Am writing this just ahead of my sixth cycle of chemo to keep you up to speed. After my last scribble-drivel there was an episode: eight days ago I was feeling really crook [as the antipodeans like to say], whereas I had been expecting the worst side effects of chemo number five to have faded. I felt worn-out, listless, depressed, not eating because everything tasted soapy at best, and I was as grey as a ghost and slightly breathless. I looked so ill that Dearly Beloved rang our Countess Mountbatten contact number.
Between them, the CM nurse and DB checked my blood pressure and took a wee sample; detecting infection they rang Acute Oncology at the General Hospital, and I was admitted within two hours for further testing and to have an IV antibiotic drip for forty-eight hours. There, blood tests revealed three infection flags: urinary, chest, and a faint trace they weren’t certain about, although they ruled out MRSA and other nasties. The changes over the first two days of dripping were dramatic, I even began eating again! By day three they decided I could be discharged home, clutching a course of tablet antibiotics. As I write I am back to ‘normal’ [my new normal], and tomorrow [a Tuesday] I’m back at the blood-letters to provide samples which help the oncologists decide whether to do the sixth cycle of chemo, scheduled for Thursday.
BTW, I ate five chips and a couple of mouthfuls of salami pizza but couldn’t manage more because it tasted soapy which put me right off! Compensated with a couple of ales which weren’t so bad taste-wise, but after taking my usual 9pm hand-full of tablets I promptly threw-up but was able to spot the coloured pills in the toilet bowl before flushing, which meant I could take replacements, but not so for the white ones I couldn’t spot. Always something new and interesting going on, helps pass the time while waiting!
There’s that word again! Had another forty minutes wait on Tuesday, for the blood sampling. No delay with the result though, Wednesday morning there it was: unhappily the PSA level has gone up to 15 from 9.2, it would have been nice to see reduction continuing. Guess I’ll have to wait and see how dose number six goes when we get round to it.
Oh no I don’t! My new consultant made the clinic ‘phone call on the Wednesday, and has postponed everything at least into next week, being concerned about how recovered I am from last week’s infections! Sacre bleu! More waiting! It also SNAFUs any plans I was hatching to get some fishing in.
Here's the next heads up: there will be a CT Scan of chest, abdo, & pelvis, with contrast, to be held on the 15th of October. Nice! Gives me more waiting! Underlying these shenanigans over the last three days are several bouts of the worst aches and pains I have experienced so far. We are in touch with the surgery and Countess Mountbatten at present due to the recollection that both the palliative nurse and specialist APC oncology nurse have both said there is no reason why ‘we’ can’t keep on top of any aches and pains, rather than chasing them from a long way behind as we seem to be. So, keen readers, the sixth chemo cycle is up in the air at present, and the waiting game has taken another change of direction.
