The drama of life with cancer

When I’ve talked previously about it will forever be Life Before and Life After I think what’s happened over the last few days is a perfect example of what exactly what I mean.

About a week ago, I started to get a typical winter stuffy nose, stuffy head and feeling a little more wiped out. This started getting worse and worse until yesterday (Sunday) when I woke up suddenly with a very sore dry throat, hardly able to speak, a bit of a cough and generally feeling so rotten I had to just stay in bed most of the day. That night I went to bed with some Lemsip and just hoped that I’d feel better before our trip away in 2 days time. 

In a ‘normal’ life you would just feel a bit sorry for yourself, be gutted about the timing but accept you just had a nasty cold or if you’re a bit more dramatic moan and moan and say you had (man) flu.

However now in my ‘Life With Cancer’, when I woke up at 2.30am shaking like I’ve never been so cold in my life and having a temperature of over 40 before running to the bathroom to be violently sick it takes on a whole new level. 

Concerned that we really shouldn’t take any chances, Danny rang the NHS Direct line for advice despite us both knowing they would just tell us (as they do every single time I’ve ever phoned them even before all this happened) to go to hospital. What neither of us realised was that as soon as you mention what I have they send a blooming flashing light ambulance at 3.30am to our quiet little road.

To be fair it is far more common to get dangerous infections during / after chemotherapy as it supresses your immune system so it’s better to play these things on the safe side.

Unfortunately however it didn’t make me feel any less fed up when after being put on a stretcher, hooked up to all sorts of monitors, hours of tests, being admitted and put on antibiotic intravenous drips, they confirmed what I intuitively knew was just a nasty cold. 

I know it was the right decision especially as these things can escalate very quickly and this is now my world where if there’s anything even slightly odd, everyone will be ridiculously precautious but seeming as I’ve never been a hypochondriac it quite a hard new way of life to get used to. 

To end on a positive note though at least I get discharged today, I’ve been given the all clear to still go away and the beachside rest will be even sweeter now and clearly much needed. Onwards and, well, horizontal hopefully..to the beach yay!