A frightening hospital visit

John:

After chemo round four things were looking all good and routine. I had been eating well - pizza, fish and chips, venison burger. We're not quite sure what went wrong - possibly overdoing solid food and forgetting hydration, possibly a specific item that caused a blockage, possibly progression of the disease itself. Either way, after a good 2 hours DIY and lovely walk to the beach on Tuesday, I developed mid abdominal cramps - a new and different thing. After resting in bed for most of Wednesday (inevitably being less active, not taking on board fluids or energy) I had a bad night, and a call to NHS24 (111) in the morning resulted in a ride in an ambulance to hospital for 'surgical assessment'. Really scary stuff. There had been no output into the stoma bag for 2 days, which is very bad news. Surgical assessment for most of Thursday consisted of not a lot really. An x-ray (not CT scan, although one was mentioned) a poke into the stoma hole with a urinary catheter to try to widen the small bowel to ease things, and nil by mouth resulting in further dehydration.

Over-night I was sick and in the morning decided to take maters into my own hands with a coke from the WRVS lady. After 1/2 hour, there was stoma output and, rightly or wrongly, we decided to get out of hospital rather than stay. They were happy to let me go as no further treatment was needed anyway.

The next few days things went the other way, high liquid stoma output resulting in concerns for dehydration as I simply could not get enough fluid down to replace what was coming out. I had hand cramps, the shakes and was absolutely exhausted and was sick again both Saturday night and Sunday night. The weekend flew by and on Monday we elected to see the local GP, who gave us some different tablets to regulate output. Over the next day, things stabilised. A couple of days later and output had dropped again. Things seem to be ticking along now, but we're still treading very gingerly here.

Within a week, I had gone from 75kg to 68kg - partly weight loss, partly dehydration. Chemo 5 was squeezed in, arguably I was 'marginally' well enough for this round and doses of drugs were amended down as my weight loss had been more than 10% of my body weight. Whilst at the hospital, the oncology consultant briefly chatted with me and suggested we bring forward the CT scan. Whilst we welcome this, it brings forward that time when 'reality' replaces the 'denial' world we have been living in now for 12 weeks.

Liz:

This new turn of events has brought on a permanent feeling of anxiety and stress. We are monitoring what John eats and how he feels. I don't know whether he caught a bug somewhere as his sense of taste went haywire and he struggled to eat much or keep it down. But either way, although he is feeling better we still don't feel confident that it was a one off. It has been a terrifying reminder that at any given moment we could suddenly find ourselves with a matter of days or even hours left. My assumption is that the CT has been brought forward just in case the cancer progression is causing a permanent problem, and perhaps the chemo hasn't been effective. By the time this post goes out it will have been done, but the results are not due until John's next chemo date on the 29th Feb, when he will have an appointment with the oncologist at the same time. We are now counting down the days until the truth will be revealed on whether the treatment has done anything, and where we go from here...