Peter’s Hospital Diary

It is a lovely sunny morning here in London:

Yesterday afternoon was eventful. The non-medical highlights were a visit by the aromatherapist who gave me a lovely foot massage, and another visit by Simon for a natter! The medical highlight was a blood transfusion!

Dealing with the blood transfusion; the blood test results from the morning came back showing that my haemoglobin (Hb) level was down to just over 8. The normal level is at least 12.5 although I have been at about 10 since starting treatment last November. As 8 is a little low, two units of blood were ordered and transfused over about 8 hours. The drop in Hb is probably a warning about the rest of my blood counts, so I am expecting to go into isolation this weekend. This doesn’t preclude visiting, but does mean that visitors have to remove outdoor clothes (coats etc) before entering the room, and wear a fetching pink plastic apron before passing through the double door system into the room!

The aromatherapist (Kim) is employed by the Richard Dimbleby Cancer Fund. This works to raise money to help find a cure for cancer, and provide care for those who have it. They provide capital equipment for hospital, and contributed to the new PET imaging centre at St Thomas’s Hospital. I have benefitted from that with several (over 12) PET scans in the last 7 years. They also provide funding for cancer research, and one of the patient care services includes aromatherapy. Last week I had very relaxing back and shoulder massage.

After the massage, I took advantage of the remaining time of freedom (before isolation) to sit in the sun on the other side of the ward outside my room. Three beds have been moved and it makes a good sitting area. It also gives a view of an unprotected wireless broadband network, so by balancing the laptop at the right angle on the windowsill, I could send a few e mails and update the blog without using dial up!

I slept reasonably well last night, apart from a slightly uneasy stomach. I don’t know if it the effects of the chemo, or a bug (there has a been a particularly unpleasant stomach bug doing the hospital rounds) but this morning I felt a bit rough. However breakfast arrived and that went down OK – until I had the Itraconazole (remember the description in an earlier post!) I will gloss over the details, except to say that breakfast wasn’t as nice the second time; I think I will be lobbying for the IV version of the drug! I have just looked at the ingredients – apart from the drug itself, it contains saccharine and sorbitol (artificially nastily sweet) and propylene glycol (unpleasantly syrupy). Not a lot going for it really. So if anyone from the makers, Janssen-Cilag, is reading, the product sucks!

Moving swiftly on, I am looking forward to a visit from my sister this afternoon. She and her family are having a day in London, and then she is calling in later.