Tag: Hospitals

Bronchoscopy

An account of todays visit to Addnebrookes for a bronchoscopy.

INTRODUCTION

This post deals with the latest medical procedure I have undergone in the course of efforts to help me recover from cancer. Some of you may find parts of what follows to be strong meat.

PREPARATION

In a letter liberally laced with dire warnings of what would happen if I did not follow the stipulated requirements absolutely 100% I was required to present myself at the Treatment Centre at Addenbrookes (a place I have not been before) by 9AM on Wednesday 13th March (i.e. today). I was also required to have someone else present as the letter made it clear that I would not in a fit state to travel back unassisted after the procedure. In view of the time we would have to leave King’s Lynn this meant a night in the camper van for my father. 

Since I shrewdly suspected that the day would entail a lot of waiting around my preparation included supplying myself with no fewer than four books to ensure that I did not run out (for the record I was in to the third of them before the day was done) of ways to fill in the time while things weren’t happening.

ARRIVAL

Having allowed generously for traffic jams and only actually encountered one, on the approach to the hospital, we arrived considerably ahead of schedule. Once we had got to the third floor of the building and located the area where the bronchoscopy was to take place there was a questionnaire to fill in, and the usual quantity of paperwork to be filled in and signed. Also, to enable the procedure to be carried out I had to have a cannula inserted. Then there was some more waiting before the doctor was ready to perform the procedure.

THE PROCEDURE

Once I had been taken through the list of possible side effects in order of likelihood and increasing severity it was time to begin in earnest. A local anaesthetic was sprayed into the back of my throat to deaden the feeling in that area. Allegedly it tastes like banana, to which I say that those classifying said taste have not actually sampled it – it bears no resemblance to banana. Then a sedative was injected through my cannula to help relax me for the procedure – it worked very well, and I came round with the procedure safely completed. A couple of observation sessions and a bit of waiting later I was able to set off, equipped with another letter warning me off food or drink before 12:45PM and off alcohol for 24 hours. 

The journey home ensured that I was free of temptation until significantly after the 12:45 cut off. As of this moment the only side effects I have experienced are a very slightly sore throat and a bit of coughing. The results of this procedure can take up to a week to come through, so they may or may not be available when I see my main team on Monday. 

PHOTOGRAPHS

A new place means a new opportunity for photographs (unless it is very dull indeed), and here are some I took during the day:

P1210877
These three metal panels are along the path that leads from the road to the entrance to the treatment centre.

P1210878P1210879

P1210880
This item rotates regularly, and is a fascinating site (I have held some of todays pics back for my next blog post, including three more of this to follow the three I show here.

P1210882P1210884P1210885P1210886P1210887P1210888P1210890

Physical Health Impacts on to Mental Health

An account of the last few days, explaining the current problems I am facing (regular readers will be well aware that I have been taking a battering in various ways over the last five months).

INTRODUCTION

Earlier this week I came out of one hospital visit caused by breathlessness only to go almost straight back in. Now I am back out again, but there are still problems – only they are mental rather than physical.

THE BOOMERANG DAY

On Tuesday I was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and came home. That evening when considering going to bed I became breathless, tested by SP02 on a machine I now have for that purpose, got a low reading and found myself heading back to A&E. I was tested there and we established that my machine always reads one or two points too low, and that at the hospital there was no major issue with my breathing. After a six hour wait for further developments I was moved to a bed, and I remained at the hospital until yesterday.

YESTERDAY

Yesterday evening, when I headed for bed, having made sure that my SP02 was not low, I became breathless just from thinking about getting into bed. I called my father, and with his assistance, having identified this as a panic attack, I eventually did get to sleep. I was up quite late this morning, but got my coffee going OK and checked in on the computer.

TODAY – BREAKFAST PROBLEMS

I was just preparing my breakfast (the cereal was in the bowl and I was opening the milk) when I had another breathlessness related panic attack and called my father for assistance. He came round, I ate the breakfast and have subsequently managed to get dressed and go out with him for a very short walk. I have an appointment at my GP surgery at 4:20PM to discuss my mental health situation (I am definitely in need of help in this department) and see what can be done about it. 

