Day 11: Wipeout

Saturday.

WCC: 0.7

Hb: 75

Neut: 0.2

Platelets: 20

Weight: 69.1kg!

So last night wasn't great - another round of chills, temperature spiking and then coming back down with the sweats. It's bouncing from 35's to 38 relatively rapidly and this seems to take everything out of me.

As the temp goes up, I am cold and shivering and end up with a heated blanket, and can then fall asleep - but wake up toasty warm, but still cold (if that makes sense). Then Panadol brings it back down again and the sweats start. Through this whole process I just can't move, don't want to move.. I feel if I start moving at that point, I start dry retching, coughing and feel lousy - so the best thing for me to do is just lay still and get through it.

So last night it was just before 3.00am and as I started coming out of temp spike, I needed to go to the bathroom. Well, the diarrhea has been bad - no stomach gripes or anything, just when I go into the bathroom, it just comes from no where.

To go to the bathroom, means getting up, bending over to unplug 2 electrical cords, wrap them up and then push my IV stand towards the bathroom.

So, all I'll say is that as I moved towards the bathroom, I said 'Oh No', hurried up and decided that was the worst indignity as I had to wash my underwear out in the sink...

Luckily very kind nurse gave me Imodium, and that problem has stopped for the moment. (discovered today that maybe he wasn't meant to - but no complaints from me!)

So this morning about 8.00am the next bag of chemo was started and they didn't want me to shower with that one, so I'd take it as a weekend lay in! Girls came in to visit early, and after about an hour, I could feel the temperature cycle start again and had to tell them that I was really tired and just needed to sleep. Have to admit a little fuzzy on times etc. So as they left I slept, woke up again very hot as the chemo finished and they were about to give me a bag of blood. (around 11.30am)

As Nurse 1 prepped the bag, he said to Nurse 2 have you done her obs - Nurse 2 replied yes, and I piped up that they hadn't been done for a while and I was now feeling very hot. Temperature taken and I hit 38 degrees again!. What was sad was because they had 'spiked' the bag of blood' and I was now a possible infection risk - the bag of blood had to be thrown away. What an absolute waste of a precious resource!

So, again another dose of panadol, sleep, and they wait an hour or so for my temp to come down before starting the bag of blood around 1.45pm.

When my temperature hits 38 degrees - I go through a 'review' which means the Dr's have to come and review me - listen to my chest, check tummy, check fluid in legs, ask about headaches, pain, sore throat etc. Apart from the temp I don't really seem to have any other major issues (although do have an annoying dry cough getting more frequent). Today apparently they have decided I need another chest xray - but that'll be after this bag of blood.

Laying in bed feeling miserable, my focus has had to be recognising this is only a tiny blip in my life - and I have so much still to look forward to. I may feel horrible for the moment, but it is not going to last, so I'm just trying to think of all the things I can start doing when I get through this.

As much as last night I decided in couldn't get any worse, I realised today that I am not throwing up, I don't have any other real issues at the moment - so things aren't that bad! Obviously temperature is going to be my challenge to get me started.

Anth sent picture of Soxy - which of course makes me happy/sad. Certainly missing the animals.

So this is an early post today - we'll see if there is anything worth updating later.

Updating from last night:

So I posted yesterday afternoon thinking the day's drama was over... how wrong was I!

About 3.30pm extreme nausea kicked in. If I thought I was experiencing it before - it was nothing compared to what I had yesterday evening. If I moved, I started dry retching - but will say at least nothing was coming up - not sure if there was anything in my stomach to actually bring up. So, an afternoon of feeling lousy and trying to lay still and not move too much.

Finally a dose of cyclizine seemed to do the trick and started feeling better and was looking forward to sleeping well. Then around 8.00pm, my saturation levels dropped to about 92%. Nurse put me onto oxygen and measured again and it went up. So Dr called in again and we went through everything again - this time, oxygen on, oxygen off to see what was happening. First conversation indicated that there might be some sign of fluid on my lungs from X-ray earlier today, but then after this Dr discussed over the phone with the Haematology advanced trainee, who apparently then discussed with the haematologist (apologies to everyone for being disturbed on a Saturday night!) it was decided to just leave me on oxygen for the night.

I thought maybe this was a bit of overkill, as I was feeling the best I had been in a number of days!

However, around 3.00am I woke to go to the bathroom (after good sleep) and I was wet with sweat but had to take the oxygen off to go to the bathroom. I found how I suddenly was struggling to breathe - all I could manage was short, sharp breaths and I was coughing non stop. I was very happy to climb back into bed and hook up the oxygen again!

Rest of the night was uneventful - slept well with oxygen going the entire time.