Friday 15 March 2013

Perseverance

Your powa, inside. It rocks me like a lullaby.
Powa - Tune Yards

Day 8 : ... Haemoglobin 9.5 ... Neutrophils 0.03 ... Platelets 63 ...

It's not so easy to be lighthearted and witty about things when you feel grim. The docs ask me (very very frequently) for any pains and symptoms, but when I list the mix of abdominal cramps, nausea, lightheadedness and shivers that between them make up most of my experience, they just shrug. This is all, afterall, par for the course.

My temperature has been periodically spiking over the magic threshold of 38C - the point at which the medical system kicks in. So I have no end of tests. Blood culture tests. Another trip to x-ray, wearing a mask. Being required to poo in a cardboard dish. Swabs of all my intimate places. The doctor comes to see me, at 1am, and go through the endless questions, and then I am given intravenous antibiotics at 2am, so I don't get a great night's sleep.

Still, they really are very chirpy about me, and I think that really is because things could be a lot worse. Whatever happens, things could always be worse. We should all remember that when we're feeling sorry for ourselves.

No comments: