A night in hospital

I have been feeling really well, but last night a fever crept up on me at about 11 p.m.

I felt quite warm and also had cold chills. I took my temperature and found it at 38.1. As instructed for such circumstance, I rang the oncology registrar and was advised that I should present myself at Emergency for assessment and monitoring.

I arrived at the hospital at about midnight, and was quickly admitted and accomodated on a trolley bed. I was interviewed, gave some blood and urine samples and had chest x-rays. The doctor explained that cold shivers often indicate that an infection has entered the blood stream and that the body shivers in response to generate the extra body heat.

I dozed, on and off, for a few hours, interupted by regular blood pressure and temperature readings and visits from the doctor.

Just before 5 a.m. the doctor came around with a discharge letter and prescriptions for a 5 day course of two antibiotics. White Cell Count was quite good at 3.9 and other blood reading looked reasonable also.

Home again a little after 5, temperature has returned to normal. I think I’ll try and grab a couple more hours sleep.

Scoop

Before chemotherapy on Wednesday, we went to a midday film session. An enjoyable thing to do in itself as I find it reminiscent of going to film festivals, or a brief period in my early working life when I worked as an assistant projectionist and was able to visit cinemas all around the city on a whim for no charge. A day session during the week tends to be cheaper, quieter and provides a great sense of relaxed leisure (although we did have to rush a bit to get out of the house).

Woody Allen’s latest film Scoop is a well crafted piece of cinema froth, something in the nature of a comic fantasy thriller.

Some plot establishment details in this paragraph. A journalist dies, and is transported across the river to the underworld in a boat helmed by the grim reaper ferryman. On the journey the journalist learns from another recently deceased that the likely identity of a London serial killer is a particular member of the British aristocracy. Seized by true journalistic fervour and a desire to break this scoop, he jumps into the river and swims back to the land of the living. There he makes momentary contact with the attractive young heroine of the story, an American journalism student. The contact occurs at the moment the young woman is the volunteer on stage during a disappearing trick performed by the Woody Allen character, a rather second rate and eccentric stage magician.

Much fun, romance and suspense ensues as the young woman, aided by her new friend the stage magician, tries to gain enough evidence against the handsome young aristocrat who has been identified as the suspected serial killer. The plot is boldly silly and has a couple of nice twists.

I found the film perhaps a little slow in parts, but had a laugh and enjoyed it as good (extremely) light entertainment. The plot was perhaps reminiscent in some ways of B-grade suspense stories such as might be found in the golden days of radio or other types of popular adventure fiction. The film craft was unobtrusively used to allow the characters and plot unfold.

Cycle 2 – day 8

The second dose of drugs in the second cycle completed today without too much incident. Nice short session and again I was comfortable and no stinging or other problems. Prior to commencement, my WCC was ok at 3.6 and the Neutrophils at 2 (sample taken yesterday). Probably a scan coming in a few weeks to see if any therapeutic benefit or otherwise. Next cycle scheduled to commence on Wednesday fortnight. I haven’t yet seen the oncologist a second time but I think there will be a consultation also at that time.

Very little in the way of noticeable side effects in the first days of the cycle 2, except some tiredness and brief mild body temperature fluctuations.

Cycle 2 – day 1

Blood levels had recovered sufficiently this morning and I had the first dose for the new cycle.

White Cell Count (WCC) was up to 3.8 from 2.4 on Monday. Previous to cycle on Feb 13 , WCC was 9.9, and then fell to 3.2 on Day 8 of that cycle. The first day is a long session with two cytotoxic drugs administered by intravenous drip feed.

Today’s session went smoothly and I was very comfortable with no stinging. Spent much of the time on the phone chatting to friends and had company for the first part of the visit.

After the session I went visiting and then to a meal of takeaway grilled fish and salad at Darling Harbour. Now looking forward to sleep but Lateline first.

The Cooma Show

On Saturday we visited the Cooma Show.

I have never visited a rural agricultural show before and found that it very much resembled a scaled down version of the large agricultural show held in Sydney each year.

It took a couple of hours to wander through and have a bit of a look at the range of exhibits. Lots of animals including cattle, goats, sheep, and poultry. Crafts, cakes, flowers and a scarecrow competition. The usual range of rides and amusements with fluffy toy prizes. Show jumping and wood chopping were taking place in the ring. We learnt about the threat of fireweed. A snake handler showed dangerous snakes from a dirt floored fenced enclosure . A dog, with no apparent supervision, herded three costumed ducks around the grounds. Sometimes the dog handler followed, working the dog with a system of whistled instructions.

