Cancer 55

This is one of those boring blogs. I am in a boring situation so I want to impose the boredom on you. I am in hospital, sitting in what for the first hour was a relatively comfortable chair, with a saline drip into my PICC line, waiting for my drugs to arrive. Apparently there is a three hour delay for them arriving from the pharmacy. I have been sitting here for two hours. I am not sure when the three hours began. Hopefully it is from the time of my appointment, 0930, in which case they should arrive in about an hour. Alternatively, it might be from the time I was told about it, about half an hour ago.

I am in a ‘sitting ward’ with eight chairs, seven of which are occupied by people in a similar position to myself. Several people just sit. I don’t know how they do that. One has his wife with him, and they chat about this and that. One is watching something on a laptop. The tea lady has just been round. This is my second. I haven’t been offered any food yet. They won’t know that I work to Finnish times, ie, lunch is already late at 1138. They will be offering sandwiches. I assume most will have mayonnaise in them, which is an unpleasant substance. I don’t like mayonnaise. I have just eaten an apple I brought from home.

I’ve just bought some TUC cheese sandwich biscuits from the Friends’ trolley. I haven’t eaten them since I was a child. They are just as bad as they were, but they are keeping me conscious. The cheese in the middle is very weird but it is better than putting cranberries in cheddar. The food providers I have just ordered a ham sandwich, yoghurt (not the toffee one they have here) and piece of cake. Wahay, back to hospital food. At least last tie I was too ill to eat it.

I am reading the Eiger Sanction, by Trevanion. It is unlike the Clint Eastwood film, which is rather serious. The book, which is a spoof, has been compared to a comic Bond novel. It is silly, trivial, and fairly enjoyable, but I think I will shortly do a bit of work on my own attempt at a novel. Trevanion has also been compared to Zola, Poe and Chaucer. His real name is Rodney William Whitaker. The name Trevanion was chosen by his wife in honour of the historian Trevelyan.

My drugs arrived at 1300 hours, my appointment was 0930, so they were rather late. The first drug is irinotecan, which is an antineoplastic drug used to stop the growth of cancer cells (hopefully!). It is dripping slowly into my arm.

I have three drugs to take home. Dexamethasone (anti-inflammatory, adjunct to treatment of nausea), laperamide (for diarrhoea), metoclopramide (anti-nausea), with various doses and times to take them.

A little later. After flushing through I am now on calcium folinate, which is going to take two hours to drip – Chinese water torture – perhaps I could squeeze the bag to speed it up.

I am home. It is late for me. I am tired, but in that odd ill sort of way which means I don’t think I can sleep.

I have genuinely lost track of the number of drugs I have had today. I took 2 painkillers in the early hours, then 3 tablets this morning at home (heart/gout), then 5 tablets pre-chemo (10 in total), a pre-chemo injection (11), at least 3 chemo drugs via drip (not sure if any were combination) (14), 2 painkillers at home (16), 4 heart/gout (20), and we could add in tomorrow’s drugs, 3 different ones, between 4-12 tablets for each, along with the approximately 13 other tablets I will have as standard. I have lost count. Is it worth it? If it keeps me alive and well for a significantly longer period than it would if I didn’t take the drugs then yes, though don’t ask me to define ‘significant’ or ‘well’.

I finally got away from the hospital at 1800, rather later than initially planned. I do not feel sick, I do not have diarrhoea, but as I said, I am very tired. It was a long day. I have a little bottle around my neck attached to the PICC line that I have to resist pulling off for 46 hours or so. Welcome to the world of chemotherapy. Top tip, don’t get cancer.