As if it couldn't get any worse!

31st January 2012

Firstly, Dylan is fine again after his two brief spells in hospital.  Following his second visit he was prescribed a 6 day course of antibiotics and he very quickly got his personality back and started smiling and laughing again.  He's had the usual snuffles since, but on the whole is very happy again and eating and drinking well.

The last update was that my Mum had been prescribed a cocktail of drugs to build her up and get her strong enough to start her first round of chemo this week.  The good news is that the chemo actually ending up starting a lot earlier than originally planned and she has already finished her first round.  The bad news is that it all ended up starting as a bit of an emergency with an unscheduled admission into hospital following lots of bleeding from the tumour and resulting in two blood transfusions.  The consultant decided the chemo needed to start immediately to try and get the tumour under control and Mum ended up staying in hospital for 9 nights.  This all happened on Sunday 15th January.

My mum's brother Derek, sister-in-law Anne and sister Barbara had just arrived from Northern Ireland to spend some time with Mum.  They had barely been in the house for 5 minutes before she disappeared upstairs and failed to return.  This was very out of character for her and after 45 minutes I went to investigate.  She was in a terrible state, having lost lots of blood and I quickly made the decision to call an out of hours doctor.  I was told that there was one doctor on call for the whole of West Berkshire that evening and that the wait time could be up to 2 hours before the doctor was able to return my call.  The operator hung up and the phone rang less than 60 seconds later.  The doctor who called advised that Mum be admitted to hospital immediately, but she was adamant that she wanted to stay at home as her family had just arrived from N.I.  She asked for the doctor to be sent to the house.  He said we may have to wait up to 4 hours for a home visit.  The doorbell rang 10 minutes later!  This highlighted to me how serious the situation was.  After a brief examination he concurred that she needed to be admitted and made arrangements for her to go to CDU (the Clinical Decision Unit) at the Royal Berks.  She lost a lot of blood that night and Dad stayed with her throughout the night.  He text me at 6.30am and asked me to come in and take over as he was exhausted.  She is convinced that if I had not been there that night and made the arrangements she would not be alive today! 

The chemo drip went in over 24 hours a day, for 5 days, 1 bag per day, so 5 bags of fluid in total.  She was permanently attached to the drip and the treatment resulted in her feeling incredibly sick, exhausted and having huge mouth ulcers making it difficult for her to eat or drink anything.  She lost 7lbs in this week.  She was discharged last Wednesday and has gradually started to feel a little bit better each day.  Her spell in hospital enabled the doctors to experiment with her drugs and they have finally managed to get her pain under control with the correct dose of morphine so that she barely feels it now.  This is a huge relief to her.  The chemo process happens over 3 week periods and in the 3rd week she should be feeling her best before they start week 1 again.  Week 3 starts this Wednesday so we are hoping she will begin to feel pretty normal again for a short period of time.  She will be admitted again on 8th February to start round 2.

David (my brother) and I have been over in Reading a lot over the last couple of weeks.  We've been cooking and cleaning and just being there for company.  It's hard travelling backwards and forwards the whole time, especially with the mountain of stuff I have to take for Dylan.  However, we seem to be coping well so far.

I started work again yesterday.  Oli and I felt it was important that I keep busy and as my job is very flexible it will be easy to fit in around my family commitments.  I'll be working 12 hours a week from home, at times to suit me.  It couldn't have been more perfect given the circumstances!