Sorry not to have kept you upto date although I think most of you know now that I've been in hospital for 9 days. Went very quickly but rather scary that time can go so fast and you don't realise it!!!
Well to go back to where I left off on the 16th November!!!
On saturday 17th, we took the children off to their grandparents so we could have a grown up night away with a meal with friends. We went to stay with one of hubby's old college friends plus wife and another one with his partner came down from Cambridge and we stayed in to eat and then played Cranium. Probably if my brain had been fully functioning I would have really enjoyed it and been able to take part more but I felt so tired and weak I couldn't participate properly so sorry about that - I felt a real party pooper!! It is an excellent game and if you are a fully functioning member of the human race, it is an excellent fun.
i got woken up the next morning by my mobile phone which was a bit of a shock but lovely to have a child free morning. Hubby then took me up to Reading to meet my Gobby Gang friends. This time we met at a Beefeater as one of the girls had a bad back due to the imminenet collapse of her lumbar vertebrae due to secondary breast cancer. She is only 30 and was totally unable t sit and had to eat her dinner standing up. I have no idea how she made the car journey -her friend had driven her to meet us as she wnated to meet up. She is very brave but it was so upsetting for us to see her in so much pain.
Monday - now things are getting hazy. Apparently, a friend helped me tidy up in the morning and hubby and I went out to John Lewis in the afternoon but truthfully I don't remember much about the day at all.
Since our wedding vow renewal day, I had steadily been going downhill. I'd had chest infections, cellulitis in my arm and toe plus the infected toe nail and gastroenteritis and kept feeling dizzy, sick and intermittent headaches. i wasn't sure whether it was the increasing amount of antibiotics I was taking or whether i was developing brain tumours. I knew i would have to mention it on my next trip to the oncologist on 22nd November but I became ill before then.
tuesday - i woke up witha really bad headache and was sick several times. Unfortunately, it was double bass and guitar day. I hoped the double bass lesson was late in the day so i could get someone else tot ake it to school but no - it was a 9am lesson!! Somehow, i got us and the instruments into the car and drove to school. The childminder came along and took the double bass off us and I do not know why I left the car and went into the school office but i did. Once in there, it was obvious I was not the full ticket and the reception staff took the children off me and got them out ofthe way and they said I could sit in the first aid room. By this stage, the only way I could move was by holding onto the walls and AJ's teacher had to help me into the room and lay down. The ELSA'a found me the sick bucket and after a few minutes they called hubby to come home and then between the office staff and the ELSAs, they drove me home and hubby arrived about 10 minutes later.
I felt so ill, I didn't want to go to the MRI scan but hubby persuaded me we should go so at least someone from oncology could look at me. My headache was still so bad and I still felt sick but somehow Hubby got me in a wheelchair down to the MRI suite. I again have very little rcollection of the scan apart from being told it would take 45 minutes and they gave me earplugs as it was noisy. i know they had to do some repeat scans and I remember the noise being that of someone drilling the road up but inside your house and apart from that nothing. Good job then that I kept slipping in and out of semi-consciousnessness as I am inclined to be a bit claustophobic so had no opportunity to panic!!!
After this, hubby took me up to the chemo waiting room where hubby had been told to take me to be seen. The receptionist took one look at me and got me into a consulting room so I could lay down on the examination couch where I spent the next 4 hours. Not one nurse came into see me during that time. I was seen by the SHO who tried 12 times to get the cannula (drip) into my arm without success. No chemo nurse would help her as I knew they would be able to do it and nobody took my temperature, blood pressure, pulse or oxygen saturations. I did go down to xray for a chest xray and was sick there.
After Xray, I remained being very sick, I couldn't lift my head off the pillow and kept dozing or slipping in and out of consciousness. I do remember pointing out to hubby at one point that my fingernails were purple but no-one seemed to realise how ill I was and hubby couldn't find anybody to help us.
Eventually, at 5pm I got taaken up to the ward and this poor health care assistant did my observations and found my oxygen saturations were 85%. She was very calm and just said 'Oh they are a bit low. I think you need some oxygen.' Within about 10 minutes of oxygen, my headache went and I felt so much better. I'd been ill through oxygen starvation - bit like altitude sickness I suppose. I was also given an antisickness drug which probably helped and started on intravenous antibiotics for a chest infection and the continuing cellulitis in my left arm.
What a nightmare!! Luckily, mum was coming that day as it was her birthday the next day and we were supposed to be going out for a meal to celebrate it so at least the children could be picked up after school and hubby could go and get my things without a panic.
What happened next - you'll have to wait and see as off to bed now but at least you know I'm back at home writing this.