When John started round two BEACOPP on Wednesday he brought home his little pack of drugs as normal. Only this time there were some differences:-
1. One pack of tablets he'd had last time wasn't there.
2. There was a new pack of different tablets.
3. The injections he was expecting were there but had someone else's name on them.
He duly took them back on Thursday and had a very apologetic nurse about the wrong injections. He thought it would be a straight swap. But no it turns out that he hasn't actually been prescribed any injections this time. The nurse said she would double check. She was dismissive of the tablets saying that often prescriptions change along the course of chemo.
John was sick and tired and accepted it. I was not sick, but tired (full time working, single parent duties do not agree with me!) and I accepted it too. It was only at 4am this morning when we both woke up with the same thought "hell, we really ought to double check this" that we got on the good old t'internet and got to the bottom of it (sort of). The new drug is to help prevent viral infections. Good. And the one missing is the one he is supposed to have before breakfast to help line his stomach in preparation for the bad boy steroids after breakfast. Bad.
J had more chemo today (Friday) so went in determined to get his missing drug and save his stomach. He phoned me before to say that it OK. The nurse has explained that he doesn't need the stomach liner because he is on a weaker dose this time. He is ok about this, but i'm still thinking "eh? why is he on a weaker dose?" He had a 5 min appointment with the consultant on wednesday who just said everything was fine. Why didn't he tell john that he was changing the medication? why do medical professionals think that people will just blindly take what they give them without any anxiety or questions?
My boss, whose wife died of cancer 10 years ago, has only said one thing to me about this whole John thing, he said "make sure you ask lots of questions because the buggers will only tell you what they think you need to know". I understand where he is coming from...
