Chemo Pump

Another day at the hospital, this time to have my pump fitted for the Chemo (Doxorubicin). I had to wait a while for everything to be made up, including the velcade. I had another blood test to see my levels and I have to have another transfusion of platelets tomorrow.

As can be seen in the pic, the pump is quite large. I will have to get used to it when going to sleep and it making a noise each time it pumps. They don’t often use these pumps, so they wanted to make sure that it was all set up correctly after me having it fitted and ask me to stay another 20 minutes to make sure the alarm didn’t go off. If the alarm goes off during the night I have to call them and they will come out to have a look at it. So they were pretty keen for it to work so they didn’t get called out tonight. On the way home though the alarm started to go off! so I turned around and went back into the hospital. They were a little surprised to see me, but after looking at the pump, they found that the clam was still on and stopping it flowing. Apparently it will work for a couple of pumps (about 20 mins) until it reaches the clamp and starts to bleep. I thought that I had maybe inadvertently pressed the clamp on, but it would have been quite difficult to do that. One of the senior nurses wanted to demonstrate how it works to one of the wards that I would have to call in the night as they weren’t used to the pumps and they also showed me how to reset it and stop the alarm going (if I need to again).

I was also given my first dose of Velcade and provided with my tablets for the first cycle. 25 tablets on some days. Mainly due to the Dexamethasone only being in 2mg tablet form, so I have to take 20 of them!

I met an elderly gentleman and his daughter while on the Oncology ward. He is 85 years old and I had to laugh when the nurse said to him - ‘Are you cold’ and he replied ‘I don’t get cold’. What makes it funny is that he had a woolly hat on, a scarf and gloves. I don’t think anyone would have got cold with all the clothes he was wearing. I was in my T-Shirt it was quite warm. His daughter was chatty and me and James tried to help her with the crossword. I might have to look at the paper tomorrow to find out the answers to the ones we were stuck on. It’s a good job the ward provides newspapers for patients to read whilst waiting.