"I don't know..."

Hello there!

As this is my first post, I am cheating a little and beginning by posting my own 'bio' - I like to believe I am efficient rather than lazy

"Husband to Mrs Slappy, who was diagnosed & treated for a melanoma on her back. 

Mole removed & WLE performed.  2nd 'suspicious' mole removed (with no need for a WLE).  

Prescribed Dabrafenib and Trametinib initially.  Later stopped, due to adverse reactions (sickness, lethargy, shivers & sweats being the main ones).  Scans showed cancerous growths in or on liver.  

Moved onto immunotherapy - Ipilimumab & Nivolumab.  First infusion caused immunotherapy induced colitis.  Eventually cleared after 3-months, following a 1-week stay in hospital with steroids, fluids & antibiotics being administered.  

Second immunotherapy infusion caused return of colitis within 4-days, along with extreme fatigue, and loss of appetite (for food & liquid).  Called into Hospital after 8-days in bed, with limited mobility in addition to previous symptoms. "

So Mrs Slappy went into Leicester Royal Infirmary on Monday 27th March, and she's still there.  Yesterday I managed to visit, and she described herself as feeling worse than when she first went in.  They are still doing "tests", and there is talk of draining fluid from her pelvis; now no-one seems to have explained either where this fluid came from or what it might be doing, and as the surgeons feel they cannot deal with it, "they" are waiting to speak to the radiologists to see whether they can drain it.  Now I must confess I have no understanding of any of that, as I can't see why you'd need a surgeon to drain fluid, and I always thought radiologists did X-rays.  A third profession was mentioned but I'd never heard of it before, and I can't remember the name.  

Okay, so that's one-half, and here's the other...

I am 56 years old, with Mrs Slappy being a little older.  No children, aside from 1 head-strong, smart, beautiful and determined 7-month-old Border Terrier female puppy.  I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder with associated depression, heart failure (cardiomyopathy as they prefer to call it) and am Type-2 Diabetic.  

I put the subject as "I don't know..." as it seems to be my most popular phrase at the moment.  I don't know what to do, other than a combination of 'carry on' and 'cope'.

It's a trek to get to the Hospital, and I always allow/factor 2-hours to drive there and park - luckily, it's working out as around 75-minutes to drive and 10-20 minutes to park.  A round trip is 5 or 6 hours out of a day.  Miraculously, the pup is fine with being left alone for this amount of time; she just takes herself to bed upstairs (after eating whatever snacks I left out, destroying the post that might have arrived, chewed a shoe...) and waits for me to return.  That journey is tiring.  Add on my general levels of stress & anxiety, and factor in the domestic house-husband duties I have to do, and it's all I can do of an evening to microwave a thing (or order a takeaway).  

...so I don't know. 

As a small reward, here's a photo of Truffle, our border terrier.  I think she was waiting for a small piece of digestive biscuit.