Viral overload

Day 106 

General status update

Not playing any more

For the last two days I’ve been feeling increasingly unwell and determinedly putting it down to being in the very weak and feeble part of the chemo cycle, plus the incremental effect of now being in my fifth cycle of FEC, and thus very full of accumulated poison, but this afternoon I have been forced to acknowledge that I am feeling unwell because I am going down with a respiratory infection, and feeling worse by the minute.

Oh God, here we go again…. this will be my third infection during the 5 chemo cycles so far, and let us hope that it will be containable, like the previous two, and not actually put me back in hospital, as has happened to so many of my Cyber Chemo Buddies over the last few months, including one only yesterday. The good news is that I received an injection of Pegfilgastrim, the immune system-boosting drug, after FEC5 10 days ago; this means that although we are now at the point of the chemo cycle where my immune system has been heavily suppressed by the chemo, which kills all the neutrophils, my neutrophil count won’t be as low as it would otherwise have been.

Hopefully my body, with the help of the Pegfilgastrim, will be able to fight off this infection, and not let it fast forward into neutropenic sepsis and a hospital admission, or even another trip to the A & E for IV drugs, because I am just too bloody tired for all that again now, OK?

Enough already.

I’ve had it with chemo, and infections, and no immune system, and emergencies and A&E departments and injections and IV infusions and hot and cold running doctors.

I am so exhausted, physically and mentally, after 6 months of cancer and 15 weeks of chemo, and I just do not want to do it any more.

Any of it.

You’re meant to call the hospital if your temperature goes above 37.5 deg, and go straight to A & E if it hits 38.0, but I’ve decided to ignore all that this time round. I’m staying put and not doing anything at all unless it gets to be well over 38.0 deg. (it’s 37.4 at the moment). The last two infections didn’t kill me, and my working hypothesis is that this one won’t either. And if Jesus does decide that this is the week he wants to take me for a sunbeam, well then that's just too bloody bad.

Hey,  immune system, this is just a run of the mill respiratory virus, not Ebola: so please put that very expensive Pegfilgastrim injection to good use, DEAL WITH IT on your own, and don’t bother me any further.

I'm done.

I’m going to lie down on the sofa again now with Chemo Brian and Artemis Cooper's new biography of Patrick Leigh-Fermor and I do not wish to be disturbed.

Got that?