TOMORROW AND SUNDAY

These are the two days that will pose the most problems – I will be at Addenbrookes for most of Monday, and there are plans for a visit from Tapping House on Tuesday. That leaves something to be done about the weekend. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

My physical health is probably is good, given what has happened over the last few months, as it could be, but mentally I am struggling. I do not know why it is these recent incidents that have had this effect, but undoubtedly they have, and something needs to be done – I hope the doctor at my surgery can help with this. 

My Third Admission to Addenbrookes

A detailed account of my third admission to Addenbrookes.

INTRODUCTION

As promised in my previous post I am now going to give a full account of my most recent admission to Addenbrookes. 

THE BUILD UP

Although I was admitted on a Sunday this story begins with the Friday (January 25th) before. That day I felt very tired and not really able to do anything, but hoped that a quiet day would see things improve because I was not feeling ill as such. I only managed to eat half of my sausage and chips supper that evening, and was still very tired and downbeat the following day. That Saturday evening I had supper at my aunt’s house but got very tired indeed, and by the following morning I was effectively not functioning at all. 

THE READMISSION

On Sunday afternoon my aunt drove me down to Addenbrooke’s for an emergency readmission. Two possible causes of the problem emerged as front runners very quickly – a lung infection or a delayed reaction to the Bleomycin. My breathing was at a dangerously low level, and I was on a high dose of extra oxygen for a whole week, before it was halved, and then, on my eighth day as an in-patient removed altogether.

I was moved up to the very familiar surroundings of Ward D9, having been allocated bed 13 (a sensible choice, as it is in a small room with just three other beds and the arrangements are such as to provide a measure of privacy.

OCCUPYING MYSELF AS A PATIENT

My father made several trips to Cambridge Central Library to get me books to read in my hospital bed (focussing on science – my brain is functioning pretty well at the moment, and low oxygen levels not withstanding I was overall feeling not too bad). I had also been equipped with puzzle books, and I devoted some time to planning future writing in between these activities. 

This developed into a plan for a series of cricket posts in the course which I plan to write about 100 cricketers who mean a lot to me. I have divided my cricketers into nine XIs and one player to round out the 100 at the end. Within that division I have subdivided each 11 into parts to be covered in individual posts. The plan is for the 1st and 100th cricketers to get individual posts to themselves (and #cricketer 1 in the list habitually bats at no 1 in the order, being a choice that suits my purpose in several ways).

I also received a postcard from family in Sweden while I was in hospital, which came with a nice little extra:

P1210658

A Sweden 2019 stamp – I love that fish.

AWAITING DISCHARGE

From Monday morning (three days ago) onwards I was basically waiting to be discharged. I had fully accepted, especially given that this was my second emergency readmission in quite a short space of time, that I could not be discharged until a care package was in place for me. Nevertheless, it was difficult to retain patience when eager to be back home and when particularly wanting to be out in time to attend a certificate presentation. For a while at least I will be needing regular professional attention because my autism causes me not to realise how seriously things can be going wrong (e.g a general feeling of fatigue that turns out to be a lung infection making itself felt), and frankly I am no keener than anyone else on the notion of further readmissions to Addenbrookes, though I will of course be visiting as an outpatient for a considerable time to come. 

HOME AGAIN

At last, just after 7PM yesterday, I arrived home and was able to start settling myself back into home life. I am on antibiotics for the lung infection, anabolic steroids and various other medications. Also, I am wearing compression stockings on my legs as a safety device (the swelling in the left leg has now definitely gone, and with it the pain I was experiencing in that area, but I will retain the stockings until told otherwise). 

A Week and a Half

A brief explanation of the last week and a half.

INTRODUCTION

Followers of this blog will know that I have been seriously ill recently. A week ago on Sunday things took a bad turn and I was readmitted to Addenbrookes with what turned out to be a lung infection. Last night I was discharged and I am now settling back into home life.

SOME WORDS FOR NAS WEST NORFOLK

NAS West Norfolk have been increibly supportive through a very difficult period in my life, and I am well aware that the events of the last week and a half will have caused them yet more worry. I am very grateful for everything they have done for me, and I regret that I was taken ill so suddenly as to be unable to explain the situation in advance.

