Peter’s Hospital Diary

The weather has improved again – St Paul’s was gleaming whitely under a pale blue sky this morning – looking just like the Capitol Building in Washington. The nurses say that it is very cold outside although it is still 27C in my room!

Well the first day in isolation has passed uneventfully. I keep telling myself that it is just like being in a hotel – en-suite bathroom, constant room service, refrigerator, kettle, TV etc. But then the wake up call is usually user selected in a hotel, not every 4 hours, (or at 6:30 to give drugs – which would be of a completely different type in a hotel if some news stories are to be believed) and the refrigerator usually contains a mini bar, so there are some injections of reality to stop the fantasy!

Just after I wrote yesterday’s entry we had the ward round. Haematology doesn’t attract medical students, so there is no requirement to prepare a “difficult question of the dayâ€? for them, but the general consensus from the team was that progress is good so far (although it is early days.) My appetite continues to fade a bit. Now that I am in isolation, my food is cooked specially and tends to be either boiled fish or omelettes, unless I remember to order something different! The smell of boiled fish – especially after it has sat under a cover for 20 minutes… But I said I would write a separate page about hospital food… It is worthy of a chapter on its own!

Hot on the heels of the ward round came a visit by a representative from the Hospital Chaplaincy Service. We had a chat for about 10 minutes, covering life in hospital, etc, any spiritual need I might have (I refrained from comments about G&T) and then it was time for the next highlight – lunch – but we are back to food again – I must be running out of things to write about!

The afternoon passed quickly with a book, and then it was time for the Cyclosporin. That was put up late afternoon – then about three quarters of the way through, the nurse came in to take it down. The blood result showed that it was at 800 in my blood (I’m not sure what the units are) and it should be 150!!

I have queried that his morning, and the feeling is that the sample was contaminated. The drug is quite sticky and can remain in the Hickman line, even though it is flushed, and can contaminate the blood sample giving a false reading. The next sample may be taken from a different vein just to check. I don’t exhibit any symptoms of a high levels of Cyclosporin (tremors in the fingers) so all is probably well!

Soon be time for lunch (food again!)…