The sun was out and the show provided a pleasant afternoon’s diversion. When we left, I had begun to feel bothered by a bit of pain and was anxious to get back to the hotel. This continued to bother me on Sunday but by Monday I was feeling more comfortable.

Climate change in Jindabyne

On Friday evening we attended a community meeting in Jindabyne Memorial Hall.

The open meeting endorsed a motion that the people of the Snowy River Shire: “support the objective of meeting a target of a reduction in our energy use by 50% and generation of 50% clean energy by the year 2020 in order to tackle climate change”.

The meeting was chaired by the shire’s mayor, a big burly fella who told us that two years ago he had not regarded climate change as a real problem. The “50/50 by 2020″ objective is a target set by the Clean Energy Action Plan which has been devised by a group called Clean Energy for Eternity. Bega Valley Shire Council have already adopted these targets.

Last year was the earliest thaw on record in this alpine region and the community are increasingly aware of the likely economic and social impacts of climate change. It was interesting to note that such strong leadership in reducing energy consumption and turning to renewable sources of energy may come out of these regional areas, rather than urban centres or the federal and state governments.

Photo: Lake Jindabyne

Chemo cycle 2 postponed

Today was to be the first day in the next chemo cycle, but after checking my blood at the cancer centre this morning, it was decided to postpone until Wednesday.

White cells are still too low (2.4) and another reading (something that sounded like “nutrifill”?) was also too low.

The Blob

I mentioned in my previous post that on Tuesday evening I had noticed that a blackened area, about 0.5 centimetres in diameter, had appeared on my middle left finger. I felt it before I saw it, as there was also a sensation of hardened skin in the area.

I had the impression that this dark area, looking very much like a bruise, spontaneously erupted on my finger. Staff at the Lung Cancer Support Group on Wednesday didn’t seem to think it significant in any way.

Kim Caraher writes on her blog about the anxiety provoked by an unfamiliar pain in her finger:

This has created some anxiety. More bone problems, in that little spot? But I have had a few pains come and go, not everything has to be Bad. It’s just that each little thing has the potential to be so. I can’t pretend it isn’t scary. I chant for it to go

Whatever the cause of my blob, it has rapidly healed over the last two days.

Cycle 1 – week 3

The final week of my first chemotherapy cycle will finish this coming Sunday and the second cycle will begin on Monday (March 12).

For much of the time so far I have been feeling very well and as mentioned in previous posts, the main noticeable side effects have been a certain amount of tiredness and fluctuating body temperature. The tiredness seemed to be mainly one or two days in the first week and I would say also yesterday and today I have been quite lethargic, and I had a good daytime sleep on on both days.

Also as previously reported, during the first week I experienced some brief ringing in my left ear for some moments and also brief zig-zag shimmering effects in my vision.

Late yesterday evening, while preparing this post, I noticed a blackened area, about 0.5 centimetres in diameter, appearing on my middle left finger. Nothing about this in my list of expected side effects so I am not sure yet what it might be. I will be able to discuss it today when I visit the hospital for the Lung Cancer Support group.

One other minor problem is a lingering soreness in my right hand where the intravenous needle was inserted last Monday.

I have had a good appetite except on 1 or 2 days, have experienced no nausea and have maintained stable weight.

After the next cycle I think that the plan is to do another scan and see if any changes have occurred over the two cycles and thus assess whether to continue with the gemcitabine/carboplatin or try something else.

As mentioned above, today I will be attending the Lung Cancer Support Group, one of the many things I have not got around to blogging. The group is part of the Sydney Cancer Centre support program and brings together some health practitioners and patients for an informal discussion on all things lung cancer. This will be the fourth week on the program this year and also the fourth that I have attended.

Body temperature

Body temperature up to around 37.4 last night (Feb. 1). Slept it off OK overnight (walked a fair bit yesterday and was out most of the day).

Update: Temperature also fluctuating yesterday evening and this morning.

Following readings (these are all a bit approximate):

9:00 pm 2/2/7 37.3
9:40 pm 2/2/7 36.7
10:00 pm 2/2/7 37.1
1:00 pm 3/2/7 about 37.3

I was a bit confused about what “normal” is and understand that it is normal for to fluctuate a bit. It seems that probably the range of 36.6 to 37 is OK. The readings above seem rather mild. I have been instructed to ring my doctor or the cancer centre if my temperature goes over 38.