Howdy all. I hope you’ve had a good couple of days… Certainly better than mine. Luckily I feel human again today and can read, so have been doing so happily.

The night I came in I had a temperature of 40 that nothing could shift. There was shivering and high heart rate. Not much sleep was had. So that was a bad time. Still the next day (yesterday) we slowly started seeing the antibiotics work again and my temperature and pulse came down. Having a high temperature and heart rate for a long time can take its toll, so they did another chest x-ray as well. Luckily that was all clear. It was very unpleasant though, and through the first day and night I was bounced between wards.

Things slowly eased over the next day and I slept 18 hours out of 24 I reckon. My body sure needed it.

Today the temp is almost normal, at around 37.3, so much better. My pulse is also fine. All looking good, but then I got my blood work. So hb is 4. I feel ok with it, but do have some anemia symptons. Platelets have dropped to 60. Neutrophils are at 0.5 . This is bad as (from wiki)

Neutropenia is an abnormally low concentration of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) in the blood.^[4] Neutrophils make up the majority of circulating white blood cells and serve as the primary defense against infections by destroying bacteria, bacterial fragments and immunoglobulin-bound viruses in the blood.^[5] People with neutropenia are more susceptible to bacterial infections and, without prompt medical attention, the condition may become life-threatening (neutropenic sepsis).^[6]

If left untreated, people with fever and absolute neutrophil count <0.5 have a mortality of up to 70% within 24 hours.^[13] The prognosis of neutropenia depends on the cause. Antibiotic agents have improved the prognosis for individuals with severe neutropenia. Neutropenic fever in individuals treated for cancer has a mortality of 4–30%.^[28]

Probably best get that sorted.

I’ve also had a couple of nurses poke their head round the door to see the walking around hb 4 person. Apparently I should be unresponsive. I like to play it up pointed out the worst I’ve been is actually 3.4. Well you know, simple pleasures.

With a hb of 4 we are again going for transfusions. Four more this time. Eight in a week sound excessive even to me, but needs must. They have also had to be more careful about the blood as I seem to have developed some antibodies to a sub protein. That means I can’t just have all a negative. This is pretty common actually if you have a lot of blood transfusion. I probably fall into that camp now.

Jo also visited for an hour (thank you very much Tom and Lizzie for facilitating this). And it was nice to see her. We didn’t talk about much, but it broke up the monotony. It’s just nice to have contact with the outside world sometimes in person.

So anyway. York notes. I feel better. My fever is down, but my blood work is screwed. So we are now spending the next few days sorting that out with G-CSF (an injection to the stomach to encourage culture growth) and blood transfusions. Of we are very lucky I might even get time for a day off before my next chemo session on the 18th. I haven’t decided what to do on that day. I might have a bath with bubbles and everything.

Thanks for all the kind messages and sticking by me. It’s been appreciated and I look forward to a time when my blogs become much less regular and I feel bad for not writing any for two months. Those were the days.

Oh I did get a roast. No patch on one with Yorkshires from a pub, but it did in a pinch. (See below). The blood is just fuel in my quest to become more of a vampire.

Aside from the roast Sam and Rob did a small shop and dropped some bits in, so that was very kind. Accordingly I ate some olives and jelly babies, that natural combo. I have been craving savoury food and there isn’t quite enough here, so it was great to eat some olives. Meat would be good too. It’s just what I fancy all the time. I guess my body knows my protein level is low (which it is). So I try and follow its advice where I can.