I’ve been quiet I know. Apologies. Time for an update!

Monday I was still in hospital. I had a visit first from two doctors who might have been from ICU… I forget. But one of them lived in Sydney for 3 years, in Manly. Her husband is from Newport, literally just down the hill from where I grew up. I am constantly shocked at how small this world is. So that was fun. They were quite happy with how I was progressing from their perspective so that was good.

Then I had a visit from the amazing Patricia Booth and Dr Pauline Leonard from Oncology. These two were my favourites. I told them about my ordeal on Saturday. The trauma was evidently still very fresh in my mind as I held back tears recounting it. The compassion that came from these two was… Overwhelming. In a good way obviously. Especially after the total lack of it I had experienced on Saturday. They apologised that I’d had to go through it. I mean I don’t really blame anyone for it because everyone thought they were doing the right thing but I must admit it was so nice to finally be spoken to by a human who thought my suffering and pain really did matter. By now my arm was so bruised (made worse by low platelets) and very swollen and sore.

They said it was time to stop treating numbers on the page and to start treating the patient. They said no more sodium chloride since I was drinking plenty, thank goodness. My platelets were still the worry, the last blood test had them at 5. Which I didn’t really believe was true. So they ordered another blood test to check. My neutrophils were still low, 0.2, but Dr Leonard said if my platelets were above 20, they would send me home with oral antibiotics. This came as a very unexpected surprise and I hoped and hoped they were at 20.

A little while later I had the bloods, and not long after I was told that I was getting discharged!!! 60 PLATELETS WOOHOO! You can not imagine the relief. So mum and dad came down to meet me and walked me back up the hill to home! Where I had to stay and avoid any potential sources of infection for fear of ending up back there.

Worth mentioning now too that I had some really lovely nurses. Lianta (I think that’s right) was a lot of fun as my night nurse and she monitored my temperature for me when I was worried. Ian was great – he did my last injection of filgrastim for me hopefully ever so that was iconic. Maeve I already mentioned. I also had another fantastic Irish nurse on my last day and I wish I could remember her name. I really liked her. Sorry, it doesn’t mean I appreciated you any less!

And that’s the end of that story. On to the next…