Monday 25 March 2013

One step back

Have you seen her? Have you heard the way she plays? There are no words to describe the way I feel
She Bangs the Drum - The Stone Roses

Day 18 : ... Haemoglobin 8.9 ... Neutrophils 0.72 ... Platelets 6 ...

Feeling a little less exhausted this morning, but not a lot, I make my way down to hospital for blood tests. I persuade them to let me go home while they wait for the results - they'll call me with the scores. When they do, my neutrophils are well up (hurrah) but my platelets are well down. No real surprise, but it means I need to come back down to the hospital for another platelet transfusion.

When I get here, my temperature has gone up to 38.2C. This is above the magic threshold so... I'm put back on the (yucky) antibiotics, and admitted back on to a hospital ward for tonight.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

This is rubbish. Rubbish for me, because I am so over hospital; rubbish for Marisa, who was doing a valiant job of nursing me at home; and rubbish for the boys, who are left - not for the first time - not knowing if I'm coming or going.

I'd be amazed if they let me out tomorrow. I bet I'm here for 2 or 3 days, even if my temperature stabilises and nothing shows up in my blood cultures.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

3 comments:

Sandy said...

No fun and scary for the kids... but the upside might be that Marisa gets a chance to regroup her energies knowing you are being watched over, and I have a theory that the temperature is actually a good thing because it kills off rogue cancer cells... just my own theory. Intending you are improving daily!

Ed (Blog Adminstrator) said...

Bugger indeed (whatever that means). Not sure this will make you feel better, but the reahbilitation is typically not a constantly rising line, but rather a whipsaw of two steps forward one step back. But in a few days you'll see the general slope is increasing and you'll feel marginally better and better. Pulling for you from across the pond.

Ed

Alex Bicknell said...

Sandy - yeah, at least in here I'm someone else's problem! Marisa needs all the breaks she can get, she doesn't get many.

Ed - I'm beginning to realise that. I'm not naturally a patient person, so I find a lot of adjustment needed!