Back on the 16th floor

It feels like ages since I last wrote here but it’s not so long – the last few days have really been a bit of a blur.

Paul got progressively worse after Wednesday with the fever and nausea etc, by Thursday he was back on the oxygen, unable to move, too sick to talk much and by Friday morning they told us it was a chest infection and they were going to transfer him to the high dependency unit (part of ITU) in case he needed to be intrubated again. Apparently because of the fever his respiratory rate was really high and they were worried that this would be putting pressure on his heart. Cue panic, inverted hysteria, tears, involuntary sobs, glasses of wine and lots of wandering dark thoughts (me obviously!).

But by the time I got up there on Friday, although he was still running a fever he seemed a little more comfortable, I sat with him for most of Friday afternoon and by the time I left the ITU Registrar had decided he wasn’t sick enough to transfer but that they would review him later in the evening. Come today and he was requesting a latte, the guardian and a ham sandwich! Talk about freaking roller flipping coasters!!

He’s still being monitored but he seems to pulling out of the worst of it. I wonder if the infection was down to the fact that he went neutrapenic earlier than normal and he had a cough and cold recently, so maybe it just flared up again in full force. Well it’s all supposition – It could be something he just picked up somewhere or something he gave to himself. I suppose as long as he kicks it, it doesn’t matter where it came from. He was really floaty today which was quite funny, must be a combination of all the drugs and it was nice to see him grinning again.

I think they might put a truth serum in with all the other drugs he is taking because he told me yesterday that I had a really black bag under one of my eyes. “Charming” I said as the nurse snorted into her medical box. “I wonder what on earth could be keeping me awake at night”. “I thought it might be mascara” he said “I’m not wearing any makeup“, “ Oh it just looked like you had a bit of a black eye” – “ Yep you are definitely digging that hole a bit bigger Paul”….. By this point the nurse was openly guffawing…..

So things are stable at the moment. They couldn’t give the last few days of chemo as he was so poorly but I don’t think he missed much. We’ll find out next week what the plan is. I’m just desperate for him to come home again.