13 March 2014
On Saturday dear wife developed a minor cough, five days into her third chemotherapy cycle. By Sunday things were looking worse, she is left feeling worse than normal anyway from her filgrastim injections, In more pain than normal and feeling very rough in general.
On Tuesday we felt that some medical advise was needed. Eventually we got hold of the car Dr who prescribed amoxycillin 250mg. He detected an infection. By Thursday (today) there had been no improvement and the temperatures that we were taking were all >36.9 ⇐37.3. So not looking great. We headed to A&E and now it looks like we’re staying for another stint.
So we’re back to the RBH.
Dear wife has had a stinking cold for a few days (probably brought to her by a district nurse since that’s the only visitors we have had). The cold hasn’t shifted and her temperature has generally included for a few hours now and it’s not showing any signs of heading back to normal.
13/03/2014 18:40 36.8
13/03/2014 16:40 37.2
13/03/2014 15:36 37.2
13/03/2014 15:09 37.2
13/03/2014 14:50 36.9
13/03/2014 14:07 36.9
13/03/2014 13:51 37.3
13/03/2014 13:30 37.0
13/03/2014 13:20 37.1
13/03/2014 12:55 37.0
13/03/2014 12:27 36.9
13/03/2014 11:30 37.0
13/03/2014 11:00 37.0
13/03/2014 10:10 37.3
13/03/2014 09:30 37.1(This data is easily turned into a graph using gnuplot or a spreadsheet.)
For a normal person a cold wouldn’t be an issue, however the chemotherapy has caused her immune system strain and it is unable to fight off infections or viruses. This condition is identified as Neutropaenic Sepsis.
Once in A&E dear wife was moved to a side room on the Acute Medical Unit.
On leaving the ward I saw a slight reflection of light from dear child’s eyes, and I started to think that he was waking up. By the time we got to the car he was wide awake and remained that way. When I left the hospital heading home, the M4 was full of fog and made for very poor driving conditions. Not fun.
As soon a I put dear child on his play mat at home so that I could empty the car he started to play with all the toys near by, I’m thinking to myself that this is going to be a long night.