PICC Line Removed – On 21st July I had my PICC line removed, it wasn’t due to be removed at this point, as it was staying in until I had an operation confirmed date, however.
I had had the dressing changed on the Monday (this was the really hot week weather wise in July) and come the Wednesday morning I noticed my arm under the dressing had become very blotchy and some areas looked liked they had burst. Thankfully the team at Bracknell were able to see me that day, when I arrived the nurse was unsure if I should be keeping the PICC line in, as after removing all the dressing, my arm had clearly just blistered due to the heat (and looked pretty rank). The PICC line nurse came downstairs, literally took one look at my arm and said she would take it out, it would be easier to put back in if I needed it at a later date.
There was no real pain having the PICC line taken out, there was a sharp little tug is the best way to describe it when the clips holding the line in place were removed, but the actual line itself I did not feel being removed (bearing in mind it was about 22cm long inside my body, from arm and down to the bowel area), it just looked so strange seeing this thin wire like tube pulled out of me, from the corner of my eye. Once that had been removed I was on my merry little way home, with my right arm feeling a lot freer than it had for a few months.
Phases of feeling really sick and not wanting to eat – the first time this came about was Friday 23rd July, my temperature was up to 37.1 Celsius and I had stabbing pains going through my chest to go along with not wanting to eat and also feeling a little bit sick. After speaking with the chemotherapy nurse at Royal Berkshire Hospital I took an anti-sickness tablet to see if that helped me out. However this did not help me and my temperature went up again to 37.5 and the stabbing pains got progressively worse, so this time the nurse advised me to go to A&E at Royal Berkshire, making sure I took my cancer treatment booklet so they knew what my treatment had been.
We arrived at A&E at 10pm, it was pretty busy, but as I had my cancer booklet I was taken straight from the A&E waiting room and into the A&E department to be seen by a doctor, due to this my wife was advised to go home as she could not wait for me. After maybe 10 minutes I was seen by a doctor, had the standard ob’s taken and was then sent back out into the main waiting room with a paracetamol and another tablet which was similar to ibuprofen (the point I raised about my wife being told she couldn’t wait with me comes in here) as I was sat in the main waiting room again, it occurred to me that everyone else in that waiting room apart from 1 lady had at least 1 person waiting with them, that felt pretty unfair that no-one else was being advised they could not wait.
The evening went on and it transpired that A&E was very busy that evening as everyone in the waiting room waited to be seen. At about midnight I suddenly wanted to be sick, I managed to get outside to get some fresh air and the feeling quickly passed, after that I picked a chair by the door to make sure I could keep getting some fresh air. At around 3am on the Saturday, a nurse came into the waiting room to advise that it was a 5 hour wait to be seen (at this point I figured I must be close to being seen as I had been there 5 hours already), I also felt better as well with the stabbing pains being a lot less frequent and intense, plus the sicky feeling had gone. The nurse did advise for non emergencies to go home and attend at a quieter time (which some people did). However I stayed as I was concerned maybe I had an infection from the PICC line removal, but I was also considering just getting up and going home as I was tired and it had been a long wait.
As we approached 4am I was seen by the doctor again to repeat my ob’s, everything was looking better than when I had first arrived with my temperature dropping to a much more normal level and then I was sent back into the main waiting room to be called in to see another doctor about what was the issue with me, I was advised it would be 10/15 minutes (here lies the mistake giving people time frames, it really wasn’t). I was finally seen by a doctor to talk over my issue at 5:30am, he carried out no further tests on me and didn’t really check me out for any issues, just from my description he decided it was a severe case of heartburn and that gaviscon could help, so that was that, I was picked up at 6am and my 8 hours of A&E fun had come to an end, I added gaviscon to our Tesco shop for the Monday, thinking that would solve my issues. As the issues carried on (I will go into more in a second, hindsight again is a wonderful thing) I should have pushed for more of a check up, chances are that this was a sign the tumour was increasing in size again, more of the tumour in the operation section.
My next issue of these stabbing pains and all above symptoms started on the evening of August 16th, so I took some gaviscon thinking that would help me. I woke up in the morning of the 17th still not feeling great and when I was down in the kitchen suddenly had the urge to be sick, so ran upstairs but thankfully I wasn’t sick in the end. I took an anti-sickness tablet again and phoned the chemo ward at Bracknell where I had received my treatment as well as the colorectal nurses at Royal Berkshire Hospital for advice. At this point I knew my operation was set for September 3rd, and that I would have to isolate for 2 weeks prior to going to hospital, so I was really keen to not go into A&E again and risk catching anything that would jeopardise me having the operation. My temperature kept on fluctuating throughout the day, at its highest reaching 37.5.
Eventually the colorectal nurse at Royal Berkshire advised from the description I had given her, it sounded like a intermittent bowel restriction, and that I should try to eat little and often from now on with high calorie foods, just to make sure that I ate enough calories but also that I gave my body time to sort itself out. I was happy with this advice and followed it, as I was glad I didn’t have to attend A&E.
The final time these symptoms reared their ugly head was the day before I was due to go into hospital for the operation, so September 1st. Literally same as above, I started my morning suddenly feeling like I wanted to be sick and it went on from there. Again I struggled to eat anything this day but I tried my best, as I figured I really did need to eat to have some strength, as when I got to hospital I would be on bowel prep and not eating much then either.
Appointment with clinical psychologist – on August 24th I had a video call with a member of Basingstoke Hospital’s clinical psychology team, this was to discuss the operation and my feelings towards the operation as it was such a big moment to be going through. During this chat I also discussed my wife’s mental health issues as I was concerned about her and how this stress could add to this.
The other side of the chat was for the team at Basingstoke to get an idea about me, find out how I best take on information as well just about me, my likes and dislikes etc, so the nurses can look at my file throughout my stay and have a rough idea about me. For this I had to send in a picture of myself to go on my file, so I sent one in of me holding my Lego Double Decker Bus I had completed a few weeks before, show that I am different J
General Fatigue – final part that I can think of for this section is that as the time went on approaching my operation, I did feel a bit more fatigued going about day to day tasks, however I put this down to chemotherapy and perhaps I was pushing myself a little more than I should be. As it turns out this tiredness may have more likely been from the tumour growing a little bigger as discovered for the operation and thus my haemoglobin was again getting lower.
