Day 18 Pain and Pleasure

This is actually the half way mark of the first phase of my return to health.  Although it is Day 18 since diagnosis it is actually Day 15 of my 28 day treatment cycle.   This is a great milestone.  Not knowing how this whole process would proceed I am very happy that I have made it to this point (one day at a time as they say).

Having had a very ordinary night with high temperatures and substantial abdominal pain I was looking forward to a quiet day – this was not to be the case.

The Doctors were in early for the usual discussions but today they came bearing ‘gifts’.

However before they delivered these gifts I said I thought that I, Dr Geoffrey!, had worked out the reason for my high temps (39.5 last night) and abdominal pain.  Yes, in my medical opinion it had to relate to an infection or some sort of disturbance in my gut.  With the amount of abdominal pain experienced during the night there could be no other answer.

The Doctors said “You are partially correct!!!  We are concerned that you have an inflamed and sore bowel and this has shown up on the CT Scan from yesterday”  They wanted to know if it was more pronounced after eating which at that stage I could not answer – more on this soon.

“However our greater concern is the white mark the CT scan found on your lower right lung.  We believe this is a fungal growth (perhaps from soil born particles) which under normal immune conditions would not be a problem but in your Neutropenic stage will most likely be multiplying leading to the temperatures and other issues” We will be ordering a biopsy – and you will have to fast – more good news!

And we need to talk to you about nutrition. It would appear that you are not keeping food in your system (with constant Diarrhoea) so we want you to talk to an IV Nutritionist.

This was magic to my ears– in fact even pleasurable in a strange way. Up until now I had been forcing small amounts of food down but this was uncomfortable and wasted.

After the doctors left I battled through a shower but my abdominal pain continued to build to a high level.  I promptly threw up when back in bed.  This was the first time I had vomited and it brought instant relief, Pain leading to Pleasure.

The Doctors left having ordered a lung Biopsy hoping it would happen later today.  “You will have a visit from a respiratory consultant to talk through the procedure”

Sure enough people starting knocking on the door and explaining how they could help.

 

And then the Respiratory doctor arrived (I didn’t know these guys existed until I met Adrian Ventner at Sailing Week) took considerable time to talk me through the lung procedure. Radial EBUS – Endo Broncho Ultra sound which sounded very complicated with lots of tubes and probes in your lung but similar to a colonoscopy done under amnesiac sedation and given I’d previously had one of these I was much more at ease.  Harry the registrar did say that it would not happen until Tuesday as they only performed these procedures on Tues and Wednesday!  I’ll have to let my Doctors know this fact!