The Cape Crusader

Dr P, MRSA swab, Nandos, Chemo, Denosumab, Movie Night

Lower open area clean and not purulent. Slight bony tenderness and effusion around knee. No xray as had so many scans. Able to weightbear and improved since Monday.

Few further days antibs given happt to start Cape tomorrow.


https://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/information-support/facing-breast-cancer/going-through-treatment-breast-cancer/chemotherapy/capecitabine-xeloda

Vampire Time

To add: ?? Dr P came and reviewed my skin infection. Heart rate raised and CRP up however i was efebrile. Groin wound continues to slowly heal.


After my fall, we made our way to East Surrey Hospital for my blood tranfusions with my "just in case overnight bag". Rob dropped me at Kingsfold Unit at 8:20 and went off to make his Monday morning work call. I hobbled into the lift, leg really hurting after my fall and checked in. Luckily they said I could go straight through to the room where they would be giving the blood rather than sit in the waiting room which meant I was able to bagsy the window seat!

They wanted to cannulate me straight away and I had to explain the saga of not the right arm because of the DVT, and then that the left arm I had had lymph nodes removed. However, we had to go somewhere, so the left arm was the only choice. Mercifully the lady doing the cannula gets it in first time. They then take about 6 phials of my blood to test. 

Another day, another cannula!

Various doctors, nurses, my oncologist and my breast care nurse come and take a look at the skin infection in my groin and pubic bone. The reason they want to look is because my infection markers are raised and therefore they need to decide if they want to stop flucloxacillin and move me onto something stronger. The infection markers are measured by looking at something called CRP:

C-reactive protein is measured in milligrams of CRP per litre of blood (mg/L).Normal CRP levels are below 3.0 mg/dL.

Mine is 127mg/L! Now cancer can cause these to be raised away but this is a pretty high reading. Bugger. However, they decide that the area that was infected actually looks improved from the other day, they also say that the other area looks like it's on the mend. They want me to carry on with current antbiotics and the bloods can get underway. Hooray!

They also look at the new area I have on my arm, caused by the dressing from the other day. They decide that this is not infected, and is a reaction. 

Sorry gross image incoming..... 

 

My allergic reaction to the dressing on my arm

The rest of the blood measures from the test are fine and it currently looks like I'll only be having 2 bags worth of blood. That, coupled with no IV antibiotics means I hopefully won't be staying in.....

Rob goes and finds us a hospital picnic for lunch, he returns with various goodies,including chicken teriyaki - lol!

It's now 13:30 and the blood team bring my blood through. They pop it on the drip stand, flush my cannula, attach the blood and here we go......

Bag 1 of hopefully 2!

An exhausted moi hooked up to the blood

The first blood bag will take 3 hours to go through. They have to run it that slowly as it's the first time I've received an infusion, so they will need to monitor me very carefully. The first 15 minutes are crucial as it's when you see if your body will reject the blood or have a reaction. Luckily I have neither and therefore Rob heads home.

I spend the next 3 hours reading, blogging and playing on my iPad. Then it's time for a quick toilet break, they want to do a urine dip test and I'm hooked up to bag 2.

 Bag 2 of hopefully 2

Because I reacted well to the first bag of blood, they are able to this one more speedily. It takes 2 hours to drain through. They then release me from the blood bag, remove the cannula (hooray) and let the docs know I am finished. The docs then come round a little while later, say my bloods are good enough for me to go and that's it. Hooray!!

I head over to Tilgate Annexe to see my friend Karen who has been admitted again 😟, she's bought  a blueberry cheesecake slice for each of us and she also bought me a lovely Ted Baker smellies set! We have a quick gossip and then Mum and Col arrive to take me home.

First ever blood transfusion - done!

Transthoracic ECG, St Caths, Onc Meeting

Today I had a transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) at East Surrey. This is to check the fluid around my heart which best case we want to have reduced, next best stayed the same. On the scan, we could see there is definitely some fluid still there. On the last one of these I had, the fluid level had dropped. So fingers crossed the fluid we can see on the scan is even less again. 

Next we had a meeting with Dr H at St Catherine's Hospice in Crawley. She was excellent and can help me with lots of aspects of pain management. St Cath's are able to be a liaison point between the oncologist, my GP, the heart team, the physio team etc which will be very useful.

Dr H looked at my leg with the area that I just cannot move and she believes it is a damaged nerve that we can hopefully restrengthen. She has organised a physio team to come to the house to help me with this. This team will also look at my "living conditions" and see if they can do anything to make things easier.

Dr H also told me that my kidney and liver bloods show their function is now totally normal hooray. This means I can take more painkillers as I was restricted before.

Finally she looked at the skin infection and groin area that has been sore. She thinks it is very strange. She says she does wonder if it is some kind of skin mets combined with an infection. She will let Dr P know her thoughts.

Then we had a meeting with Dr P in Crawley Hospital (Rob has done a lot of driving today!) about my skin infection and if I could start chemo tomorrow as planned. When I saw Dr P on Tuesday, she took a swab of the infection, so we're waiting to see what it actually is. Re whether there are any skin mets... She looked at the scans on her screen and is convinced there are no mets in the area. They have not shown up on an ultrasound of the area, a CT of the area and an MRI of the area. She says there is nothing there to biopsy so she wouldn't even know where to take a biopsy from. So this is good news. 

Then she looked at the skin infection. The erythema present around the area on Tuesday has improved slightly but it has not improved enough for me to start chemo because I cannot start chemo with any sort of infection 😓 She wants me to finish the original course of antibiotics plus a few more so it's totally cleared up. That means all being well chemo has been deferred and will start next Thursday instead.

Finally, Dr P said that means I had to have another blood test because the other bloods I had done through the horrid cannula experience will be too old. She told me to have a quick drink of water to help my veins. I got out my Love Island water bottle (thanks Jem!) and both her and the nurse smiled and told Rob and I they were Love Island fans - hilarious!

That meant we had to zoom to Comet Ward at 16:26 for bloods to be taken from my left risk arm. The reason we had to zoom was that the final blood transportation of the day is 16:30 and if we missed that then the bloods would be for nothing. Rob rally drove me in my wheelchair, the chemo nurse raced to get the bloods. Mercifully the hard, sore veins in the at risk arm gave blood on the first go and we made the transportation with minutes to spare!

So basically no chemo tomorrow, but I will collect it on Thursday 5th July and start it on Friday 6th.

Post-Op Recovery

Woke up this morning feeling very weird and spaced out. My arm was super sore, red, hot, swollen and I couldn't bend my fingers. I spent most of the day with ice blocks wrapped around it but it wasn't helping. Because of the building work being done on the house, I spent the whole day in the bedroom. Eventually when I emerged downstairs at 17:30, I asked Rob to call the GP for me. My arm just didn't feel right. We ended up getting a very last minute appointment and as a result I now have a weeks' worth of antibiotics (flucloxacillin) as the GP agreed we should do something about it just in case.

My poor arm!