyway, Wednesday aside, back to today. As I had been coughing (and still am) they sent me for a chest xray (all clear, no problems), saw my bone marrow was lobbing out lots of immature neutophils, so my counts should be going up and was allowed to stop those injections too. Hooray, no injections for a week or so. I've also noticed that my blood clot symptoms have almost gone. My arm is no longer swollen, my hand doesn't look like a boxing glove and the veins on my chest and neck have subsided a fair bit (although they are still a bit prominent). All good signs.

So, on to next week. I'm back in work on monday, although I have to go via the hospital and give them some blood. Hopefully they get it first go. Wednesday is another blood test and then Friday is chemo number 8, the last one! Oh, preceeded by a blood test, of course.
So, once chemo 8 is out the way, I then get to wait until I feel improved and there will be a scan. This is where the anxiety or scanxiety will kick in. These are the scans that will show that either a) I can rejoin the ranks of the healthy, once again free to mock the afflicted and laugh in the face of danger or b) nope, sorry buddy, primary treatment hasn't killed the critter dead, so it's on to the harsher stuff. Brace yourself Mildred, this may sting a little. So, even though it's a good few weeks away, I can feel the vague hintings of scanxiety a tap, tap, tapping at my door.

A less whingy post next time, I promise!

Whinge whine

Not very well the last couple of days. Evening before last I felt pretty rotten, my head started really aching and pounding, which wasn't fun. As the evening wore on, my temperature rose to 38, which meant that I was meant to ring in to the hospital and see if I should go in for some demestos strength IV anti-biotics. I was naughty and didn't. I felt rough, but wasn't ready for that.
I went to bed and didn't sleep too well. The withdrawl from steroids (at least I reckon that's what it was), kept me needing to get up to go to the toilet and then to keep drinking more water (good combo).
I woke up next morning and felt a lot better. My temperature was normal but I felt totally knackered (due to not sleeping much, I guess), so didn't do much in the day, appart from try to get some more sleep (thwarted by someone outside who was doing something with a chainsaw from 10.00 till 2. If I found out who, I might be inclined to return the favour!)

Anyway, whinge over. I feel improved again now. Yay!

Hot stuff

This week, my wife, Sam, our and little boy, Harry, have been ill. I guess it was on the cards for it to head my way and that's what happened last night. Annoyingly, this week is the week when my blood counts drop due to chemo mashing up my bone marrow and spitting out lots of dead immune system chappies.
I basically started to feel a bit unwell, with a cough that made my brain hurt (OK, it hurt my head a bit, but I like to exaggerate) and my temperature started to rise. Now, I've been told that if my temp hits 38c, then its off to hospital with me. It started to get close and I really should have rung the hospital and let them know, but foolishly I decided to ride it out. Luckily, it came down again and today it has been slightly higher than usual but not too bad. Even so, I've still felt pretty lousy and been spending a chunk of the day lounging in bed. I'll see how tonight goes and see if the battle v the temperature is on again.