Purple Haze

So this last week has been a haze of drugs and pain and frustration. It felt like much longer than a week. But by our friday appointment with my oncologist (we missed the thursday one) I was feeling a lot better. However by the time I went to bed that night I'd had to take an extra endone (10mg) on top of two panadol, two neurofen and the 20mg of oxycontin. And I was still quite uncomfortable. On the up side though mum had been out with some friends and had what sounded like a lovely, much needed evening.

I woke up at 3am that morning, and then again at 6. The first time I managed to drug myself back to sleep and relative comfort, but at 6 I could not make the pain go away and it just seemed to get worse. We had been told that if it were to get much worse, we should get ourselves to hospital pretty much straight away so as to rule out spinal cord involvement. By 7 mum was down and chatting with the community nurses. By 7 20 an ambulance had been called. At about 8 30 the paramedics were there working out the best way to get me down our front steps into the back of the ambulance. They produced this amazing little whistle thing- when they gave me the name of the drug I was determined to remember it, but I fear it was so effective it effected my short term memory. You inhaled the drug and it was pretty near instantly effective, and wore off very quickly too. Anyway, they somehow got me into the ambulance and whisked me away to TCH.

It was a pretty awful day. I was in a lot of pain which was not responding well to endone and oxycontin, there was fear of lasting or permanent nerve damaged, the MRI machine took FOREVER to get working AND, to top it all off... I was meant to be at TEDx that day. A day I had been looking forward to for a year - the most inspiring and energising day of the year - and i was to spend it in hospital in pain.

After the lengthy MRI and too many useless xrays they ruled out any new damage. The only things were this pain, and something strange in my spine revealed by the MRI. All the MRI can actually show is a.. weakening of the spine? Thinning of the spine... something like that. So it doesn't mean the cancer has spread, but we wont know until I get a PET scan. Anyway. Choosing not to dwell on that. Nothing I can do about it, and we dont know enough so, yeah. This left the pain to deal with. They gave me fentanyl and hydromorphone. Hydromorphone is meant to be something like 5-7 times as strong as morphine, but it wont make me itchy and is a much more pleasant experience. They have continued to give it to me today, but in an oral form which has not been as effective.

They moved me to the oncology inpatient ward's acute care section, which is usually for neutropenic's and others with weak immune systems- but I'm glad I'm here. I need a lot of help with just about everything as the pain is very persistent and debilitating. Much as I hate hospitals, it actually feels nice to be out of home, since its been a very unpleasant week there. A change of scenery, and a break from taking constant care of me for mum.

Though I wrote this with a little more care than usual I'm still under the influence so not sure this will all be terribly clear. Hope you can all understand it!