Dr Nigel Hunt

Cancer 188

Posted on April 29, 2025     Leave a Comment

Well, that was an unusual day at the hospital. It was longer than expected. I arrived at 0730 and left at 1630. It started well, I met with a lovely ex-colleague from Nottingham and we had a good chat about life and books. It could have gone on much longer – I would have preferred that, but I had an appointment in a cancer ward. I arrived on time and went through to the ward on time, but my drugs had not arrived. This is quite a common occurrence. Pharmacy hadn’t mixed their poisons. They eventually arrived two and a half hours late but in the end that didn’t matter, I was elsewhere.

My new line, my new portacath, is not working properly. I have a reputation in the ward for the way my body disturbs all these lines – and I have now had every type and they all go wrong. It is as though my body is rejecting them. I am asked several times a day whether I am allergic to anything. I always say no, but perhaps I am allergic to cancer lines, whether PICC, Hickman or portacath. Perhaps that is what I should answer when I am asked the same question in a restaurant or pub.

With the portacath, a needle has to be inserted through the skin into the device. It hurts like a needle, just a pinprick, but when they couldn’t draw blood, the nurses thought there was a problem with the needle, so they tried four needles, one after the other. I won’t say it was the needle in the haystack, which was really a piece of straw, that broke the camel’s back, but it was close.

There was a need to check the line, so I was sent (by wheelchair to make me feel like a cripple) to the same room where I had the portacath fitted just over a month ago. I lay on a bed with an x-ray device showing my chest and a dye was injected to show the route of the line. I asked for an explanation of what was going on and it turns out the line is a little short. It should reach the large main vein as it enters the heart where it could be slightly loose. Instead it stops at the entrance where two veins meet and is less loose. It has myelinated – very quickly I thought – and so is – just like my Hickman line, my previous failed line – functioning with effectively a one way valve. Things will go in but not come out.

My options were to leave it as it is as the drugs go in fine, or to operate to sort it out. The surgeon did say the nurses will experience stress when not able to draw blood. I pointed out that my stress levels will be higher having another operation when I haven’t yet forgotten the last one (yes, it is like women remembering childbirth – probably, I am not a woman), so it has stayed as it is.

Except now I have a new level of permanent stress as at some point the line may fail and I will not get my treatment.

When I returned to the cancer ward my drugs had arrived and I could be treated. The problem is I have a longer treatment than most people so I was there for the afternoon.

Still, I had lots of positive interactions with people. There is a little of Oscar Wilde in the situation. I have these line problems, I am around permanently due to my terminal status, I interact with the staff,. I have become a prominente, high-value prisoner.

It was pointed out that I have a tan. I was suspected of being in the sun (I am not allowed in the sun). I was told I must use sunblock. I said I have never worn sunblock. I was told I would be back in two years, being treated for skin cancer. I said that I would be dead in two years anyway. I thought it was funny, but the humour wasn’t reciprocated.

I am wearing my bottle of flourouracil. On Thursday, I get to remove the needle myself, at home. I will try to draw blood, but will probably not succeed.