Day 107
General status update
The Chemo
Demons are all keeping well away from me because they don’t want to pick up
this bug, except Chemo Brian, of
course. who never catches anything anyway because viruses and bacteria stand no
chance against the impenetrable fug of wacky baccy smoke that permanently
surrounds him.
Anxiety level/insane euphoria: God, I’m missing the
Dexys…
State of mind:
guilty because I have been failing Cancer 101 again and displaying a Bad Attitude
and making everyone worried about me, but also defiant because a person can
only stand so much.
Hair:
much like a small, dishevelled haystack, at the moment.
Well, that’ll teach me to throw the toys out of my pram in
public: half an hour after I publish the little tantrum that was yesterday’s
blog post R comes into the bedroom - whither
I have retired with Paddy Leigh-Fermour in a state of high dudgeon - holds
out the phone and says ‘It’s Becky’.
Ah.
F***! F***! How stupid was I to write
that I’ve got an infection but I’m not going to go to the hospital, SO THERE?
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
They’re probably going to stage an
intervention…
Matron Becky – aka the
Mother Goddess and World Mum, in all her
ineffable omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience – has been alerted to the fact that I am
behaving badly, of course she has: it seems she was in the middle of reading
the previous day’s blog post when the new one suddenly popped up and informed
her that I am down with another infection and Acting Out.
She is deeply unamused.
A difficult conversation ensues; it’s hard to hold your own
when you’re severely under the weather, mentally and physically exhausted, and
have got the Chemo Matron/World Mum/Mother
Goddess exuding gentle disapproval at you from the other end of the phone
because you are self-evidently not just being a non-compliant patient, but behaving
like an idiot in such a way as to endanger yourself and cause a great deal of
worry to your loved ones. Although R is
not in the room during this conversation, I can sense him cheering from the side-lines,
and not for me.
Matron Becky reminds me that I am in the vulnerable, highly immuno-suppressed
week mid-way through my fifth dose of chemo, and that with five doses of FEC now
inside me that is a considerable build-up of toxins inside my body, hence the
all-pervading weakness even before the infection set in. Even with the Pegfilgastrim injection, at this point
my immune system is on the floor, and with my temperature at 37.4 deg she thinks
it would be advisable for me to go down to the hospital to get my bloods done,
so they can see how my neutrophils are doing, and whether the doctors should give
them some more ammo to fight off the infection. She offers to call ahead so
they will be expecting me.
This suggestion fills me with horror.
I know everything she says is important and right, yet….
It is one of the coldest nights of the year and, although I’m
feeling truly rotten, and so very, very tired, I’m very cosy and comfortable
here with Chemo Brian and my knitted throw, a nest of cushions and a heap of
books and magazines. R couldn’t come with me to the hospital, as his little boy
is staying with us this week, so a trip to the hospital would involve several hours
alone in the A & E: blood tests, then a long wait for the results, needles,
insertion of cannulas - my PICC line being
no more - and a lengthy infusion of IV antibiotics while waiting for the
blood test results because they automatically
do that as a precaution against neutropenic sepsis.
I’m sorry, but I can’t face all that again
tonight, I just can’t.
Right now, I can’t endure any more invasive physical
procedures unless my life literally depends on it – this is the point to which my growing aversion
to hospitals and medical treatment, and my general psychological deterioration,
has now brought me. I’m really not being deliberately difficult, but both body
and mind have had enough. If I go and spend another unutterably bleak and
unpleasant few hours in the hospital now, I may end up just breaking down completely,
like I started to do at the radiotherapy planning meeting last week.
I’ve been through the A&E routine before, and I’m not
going there again unless it is absolutely necessary – as evidenced by a serious
fever, which I haven’t yet got. In the end I take my temperature again whilst
still on the phone to Becky and am deeply relieved to see that it has gone down
to 37.2 degrees.
For Becky, this is not the point, of course; my temperature
could start going back up at any moment and I am a very weak immuno-suppressed
chemo patient with an infection who would be much, much better off down at the
hospital getting my neutrophils checked out and further prophylactic measures
put in place.
And as far as my body is concerned she is right, but my soul is
no longer able to go along with the programme.
In the end, no doubt picking up on the fact that I am right
at the end of my psychological tether, Matron Becky agrees that I can stay at
home for the time being, on condition that if my temperature rises above 37.5
deg, or if I start to feel physically worse, then I will go to the hospital
straight away. Deeply relieved, I put the phone down and curl back up in my
nest of cushions and throws.
Not going nowhere, no, not me.
I'm running on empty, now.
Postscript, 24 hours later: the virus is continuing to rampage through me, I’m aching, coughing
horribly, and am so weak I can barely stand up, but my temperature has stayed
below 37.5 deg, so as long as I rest for the next few days I should be just
fine without further medical intervention (inshallah/touch wood/God willing).
At this stage of the game, I truly believe that Chemo Brian is the best
medicine…
