Back down to Earth with a bump

So once again there has been a gap in postings and I am sorry to say that this is all due to rather unpleasant goings in my world. To some extent the human body is an amazing thing as mine seemed to hold off from being really sick until after we had turned on an 11 hour flight from the Maldives to go into melt down. I had been a bit sick whilst we were away and could not keep much food down, but generally felt under control. About an hour after getting home though was a different story; lots of vomiting, could not keep anything down no matter how plain and in the end even water was causing issues. By about 3.30am I had had enough and so we called the emergency line at the Harley street clinic as I felt being admitted so that the medical professionals, could do their jobs was the only way forward . However, the doctor in the end if the phone had other ideas and insisted I went to my nearest A&E as it sounded like it was not nothing to do with my treatment with them or the disease and I would have seen a doctor quicker at A&E than at the Harley street Clinic  where I would have to wait until 9am to see a consultant even though they had all my notes and records.   Hmmm...

So we trundled off to Kings A&E at 4am complete with emergency sick bucket just in case of any incidents in the car, a pair of pjs and that was pretty much all. What an experience that was. Although I was processed through triage and into a treatment room fairly promptly the process was very slow moving. A junior doctor tried to find my veins but to no avail. In the end they tracked down a registrar who was a bit more nifty with a needle to get the canula in so I could have blood tests, drugs and so on. By 6.30am I was being given a small dose of anti sickness and morphine which was enough to brewing back the last remaining crumbs of rich tea biscuit which I had been training to nibble on at 2am. The rest was just water and bile. Nice.

I finally saw a registrar at 8.45am who went through all the same questions I had been through with every other nurse and the junior doctor, but at least it was a step in the right direction as she prescribed a more suitable level of pain killers and then came back around 10.45am with a consultant, who again asked all the same questions prodded and poked a bit and came to no further conclusion other than that I needed to be admitted and prodded and poked a bit more until they could find out what was going on.  

Mr Man had to leave just before 8.30am as in true London style the parking attendants patrole the roads round the hospital and you either have to have a permit or pay through the nose on a metre, and so the car had to be moved, plus  Barney Rubble was due home around 10.30am from his own holidays and so someone had to be there to let him in.   I was the left to my own devices with sporadic visits from nurses whilst they tried to find me a bed on a ward which proved rather difficult given I needed a side room as I've recently under gone chemo. Even when I told them I could go private and explained once again in full about the Harley Street option this did not move things along much, and it was 3.30pm that I was finally moved off A&E after waiting outside X-ray for an hour for an X-ray that never happened, onto a haematology ward of all places. Fortunately by this point my consultant oncologist had been contacted and he wanted me transferred to a hospital which he works at and so has the right oncology facilities, and so an ambulance was dispatched and I was taken to the london bridge  hospital with the sirens and blue lights and everything; it only took 10 mins. Just goes to show how bad traffic in london can be as that journey would be normally be closer to half an hour. 

Anyway, on arrival there were more questions, more prodding and poking but at lease by people who knew the back ground, and I finally got the X-ray that never happened at kings, and was booked in for CT scan on Saturday morning, a whole 24 hours later than if I had come here or to. Harley street in the first place. Hmmmm.

So I have been here for a week now during which time there have been more scans, blood tests, pain relief attempts, repeated questions, tummy pain and nausea. I had an ascitic drain for 2 days which removed 5 litres of fluid from my abdominal cavity. I've seen a dietician, an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist and a pharmacist to name but a few. In a weird way the time has gone quite quickly. Now though I have a partial answer and so have a feeling of great relief even though the treatment for the problem is not going to be pleasant. It turns out that even though many of the bad cells which the chemo was successfully shrinking and stabilising, a few are lodged against my small intestine causing a blockage, which means it is not working properly. This explains why I could not keep anything down as well as the chronic abdominal pain I have been experiencing, the treatment  is to rest the bowels along with a course of steroids to reduce the swelling in the Hope that bowels begin to work of their own accord again. You get the gist. This means I cannot eat or drink properly for the time being, and can only have tiny sips of water  or suck on an nice cube until things start moving. If I were to eat or drink then it would just get stuck in my tummy and I would be sick, and if I am sick I have to have a rather nasty sounding tube put down my throat via my nose in order to clear it from the top as well. So all in all it is not brilliant and until this gastric blockage is cleared I cannot have any more chemo or radio therapy to treat the main problem which is a little frustrating but I remain optimistic that once I overcome this hurdle we can crack on and get things moving forward. 

On the plus side of all of this is that the London Bridge Hospital as an inpatient is a much nicer place than Harley street. The nurses here are all lovely and I have a river  view on the 5th floor which you could describe as the penthouse! It is also much more accessible and so I have had lots of visits from friends and family who are able to pop in at lunch times or on their way home from work, which has helped to pass the time. I even had the BF and the old goat taking tIme off work to come and spend time with me which was very generous of them, so thank you to both of you.   I'm also really touched by the number of messages and phone calls I have received from others, and whilst I would love to reply to each one separately I just cannot brIng myself to keep repeating myself hence I thought it doubly important to update the blog so that everyone in Team Nicola could be fully up to date on what is going on.

I promise I won't leave it so long until next time.