Still here

Im still here, in hospital that is! Im still alive as well, which is always a bonus.

Im feeling much better after seeing the team who normally look after me from oncology . It was like having very close family surprise you. I had the my Dr and assisting doctor as well as the specialist nurse come and see me. It was only after them visiting that things started to get done properly. They organised an ultrasound, arranged for the correct drugs, sorted out my platelets etc. Jenny came later on to sort out the mess that was left in my arm with all the needle attempts and was annoyed at the room and mess my arms were in. Although she brought all the equipment from her ward to deal with me, she decided it was was better to take me back in a chair to do it properly in good lighting where she had all of the equipment to replace the cannular and administer the velcade.

It was really nice to get onto my usual ward and it was like going home to visit. As usual they looked after me really well and did a brilliant job. I tried my hardest to get them to let me go home but i listened to the advice they gave and will have to stay in until at least tomorrow. The plan at the moment is to continue with the regime on PAD and after next week sort out having a hickman line fitted rather than a picc. If i had a picc fitted it could go bad in that arm as well, which would leave me with a bit of a problem!

The ultrasound on my arm showed there wasn't a blood clot, which is what they were worried about and would have been a major concern.

The swelling has gone down and it isn't as red on my arm. Im in an isolation ward to keep any people with nasty bugs away or was that to keep nasty people away :-) .

I have toxic wee at the moment so have to make sure that i flush the loo twice having a wee in case i poison someone!

Walter - thanks for your message its good to know people are reading my posts. I hope your treatment is going ok. Everyone is different and reacts differently to treatment and i think that is why we can never get a crystal clear answer to the question we all really want to know. Will this work and for how long. Do i have a year or five or ten or are they trying to tell you it is now a few months! The thing is it can change from one day to the next especially as new treatment is coming out all of the time. I try to take onboard the various options and way up what is best for me to provide the so called quality of life balanced with the treatment that will be the less invasive. At the moment for me the options are a bit limited due to the myeloma being so aggressive, but Im hoping that will change after the next few PAD cycles.  If you want to email me directly you are welcome to do so. My email is sctiernan@gmail.com as you can probably tell from my posts i don't mind talking about any of the issues.

I will try and blog again tomorrow.  Im sorry if there are a few mistakes on this blog as Im writing them from my phone!