Thoughts from the frontline - 35

The last time I wrote about my journey with cancer it was last Sunday night and I was looking forward to a good nights sleep. Perhaps even a nice dream to take me into Monday? But all that Monday brought me was a massive nightmare. I woke up hating food. Having not wanted to eat at all on Sunday, Monday was worse. I made toast for breakfast and struggled to eat one slice, nearly gagging on every mouthful. This wasn't good I thought so it was a simple plain soup for lunch. I managed just over half of it but it was not enjoyable. Every spoonful was a challenge and slow torture as my mind joined in with my body's revulsion at the thought of food. My stomach churned and growled at me. I should be hungry as it was now two days since I'd eaten anything of substance but my body just lowered itself lower and lower into a pit of pain and general malaise. And so I was found laying prone on the sofa when T came home from work. "How are you feeling babe?" she asked. "Not that good" I replied "Not really eaten anything today and I still feel poorly". The understatement of the year as I was feeling... well a more honest reply could include the phrase "feeling like a man who has just had his testicles eaten away by a heard of acid spitting ants that were now eating their way through my stomach whilst singing heavy metal songs at maximum volume." This concerned T and she went off to make me a cup of herbal mint tea to help sooth my troubled body. She had only been out of the room for the seconds when I started to retch. I just managed to hold on for T to come running back into the room with bowl and paper towels before nature took over and I donated a gallon of bile and strange bits of solids for scientists to study later at their leisure. I was not well. I was proper poorly. In fact I don't think I had ever felt so ill. "You look awful" T explained "I'm going to call the doctor." I didn't argue. She could have rolled me up and put me in a box and I wouldn't have challenged her logic. I just wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to cry. I wanted my mummy. Now we are blessed by having a wonderful local doctor who decided that I should come round to the surgery straight away and he would see me as an emergency appointment. And so off we went in the car with me holding a portable sick bag and kitchen roll between my legs as we set off on the next part of my journey. I don't think I look out of the window for any of the journey. I was Mr Poorly and spent the time being Mr ScaredyCat and trying not to be sick. We only had to wait about 2 minutes before the doctor open his door and called me in. A quick refresh of the story since Saturday night and he started to examine me. Ten minutes of being poked and prodded, listened to and temperature being measure and he concluded that most of my functions were normal, my chest was clear but I did have a high temperature. But as I'd just had such a major operation he wanted to talk to the Urology team at the hospital for their guidance. So we waited outside whilst he got to work on the phone. Calls made, we were called back in where he told us that the Urology team recommended that I go straight to the hospital to get "it" sorted. Nobody was yet sure what "it" was but the high temperature was a worry. And so we got back into the car, diverted back via home again to pick up some hospital stay essentials, and arrived at the ward less than two hours after T's first phone call to the doctor. And they had a bed ready and waiting for me. It was now 6.30pm and the tests were started. The nursing team taking the trouble to change my stoma bag straight away so that they could get an uncontaminated urine sample that night. Waiting for the morning would just delay things so they squeezed in this task before their shift ended. And it was just half an hour later that the "duty surgeon" came up to see me to explain that I had a "raging infection" and that they would start to treat me immediately with a super triple strength antibiotic to start the process of defeating the infection. They were doing a culture to find out exactly what my infection was but they didn't want to wait the two days so they were going to blast it as fast as possible and they target the specific once they had the results. Lights out came shortly after with me being hooked up to an IV drip of antibiotics and enough painkillers to comatose an elephant. Sadly I still felt massively poorly and couldn't face any food or even drinks. I could just tolerate water but only infrequent sips. A was not a happy bunny that night. Tuesday morning started early. 1.30 am to be precise as I was woken up by my body saying "Oi, we feel like hell, come and join us in our misery". I sat up and rolled back and forward. It didn't help. I still wanted to cry. Please drugs, work! The rest of Tuesday was hell but at least the painkillers were now taking the edge off the agony. Food was still the last thing on my mind and looked at with fear but I did manage about half a weetabix for breakfast and about six forkfuls from my cod in sauce dinner. But the day had been pleasant by the fact that I was staring to improve and just about everyone on duty on the ward already knew me and were coming round for a chat as soon as they could. Sadly the ward was now like a home from home. The afternoon was taken up with a full body CT scan so an hour was spent drinking that wonderful "contrast" drink. Orange flavour it said on the bottle. Very strange oranges me thinks! The scan results would probably take 24 hours so the evening was spent chatting to T as I tried to get her to agree to take some time off work before she collapsed with exhaustion. There was then a splash of magic as I slept for about six and a half hours, straight through, that night. And I woke up feeling.... well good! Weetabix and two pieces of toast for breakfast, I then completely demolished a veg beany cottage pie for lunch and was swigging down tea with biscuits at every opportunity. The doctors, when they did their rounds first thing that morning, explained that they were going to change my antibiotics from IV to tablets and if I continued to improve I could be home on Friday. Yippie!! And so we arrived at Thursday and it was looking good. My "obs" were all normal and the doctors were still hopeful for a Friday release. At about 10am my consultant popped his head into the ward and said "How do you fancy going home today?" "Err, yes please" I blurted out with a smile on my face that could light the far side of the moon. I was going home!!!! And so it was that, with a suitcase full of drugs in hand, I left for home on a bright autumn evening. And I skipped from the car to our front door. I was not only back to being well again but I was feeling better than I had done for weeks. The UTI had obviously been building up in my system for some time and had finally exploded last weekend but I was now free!!! The sun is shining and Mr A is a happy bunny. And I just love antibiotics and painkillers :-) Andrew xxx