A&E

Thursday 21st February

I can safely say the last 48 hours have been some of the worst since treatment started. If you get a temperature of 38 deg or more when you are having chemo it can be very serious. Tuesday night at 10 o'clock mine was 38.4 so off to Worcester A&E. I have a red card as a cancer patient that means they must see me immediately, which they did. I had a small room to myself to isolate me, which seemed fine at first but after 14 hours with barely any sleep I was crawling the walls.

They actually worry because if my white blood cell count has dropped too far then I would not be able to fight whatever has caused the temperature. Not to be too dramatic but it can be fatal so it has to be checked out. My blood cell count was actually OK so I just needed some anti biotics. They told me this at 2.30am but wanted to monitor the temperature so I had to stay. I had very little to drink and nothing to eat during those 14 hours, although as I was sick twice I wasn't hungry.

Just when I thought they would let me go around midday they told me I had a bed on a ward. On the way too the ward I asked the porter what type of ward it was but he didn't know. Now bearing in mind the reason I was there was to make sure if I had any kind of infection it could be dealt with as I might not be able to fight it myself, you can imagine my horror when we arrived and it was the ward for 'infectious diseases'.

At this point I lost all confidence in them and demanded to see a doctor. Despite his reassuring me that I was in the right place I just wanted out so made it very clear. On the ward they seemed not to have a clue what I was there for. Bearing in mind I had gone in because of a high temperature they did not even take mine until I asked for it to be done.

 Eventually at 3pm they told us we could go but then took 3 and a half hours to get my anti biotics. I really think they decided to make us wait as we were being awkward in their eyes. I'm even supposed to have my injection for my blood clot every 24 hours at 3pm. We had taken the syringes with us so all they had to do was give it, which takes no more than 30 seconds, but they refused. Their attitude was ' we give injections at 6 o'clock so you can wait'.

All in all I thought the service we received was awful. In future we will put up with the 1 hour drive to Coventry if it is needed.

When we finally got home I felt pretty bad although happy just to be home. I managed a little to eat and then lay down in bed. Mandy took my temperature and it was back up over 38 again. After half an hour of debating what to do we rang Coventry for advice expecting them to tell us to go there. However as my blood count was OK and we had anti biotics they said check in the morning and see then. I think the sheer relief of not having to go sent me straight to the bathroom to be sick!

Mandy very kindly went to the spare bed for the night so that if I could not settle I at least would not be worrying about disturbing her. We are both totally shattered both physically and mentally. Not too bad a night's sleep, very broken but OK. Lots of sickness today but at least the temperature has settled down, so onto tomorrow and another session of chemo. Great.

We both feel that somehow we are being punished for talking about this whole thing being nearly over. Irrational but you can't help it when you are down and tired.

Got to go now as I am flagging badly.

Thanks for reading.

Tim