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!)
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Wellington Hospital: A great weekend getaway!
I guess I can't complain too much, It's been nearly three and a half months since I last had a needle poked into these chemo-shy veins.
There were no surprises when the young female Asian doctor couldn't find a vein, and even less surprise from me when she resorted to finally placing the cannula in the back of my hand. Some things never change.
Sooo it's back to the surreal world of chemo drugs, IV's, hospital food and boredom.
Only this time I have the added bonus of sharing my world with three other people.
I haven't had a chance to talk with any of them yet.. maybe tomorrow.
All I know is one of them is called Mr King and in the bed beside him is Mr Kong.
The other man's name escapes me. (I stopped listening after the first two names were relayed by the nurse just in case her brand of insanity was spread by aural exposure)
The foods OK, no real surprises yet. Lunch was those fake cheese sizzlers, but minus the cheese, and cut up into chunks and coated in a tomato and onion sauce. Dinner was beef stroganoff, ice-cream and jelly.
I'm guessing Mr Kong had the sans-cheese sizzlers with the onions for lunch as he has so far today managed to pass wind at what I can only describe as being of an Olympic standard. He has punctuated the air all afternoon with five second blasts of wind and noise that would put a klaxxon to shame. Sometimes he even did it mid sentence while talking to the doctors. I wonder what the medical term is for a man that talk out of both ends at once?
My doctor gave me some info sheets on the chemo drugs that they are administering.
Usually I would look up the drugs on the internet and study up on all the side effects etc. Perhaps I'll do it later because the info the hospital gives is exactly the same for all three drugs!. Hair loss, mouth ulcers,nausea, low blood counts.
However one of the drugs, Ifosfamide, has a really odd side effect.
The fact sheet states that although sperm production generally decreases with chemotherapy, some men may actually become more fertile after treatment than before! How the heck does that work? Do the little guys get really pissed off by having their
ranks wiped out and go on a recruiting drive ? Bizarre.
Another of the drugs side effects is hallucinations. The fact sheet advises that if you have any you should advise the doctor immediately. Thing is.. how would you know if you'd actually had a real hallucination? what if you just thought you had one? and what if you hallucinated that you told the doctor? and would a doctor with blue skin and eight legs know what to do in such a situation? Maybe I'll just keep them to myself for now.
There were no surprises when the young female Asian doctor couldn't find a vein, and even less surprise from me when she resorted to finally placing the cannula in the back of my hand. Some things never change.
Sooo it's back to the surreal world of chemo drugs, IV's, hospital food and boredom.
Only this time I have the added bonus of sharing my world with three other people.
I haven't had a chance to talk with any of them yet.. maybe tomorrow.
All I know is one of them is called Mr King and in the bed beside him is Mr Kong.
The other man's name escapes me. (I stopped listening after the first two names were relayed by the nurse just in case her brand of insanity was spread by aural exposure)
The foods OK, no real surprises yet. Lunch was those fake cheese sizzlers, but minus the cheese, and cut up into chunks and coated in a tomato and onion sauce. Dinner was beef stroganoff, ice-cream and jelly.
I'm guessing Mr Kong had the sans-cheese sizzlers with the onions for lunch as he has so far today managed to pass wind at what I can only describe as being of an Olympic standard. He has punctuated the air all afternoon with five second blasts of wind and noise that would put a klaxxon to shame. Sometimes he even did it mid sentence while talking to the doctors. I wonder what the medical term is for a man that talk out of both ends at once?
My doctor gave me some info sheets on the chemo drugs that they are administering.
Usually I would look up the drugs on the internet and study up on all the side effects etc. Perhaps I'll do it later because the info the hospital gives is exactly the same for all three drugs!. Hair loss, mouth ulcers,nausea, low blood counts.
However one of the drugs, Ifosfamide, has a really odd side effect.
The fact sheet states that although sperm production generally decreases with chemotherapy, some men may actually become more fertile after treatment than before! How the heck does that work? Do the little guys get really pissed off by having their
ranks wiped out and go on a recruiting drive ? Bizarre.
Another of the drugs side effects is hallucinations. The fact sheet advises that if you have any you should advise the doctor immediately. Thing is.. how would you know if you'd actually had a real hallucination? what if you just thought you had one? and what if you hallucinated that you told the doctor? and would a doctor with blue skin and eight legs know what to do in such a situation? Maybe I'll just keep them to myself for now.
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