Another 2 week gap since posts, but this time the gap’s been somewhat eventful.
Firstly, and most importantly(!), I did eventually buy a skateboard! It’s an Enjoi complete 8.0” Helvetica Neue deck in a beautiful aqua for those interested! I’ve learnt how to push and roll so far but can only stop by launching myself off the board and running alongside it. I’ll get there eventually!.. Probably.
But 2 weeks on from my last, and in my mind quite dramatic, post I now find myself back in the same ward I was discharged from almost a month ago. Home bittersweet home. Although I was fine when I left the hospital, I eventually started becoming more and more feverish. Starting off with one fever a day, and gradually evolving to the point where my temperature was spiking every 4-5 hours, with temps sometimes creeping over 40 degrees.
After making a few phone calls to the cancer nurses, and receiving weekly positive covid test results from the walk-through centre, the doctors finally called me into the hospital on Thursday, 2nd September. Long story Long, the general consensus was that the fevers were most likely being caused by covid as opposed to the lymphoma (the reasoning being that lymphoma fevers don’t tend to run that high). The course of action therefore became to treat the covid before chemotherapy could start, thus preventing that pesky little side effect of death, I suppose.
I began a course of Meropenem antibiotics to tackle a high infection marker (CRP) found in my bloods. I also started a 5-10 day course of Remdesivir (which always brings the image of Donald Trump to my mind when I think of it) to treat the covid.
I was then finally given the long awaited news, which was, drum roll please..
… The chemotherapy should be starting next week fingers crossed, with a provisional date given to me of Tuesday 14th September. Insert crowd cheer here.
The news was a little bit of a shock since chemo has always been 2-3 weeks away in my head due to all the roadblocks, but on the whole it is of course very welcome. The real treatment can finally be kickstarted. The show must go on.
Anyways, fast forward to the 11th of September and so far I’ve had / have started the following:
- 4 covid swabs. 2 which came back negative (woo!) and 2 positive (boo!).
- A 10 day course of Meropenem antibiotics.
- A 5-10 day course of Remdesivir.
- A high dose of Prednisolone steroids, which is used both for covid and chemo.
- Anti-viral and prophylactic antibacterial tablets, to be taken before and during the course of chemo. Conveniently I’ve forgotten the name of both of these.
- Allopurinol tablets, typically used to treat gout (gout??) but in my case given to counteract some of the effects of the steroids.
There’s also the small issue of fertility which thankfully should no longer be a problem, since the clinic has kindly decided to freeze my sperms despite the positive covid test results. Perhaps I’ll make a separate post about that later.
But all in all I’m currently well and truly pumped full of drugs right now, and raring to get go.
Thanks as ever for reading. In the words of every youtuber that’s ever lived, don’t be shy to comment, like, share, or dare I say it.. subscribe!
Lots of love,
Dan
Dan's Hidden Jotter 