I went to see my GP, Kyra Jones, on Friday, with a couple of niggling things.. well actually if I was a normal, well specimen of a human being I guess they might be considered quite serious I guess. But they are still not the sort of things you can get fixed in the cancer day ward while getting chemo.
You see I have a hole in the skin on my elbow that just won't heal. When I was hospital in June I got them to biopsy it and sew it up. At that stage it was just a 3mm hole in my skin. A perfect circle, like a miniature well down into the flesh on my arm. It wasn't infected or anything. Just a spot where no skin wanted to grow.
When I took the dressing off 5 days after the biopsy I discovered much to my dismay that I now had a 10mm hole in my arm where no skin appeared to want to grow. And just to rub salt into the proverbial wound, the biopsy was inconclusive!
My GP took a pic of it and sent it off to the plastic surgeon's for his opinion. Personally I think it's a spider bite, probably White Tail.
The other problem is that I was in terrible pain from my ribs. I'd mentioned to my haematologist when I saw him last that I had pain in my right flank and that I thought I'd pulled or torn something from coughing so hard. He had a quick look but to be honest you don't go to a haematologist for rib pain.
It's like going to a neurosurgeon for an in grown toe-nail.
Then last Monday while in the middle of a coughing fit.. "POP!" and an excruciating pain hit me in the right side lower flank. Like I'd been whacked with a hammer in the ribs.
After that, when ever I moved it would pop in and out like one of those children's clicker toys. Not Fun and much pain!!
So Kyra looked at that too. She listened to my chest and had a poke around at each of my ribs.
In response to each press I'd say "yeah that hurts a little, ..that's more painful.."
Then she found the culprit.. "Oooooh! F@&K!!!, yeah that's it" I said as the rib popped in and then out again upon being pressed.
"Yup, that's broken" she said , "Ya think!!" I replied, as the colour slowly drained from my face.
Codeine is a wonderful drug. It seems to have no side effects on me at all but is capable of completely removing the pain and discomfort from having a rib that pops in and out at whim.
There's no treatment for it. ..could take months. I'll even have to put motorsport on hold. Something that even a bone marrow transplant or high dose chemo has previously never managed to do.
You see I think I damaged that rib in the Great Dunlop Targa crash of 2009. The side of the race seat had dug into my ribs when we came to a sudden stop after crashing over a cliff and landing in a paddock below. It was the only injury I sustained, my ribs hurt for two months afterwards but there was no click-clack, so was probably just cracked. It just took two years worth of bone brittling prednisone and a few big coughs to finish it off.
If I were to race and have even a small "off" the rib could puncture my lung, and with my blood counts and lung problems I doubt I'd survive very long. However I will talk to my doctors at the Blood & Cancer centre next week and see if they will organise an X-ray just so we know exactly what we are dealing with.
..Ron
No comments:
Post a Comment