3 Too Many

Day 8 of 28 Treatment Free.

Welcome back.  Sorry for the break in updates but it seems that there is a side effect of the dual treatment they don’t tell you about – the crash!!  Yep, I may have made it through the 6 weeks in fairly good shape, but this past week is those 6 weeks side effects rolled into 1.  I had a good day Monday & Tuesday, then Wednesday started to feel a bit unwell – like I was getting a cold, Thursday getting worse & feeling lousy, Friday was just crappy to say the least and convinced it was a cold.  But Saturday brought out a new low health wise – a headache that just wouldn’t respond to drugs and was a new form of pain too on a pain scale for me it was a 8-9 out of 10 (and I have a very high pain tolerance) with the pain making me feel ill – and feel lousy still.  So give in and decide to use my special green card at the hospital (it lets you jump the queue in A&E cause you have cancer – guess there has to be some benefit to it).  It works too, as walk into A&E and about 10 minutes later I was in my own room and in a flash as open back hospital gown!  Have a nurse come and see me then a doctor, then an IV specialist puts in a lure and takes more blood than I care to have taken in one go!  Then comes the pain-killer – oh they stock some bloody strong drugs – but then again it is apparently it is only a midrange one as I am allergic to opioid based drugs like Morphine,etc.  But what ever they gave me worked – plus had the bonus of making me see fairies with flippers!! Then off for a chest x-ray to be sure all ok there.  Next they bring on my mates – the steroids (I can hear the collective owe no) – yep they’ve upped them back to the max just after I had got within half a tablet of getting off them!  Then came the fluids – 2 IV lines together one antibiotics the other just sodium fluids, then another different dose of antibiotics goes in. ABout 2 hours later I’m up on the Oncology ward  – not that I really remember the trip – but I’m sure the fairy with the flippers was with me and helped

Spend the rest of the day fading in and out of sleep. Manage to wake for dinner – hospital food but as I haven’t eaten all day I don’t really care.  Pain starts coming back about 7pm but hang in there as I want to watch the rugby and it is only on Prime.  Think the nurse wants me to settle into bed as she tries several times to give me the strong pain-killer again.  Instead I settle for a mild couple Panadol and a codeine – works enough.  Good game and afterwards have a good chat to one of the other patients about how they’re going too.  She is in there for a similar reason to me in the crash after finishing the radiation treatment.  She has struggled with the chemo too.  Nice to just be able to talk about cancer things including how others deal with you, sometimes don’t understand what you really mean when you say you’re having a bad day or are actually feeling better than you look.

Off to bed then just in time for the first of the 2 hourly wake up / check up. Then next wake up is at 2:30am where I’m offered for my now throbbing head Panadol or a half a codeine – not both and no strong pain-killer.  Ask why as it is over 5 hours since I had my last ones – apparently they aren’t charted to be offered anymore than that together, even though I could have all 3 together before.  Tell the nurse I just flag it and wait till the morning when the Doctor can figure out why I’ll be in the same way as the day before, cause they didn’t chart it – yep nose came off to spite the face big time!!  Mental note – make sure to take own meds in with me as previously.  Woken several times more than it’s brekky time – Weetbix, and cold toast – eat it all and I’ll be considered for release.  Get no more pain killers either as head not to bad and I’ll wait. Docs finally get there and decide to release me – yay. 

Home then to rest up while starting to pack up the house as EQC are starting repairs on Wednesday and the movers are coming in on Tuesday to pack and remove the furniture.  We have to move what we are living with in to the temp house, and clean out the garage!  So not much to do.  So between rest and little bursts of doing things  – and they are little bursts – I need to sit down just about from going upstairs.  So forced rest from worn out body.

Monday comes with a slow start and starting to feel like heading down hill again.  Stay home as going to rest, work, rest, pack bits, rest – get the routine.  Yep stuck to that routine too.  Thanks Nick and Anna and boys for coming over to help cart some stuff over – appreciate the help.  Pretty much the day rolled on like that.  So there we have it – not quite a full coverage of the past 5 days – but one of the more important happenings.  Oh a couple of the other ones was the good day for the lads had at footy on Saturday – all 3 teams won!  And on Sunday Jacob raced in the final of the maze thing on What Now –  unfortunately he came 2nd and Lachlan was in the Tongue Twister challenge but didn’t do to well either – oh well they tried.

Anyway – take care folks wherever you’re reading this from.

Kia Kaha.