Another eventful weekend

Things are never quiet in my life. Just once I'd llke a nice restful weekend, where I can look after my kids and not rely on others. Ut not this one it would seem. Two points here.... 1. This post will be graphic, squeamish people may not want to read it 2. It is written from my hospital bed using my fancy new iPad! Things kicked off on Friday with more stomach cramps. These were different to the summers cramps and were more all over. Oh great I though, nice after weeks of loose motions courtesy of chemo now comes the blockages!! Phone call to the gp, emergency appointment and a prescription for suppositories and movicol followed with instructions that things should be moving over the weekend. So we went home and started operation 'get Ruth's bowels moving'. Suppositories went in & then came straight back out again, almost like there was some sort of force field preventing them working. I took the movicol, and although it tasted unpleasant it had no noticeable effect. That evening things went from bad to worse. Ate about three mouthfuls of tea before I bought it back up. That started to worry me. The gp had asked if I had been vommiting, and I started to wonder whether this was more than just a bit of constipation. I took another dose of movicol and thought that would be that. How wrong I was. Almost immediately it came back up. This pattern continued all night, I must have vomited about 6 or 8 times & I still hadn't been to the toilet, despite sitting on it for what felt like hours. I resolved over night to go to a&e in the morning because I knew this wasn't right. So he next morning we drove up to Redhill and found out what a magic word chemo is. No waiting around for me, straight to assessment. I explained about the vomitting and feeling blocked up, so they sent me for some X-rays to have a look at want was going on. This doctor didn't seem to concerned about the vommiting, which worried me as I was mow concerned about this. He decided to give me and enema and wait and see if it worked. They also gave me an IV drip and some senna, then sent me home with more senna, movicol and some painkillers and instructions to come back if things hadn't moved by Monday. Thanks at this point go to the lovely Sophie, who came all the way to East Surrey to collect me and took me home. I tried to have some tea, then sent Tony out to get the prescription. After a Strictly Come Dancing fix and a Merlin perv I bit the bullet and took some more movicol & the senna and vomited he movicol straight back up, and then spent the night vomitting what looked and smelt like senna tablets. Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, back to Redhill, back to assessment, back on fluids, back to x ray. They seemed to take the vomiting a lot more seriously and I got moved into surgical assessment unit. The consultant I saw said that they were concerned about a blockage caused by my summer adventures & scar tissue, so by were arranging a ct scan and I would need to have an NG tube and a catheter to monitor my outputs. Having an NG tube is a very unpleasant experience. There was a lot of vomitting and choking having a tube inserted through your nose and down the back of your throat. Watching what comes out is an interesting experience! There followed another ct scan, with a difference this time, the contrast leaked into my vein and so there was some pain and swelling in the back of my hand. The ct scan showed an obstruction in my small bowel linked to my scar tissue which needs clearing. So it looked like I was in for the long haul again. Finally at midnight I got moved onto the ward and things became explosive and remained explosive all night! So now I am sitting here in my hospital bed, with the NG tube disconnected, and am on free fluids, which I think means jelly, jelly, jelly!!

Monday July 18th - Back to the Hospital

The pain remained on Sunday Evening, so after tossing and turning all night I decided I would call the hospital.


I called and was put through to the consultants secretary and explained my situation. She took all my details and said that she would get someone to look at it. While I was calling the hospital I realised that you could get through to the emergency department so I tried calling them, but they said I would have to come in and wait. I didn't fancy that. So I called my GP.


My GP has an emergency system whereby you leave your name and number and someone calls you back. The Dr that called me back could not have been better. I explained that situation and that I was taking the maximum dose of the paracetaol and tramadol and that they were not touching the pain anymore. He suggested a 'patch' that I could wear that would be stronger than what I was on already. What was even better was that he didn't want to see me. He would write me a prescription which I could collect from the front desk and I would have to go in the following day for an appointment to check it was working properly. I was waiting for Tony to come home from work so that he would be able to take me down to the GP's surgery to collect it. He wasn't happy about it as he wanted to go to bed, but sick wife takes precedent. We drove down to the GP's, I queued to request the prescription, got back in the car and then drove home. When we got back we had to locate the funds to enable us to pay for the prescription. This really annoyed me. I hadn't asked for any of this and certainly not this level of pain and then to have to pay £7.20 for the privilege of not being in pain anymore seems very wrong. 


Tony was dispatched to bed, and mum and the kids prepared to go to the chemist and anything else that grabbed their fancy while they were out. It must have been about 10.45 by now. I was beginning to have my faith restored in the NHS.


About 11.15 the phone rang, it was the consultants secretary she had spoken to one of the 'entourage' and they thought that it was worth me going back up to the hospital to SAU, Surgical Assessment Unit, to see him and to check there was nothing else wrong. 


As I hung up the phone, mum and the kids walked back through the door and I explained the new plan. 


We headed back to the hospital and I left mum and the kids with the car while I found the SAU and prepared to wait. While I was waiting they took blood, and 'obs' started again. I also had to go and have more X Rays to check that the tumor hadn't grown. 


Then I saw the surgeon/dr/entourage member - I am not sure what he was but he was familiar as I had seen him before. He prescribed a painkiller called 'Oromorph' and examined me. It appeared I had gone the other way and was 'blocked up' which was probably what was causing the pain. So we needed to 'unblock'.


 It was about 4pm now and I hadn't had any pain relief since 8am when I woke up. I managed to attract the attention of the nurse and she bought me some oromorph. It is a liquid painkiller which does not taste most pleasant, but it works. She also slipped something into my hand which I would use later and which wouldn't work.


At about 6pm I found out that they were readmitting me and the bed manager was trying to find me a bed. I didn't realise that this process would take so long. When the shifts changed at 7.30/8pm the staff nurse told me that I would probably have a bed in the next hour. This was the longest hour in history. I finally got a bed at 11.30.


So my ward - Actually this was the best part. I had a private room with en suite bathroom, and curtains 6 inches too short, with a view of the builders supply area and consequently the next day a lot of strange men walking past the window. My room also had one of the noisiest beds known to man!!


So, at 11.45pm I settled down in what was to be my home for the next 9 days (both the bed and the ward)