FUTURE PLANS FOR THIS BLOG

I will in due course be putting up a more detailed post about my recent stay in Addenbrookes, and I have a plan for a long series of cricket posts interleaving with other stuff on the blog. I will have various other things to share, including an event which is taking place tomorrow, and which thankfully I shall be able to attend. For the moment, my apologies for anything I have missed in the last week and a half, and I sincerely hope that normal service will be resuming fairly soon.

Hello Again Everyone

A brief account of my illness, treatment and fledlgling recovery from cancer.

INTRODUCTION

I have been undergoing treatment for cancer under the aegis of Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge for over two months, and today is the first time sime I started receiving hospital treatment that I have been online (I have done a massive bulk delete of accumulated emails and will now start paying proper attention once again. In the rest of this post I will set out a rough timeline of events over the course of this illness. Unusually for one of my posts there will be no pictures.

WEEK 0 – THE ILLNESS TAKES HOLD

On September 29th I attended the wedding of a cousin in Sheffield. This was the last occasion on which I recall feeling truly well. During the following week I became noticeably ill, on on the Friday I left work early (an almost unheard of thing for me) because I just could not go on. On Saturday morning I cried off an intended visit to my mother at Godalming where she has recently been working because I was too ill to even consider it. On the Sunday evening having not ingested anything other than water since Friday I projectile vomited and realised I was in serious trouble, although not as yet just how serious.

WEEK 1 – TWO NARROW ESCAPES

On the Monday I collapsed between the bathroom and the bedroom of my old flat at about lunchtime, and by the evening of that day was in such a dreadful state that I could only be got into an ambulance by being out on a saline drip and assisted down the stairs that separated me from street level. Another day before receiving hospital treatment might well have been my last. On the Friday of that week, my body still unable to accept anyhthing other than fluids, but the real problem now known about I was referred on from QEH (my local hospital) to Addenbrookes (one of the best hospitals in the world for cancer treatment) just in time to avoid an operation that in my weakened state would very likely have finished me. The root cause of the mischief was a hugely swollen testicular tumour that had metastasized into large tumours on each lung (one of these was threatening a vein), a small tumour on the spleen and four small tumours in the brain.

WEEKS 2-9 – IN PATIENT AT ADDENBROOKES

I accepted the opportunity to be part of a clinical trial at Addenbrooke’s and by good fortune (and yes, I regard it as such, gruelling though the resulting treatment program was) got put into the group receiving accelerated treatment (chemo on a two-week rather than the usual three-week cycle). I am pleased that my treatment will have contributed in a small way to the advance of medical science (similarly I was delighted to be of assistance to student nurses and doctors when they accompanied their mentors – why wouldn’t I want the NHS workers of the future to be better able to do their jobs?!)

My treatment consisted of five days of intensive chemo one week, followed by a dose of bleomycin the Monday afterwards (always the toughest day of the cycle) and then the rest of week 2 of the cycle quiet. I have also been on huge quantites of pills and have had many scans and x-rays to monitor progress. 

Because my flat was unsuitable in several ways for someone convalescing from cancer (isolated by the stairs that separate it from street level and afflicted by damp) somewhere had to be found for me to go instead, and faced with a crisis the local council came up trumps with a bungalow just north of the town centre on an estate run by Freebridge Community Housing (the nearest there is to social housing in Tory Britain). Because the tenancy of the bungalow only became available just as I was due my fourth and last week of intensive chemo I remained an in patient until after the follow-up bleomycin which was on Tuesday December 11th (delayed by the fact that on the Monday my platelet count was too low). That same evening I was taken to my new home and became an outpatient.

WEEK 10 ONWARDS – OUT PATIENT

I remain extremely prone to tiredness and although I walk about my bungalow with no great difficulty I need assistance to venture outside. However, I had a very long Monday at Addenbrookes, because I needed more blood transfusions (the amount of new blood I have been given in the course of this illness would send Dracula green with envy) in addition to the bleomycin, and yesterday I not only managed to stay out of bed the whole day for the first time since the illness took hold, I was also able to watch and enjoy the autism friendly performance of the Christmas pantomime at the Corn Exchange. 

THE FUTURE

I am on the mend, though it will be a while before I am back to anything like my old form. My camera battery is charging and I hope to be sharing some new pictures with you before very long. My thanks to all who have waited patiently for the resumption of activity on this blog, and especial thanks to those who have read the whole of this relaunch post.