A long day

Yesterday was a long day.

 I duly rang first thing to check my blood results. One was off. I commented I was pretty sure that was because of my cold. I was put through to one of the oncology nurses. She asked me to describe my cold. I assured her first of all that my temperature was within normal parameters, 37. I’d just checked that. I then told her I was blowing & coughing up a lot of blood-spotted yellow/green/grey phlegm. She decided I’d best come straight in. It sounded to her that I needed to be put on some antibiotics before my afternoon treatment. Any time? As soon as possible, as they would need to do further blood tests etc. before any decision could be made about my treatment. I certainly needed to be at Oncology before 11am.

I instantly saw a long day ahead. Just having the chemo takes the best part of 3 hours & now I was going in 2-3 hours before. Still I consoled myself with the thought we could have lunch between the morning investigations & the afternoon treatment. No such luck.

We duly arrived at the hospital about 10.30. We even managed to find a convenient parking space easily. One car was just coming out of the disabled parking area as we arrived.

I was shown into a treatment room. My blood pressure, temperature & pulse were checked. All normal. Bloods were taken. We waited. Eventually we got word that the bloods were okay. They just had one thing left to do – check my chest. Unfortunately there was nobody suitably trained available to do that immediately so we waited. I watched hopefully a doctor pass by several times with a stethoscope around his neck but he never stopped. Eventually, not long after midday, the tea trolley came round with sandwiches for patients. The Fox went off as clearly I was almost certainly going to get my treatment, the waiting was getting to him & he was feeling the need to have a haircut. Soon after he left I got called through to see a doctor.

He duly examined me. One of the bloods had apparently shown a problem. One of the counts had shot up from 30, a bit on the high side but not too bad if you have a mild infection, to 130. The higher the figure the less likely you are to be able to resist infection. With this in mind he prescribed me some more antibiotics as clearly the infection was bacterial so should respond to antibiotics (so much for the lecture I’d had a fortnight ago form my GP telling me further antibiotics would be a waste of time!). The doctor also thought I should not receive treatment that day. I was in too bad a state. If I’m not feeling considerably improved by Thursday I’m to ring Oncology again. I may need even stronger antibiotics. As the Fox had gone off &, as far as I knew, was unlikely to be back much before 4pm, a nurse offered to take the prescription to the hospital pharmacy to get it filled for me while I waited in reception.

I’d just got back to reception, waiting to make an appointment next week, when the Fox turned up. He’d found a barber near the hospital & had decided to just popped back to see if we were any nearer knowing what was happening. So I told him. The nurse was just passing with my prescription in her hand, so I suggested the Fox set off to get that filled while I sorted out next week’s appointment. He suggested we could stop at a pharmacist nearer home but was told the prescription was only valid at the hospital pharmacy. He duly went off to the hospital pharmacy to discover, although he could drop in the prescription, the pharmacist was on lunch & would not be back for a while. More wait.

The Fox came back & suggested why don’t we pop into town & get lunch then that’s food out of the way. I thought of the tasteless sandwich I’d just had & thought that shouldn’t have filled me too much. After lunch we returned. The prescription still hadn’t been filled. The Fox still had to wait. Eventually we managed to get home 3ish.

It had been a long day. All wait for no great purpose. I’m just hoping these antibiotics do the trick. I’m not sure I could face another day like this one.

 I can honestly say so far I feel no great improvement. Indeed I think I’m almost blowing & coughing worse than yesterday. All that effort, that waiting around in germ-laden corridors instead of having a quiet day, has not helped. My one consolation is that, with a bit of luck, my taste buds may regain a bit of normal taste with this long spell without these strong chemicals being pumped inside me. To taste food & drink again, now that would be a treat.