46. Just a runny nose

I was told to pack an overnight bag. Isn’t it natural to assume from that that I’d not be staying long? I’d read in the chemotherapy guidance that, should something like this happen, most people will be given an antibiotic drip and then sent home with oral antibiotics. Dennis went home late morning, expecting to collect me Sunday evening.

People arrived, people went home. Not me. I was put “in isolation” as they tried to locate the source of my infection. Dennis came again Monday and stayed overnight, before I packed him off home again. I felt fine apart from lack of sleep and boredom. As soon as I fell asleep, the drip alarm would set off or some kindly nurse would apologetically creep in to do my blood pressure and temperature. They were the problem. Despite all the antibiotics being pumped into me, my temperature wouldn’t settle. Worse, my blood pressure was mostly in the amber range of low, with an occasional slip into the red. Every test result came back clear, yet I was obviously still at risk.

I haven’t looked up neutropoenic sepsis - maybe I will when I feel I’m up to considering the realities of what happened. My basic understanding is my runny nose was an early sign of a cold, I had too weak an immune system to deal with it and... that’s about it. I don’t understand how the antibiotics can work when the immune system is so compromised - I thought the whole idea of antibiotics was to mobilise one’s body’s natural defences. Regardless, they began to work.

A three-doctor visit resulted in some changes: a change to oral antibiotics (maybe I could go home? Fat chance); detachment from the drip (a rather astute child-doctor suspected the drip was making me lazy about drinking and that had to change); and a move to the Red Tray (extra portions and two very unhealthy additional snacks - all wasted as most of it was tasteless mush to me).

Problem: the oral antibiotic was almost the size of a suppository and there was no way I could swallow it. It was too thick to break, almost impossible to cut, so they ordered in the liquid version for me. 

The other problem was that my blood cell count was still way too low so I couldn’t go home but nor could I stay in the assessment unit. There were days when they were run off their feet by poor chemo patients with the most appalling hacking coughs. A bed was found for me off another ward (still in isolation just in case - phew! I’m not sure how I would have managed on a proper ward - too afraid to sleep in case someone was sick, I’m guessing). 

So I packed my things, ready to be moved at 8pm.