Having had a bag of platelets and a couple of units of blood late on the day before Christmas Eve, I finally got Adam home in the early hours of Christmas eve, around 2.30 am.
The following day his energy levels were very low and it took about 30 minutes for him to get up the stairs and into bed
He was very tired and looked a bit pale so Christmas morning was quite subdued, it took a huge effort for him to get out of bed and bathed ready to make the epic journey downstairs, he didnt even want to open any presents which gives an indication of how bad he felt! The slightest exertion seemed to make him puff and pant as if he’d been running a marathon and he would sweat profusely.
In order to ease things I was dragging him around upstairs on a large towel with a pillow on it, we used this method to get him downstairs, head first and laying on a couple of folded in half duvets, there was a time when he had lost so much weight I could carry him but he is back to a decent weight now and is as tall as me so hard to simply chuck over my shoulder and lift as I may have done in the past.
Finally we got him into his homer dent on the sofa and he was clearly not going to make it down to Karen’s for Christmas dinner so it was decided that Karen would bring the food up to ours and we’d have Christmas there instead.
Simply getting from the sofa into the dining room and onto a chair knackered him and after a few mouthfuls he was not strong enough to eat.
So, we drove up to UCH, no traffic so we made it in double quick time.. note to self, always wait till Christmas Day to be ill the traffic in
To cut a long story short, he was bleeding in his stomach, his blood count was down to 5.4 and he was obviously in serious trouble, the docs were at pains to point out that with his minimal platelet count he was unable to correct the bleed and giving him platelets has become in itself a dangerous operation so we should expect the worst.
By some clever manipulation of drugs and Adams own ability to use his mind to control his body, they managed to get some platelets in, 5 pints of the NHS’s finest claret and some other blood products for good measure
Boxing day was a touch and go kind of day…….. it’s a funny thing, I noticed when we first joined this club that people on cancer wards smile at you, you get used to it over time, it’s a kind of knowing, sympathetic smile, I guess no one wants to be there…..walking down the street you don’t smile at strangers but on cancer wards you do. The smiles on Boxing day were altogether different! The docs asked in the morning if there were any other family members who would want to be here…Pauline and Karen came up in the afternoon and we had one of those, ‘lets all put brave faces on as the patient doesn’t know quite how serious this is’ afternoons trying to stay composed.
To cut yet another long story short, the medical team, his body a few prayers from some and some good grace meant that by the end of yesterday he seemed to be out of danger and was able to eat soft foods again, having been starved for 2 days he was gagging for some real food, the rice pudding and scrambled eggs got close but just made him hungrier.
This morning he is having more platelets and some more blood, he is still losing red cells but much more slowly so it appears that he is on the mend. If anyone wants to challenge him to a race around the block, this would be a good time to ensure a win!
May I use this mail to apologise to anyone who hasn’t had proper wishes for Christmas from us or if I haven’t replied to any mails, the run up to Christmas was properly manic and so replying to mails was hard to do.
My love and wishes to all near and far at this time. I hope you had a less ‘exciting’ Christmas than us and that 2008 will bring health and happiness, wealth would be great too but its no longer a priority in my world.
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