Who needs blood anyway?

I dropped into the hospital today for a blood test. Whites 0.26 and platelets 43. So I'm neutropenic and not far off being thrombocytopenic as well. They want me to come into the hospital on sunday for another test and a likely blood transfusion.
I've told them I can't make it in till after I've done one run at the Port road street sprint. They are horrified but I've promised them I won't crash. (with platelets at 43 now and probably under 10 by sunday I'm at risk of uncontrolled bleeding)

I've already had a couple of phone calls from other competitors asking if I will be racing. I've done the maths in my head and unless I enter this weekend and post a time then there is almost no way I can win the series if someone else enters the other rounds and gains even modest points.

Thing is, life is for living, there's no point sitting around wrapped up in cotton wool making excuses for why I can't do what I love. To me the achievement of winning the 2009 sealed sprint series is well worth risk. I'd regret not doing it now while I have the chance... you never know what the future holds.

Healthwise I'm still really dizzy when I stand up and everything hurts.. even my hair! well not really my hair but my scalp feels tight and bruised. That's generally a sign that I can't be too far away from having it all fall out. My face hurts too.. not a big pain, just tender.. it's probably all the old skin cells dying off and having no new ones to replace them yet.

I'll let you know how I go on sunday...

Getting better..

Each day I feel a little better, the angst feeling has gone so that's good. I no longer have any nausea either. Today's symptoms are dizziness when I stand up and palpitations. I've had this before and put it down to my body readjusting to the steroids absence.

I tried to go into work for a short time but I nearly passed out each time I stood up or got out of my car, so I gave up and spent the day watching History channel.

I have an appointment with the district nurse tomorrow where I shall tell her I'm fine, then I have a blood test at the Blood & Cancer centre at Wgtn hospital on Friday where I'll also get more GCSF to inject. (I inject GCSF into my stomach each morning)
Hopefully my blood counts won't be too scary this weekend and I might just strap myself into my race car on sunday for a single run around Port road to keep myself in the points table.

Home again..

I finished my IV's at 7am this morning and by just after midday I was on my way out the door.
I still can't keep still and have spent as much time as I can sleeping so I don't have to suffer from the effects of the steroids.
Maybe tomorrow they will subside.. however history has shown me that coming down off the steroids is far worse.. maybe I haven't been having them long enough to suffer withdrawal? Guess I'll find out.

I feel nauseous and have been taking metoclopramide tablets to ease that. Luckily I have hundreds of them left over from chemo in 2007.

Ok.. gonna go.. reached the end of my string again.. shall lie down.

Later.

Grumble.. moan

I'm in a total funk right now.. it's the steroids again. Can't think, can't stay still, can't watch a movie, can't read a book, can't relax. It's awful!

I've been hooked up these IV's since friday lunchtime and am due to unhook at 7am monday morning.It's like a prison sentence!
The nurse has decided that my weight is too high, so I must be retaining some of the fluids. So she has given me another injection of a drug that makes you pass water.. and heaps of it. I'm emptying my bladder every ten minutes.. another pain in the neck as I have to drag this IV stand when I go to the bathroom.

Roll on tomorrow and I can go home!

One hours sleep and a bag of vomit

I've broken my unblemished record. Despite all the chemo I've had in the last three years I've never thrown up.
However this morning my meds came late and although I was feeling queezy at around 7am I figured I could hold out till 8am when they were due. Unfortunately it was almost 9am before they came and not five minutes after taking them I started coughing and next thing ya know I've got squirrel cheek's and I'm desperately looking for a convenient place to convulse into. Luckily I spotted the small brown paper bag they give us for rubbish just in time!

I started my IV's sometime around 1pm yesterday and was under the impression that my last 4 hour drip would start around 9pm. I stayed up and waited expecting that I could sleep without having the IV line hanging off me. However late in the night I was informed by the nurse that I had a ten hour saline drip after that. By the look of it I'll be permanently connected right through till monday morning with perhaps a daily five minute break to shower and change clothes.

The little bit of sleep I did mange to get was constantly broken by a cacophony of beeps, buzzers, coughs, snores and door slamming. It was not until this morning when I was offered some ear plugs by one of the nurses that I actually got to nod off.

The IV's here use electronic pumps and they are so darn finicky. They keep getting air in the tubes and that stops the pump and sets off an alarm. I'm supposed to then press the nurses alarm but they never come. Last night I gave myself a crash course on driving the things and managed to clear the air lock by finding the purge option from the menu and then resetting the alarm and get the pump flowing again. This morning it happened again, so I reset it... five times it started and then stopped. Finally I gave up and pushed the nurses alarm. Twenty minutes passed and still no one came (unlike the seven seconds they took in Germany!) so I decided to open the front of the machine and see how the tube wound it's way through the pump and maybe locate the fault there. Big mistake.. there's a process for getting the door to shut again and It's not at all obvious. I was unable to close it before the nurse came.

Phyllis the nurse is about as butch as a gal can get without actually having a sex change. Short cropped, blonded hair and arms heavily covered with tattoos that would do your average trucker proud.
She growled at me and said to leave it alone and to call the nurse in future.. lesson learnt.. you have to stretch the tube and pull it tightly into the slot in order to re-prime the pump and close the door. (I'll remember that for next time!)