Hello World!

Hello from rainy Pretoria, Friends! I had hoped to blog almost every day from up here but I have felt so terrible post-chemo that I haven’t done much other than lie on my bed.

I have already been here for 10 days today and to be honest I can’t say the time has flown. It has DRAGGED - hour by hour!

I checked into my isolation ward on Monday the 19^th of January, just after feasting on one final tea treat with my special mum:

 

Tea and carrot cake

 

The isolation ward is called Ward 20 and is on the faaaaaaaaar (add even more a’s in there) side of Netcare Pretoria East Hospital. As soon as you get to the reception you feel a sense of cold, clinical isolation- it’s not a welcoming place at all. It is a completely sterile environment because all of the patients inside the ward are at such a high risk of infection. We all have exceptionally low white blood cell counts which means we don’t have the ability to fight against any germs or infections that we could possibly pick up.

 

 

Basically as a patient you live in a little bubble, called your room. I am in room 27!

Outside my room is a tiny office area where the nurse sits while she is on duty.

 

Here are a few snaps of my palace:
 

 

Bedroom

 

Bathroom

 

The ultra inspiring view

 

A day in Ward 20

The day begins at 4 a.m. Yes, you read that correctly. Every morning at that horrible time, the night nurse comes in to draw several vials of blood. All the nurses wear full scrubs, gloves, masks and booties before entering patients ‘rooms. You are assigned a day nurse from 7am to 7pm and then a night nurse from 7pm to 7am. The Nurses change regularly because its shift work which isn’t the greatest because you don’t really get to connect with them. The blood tests are done for a very good reason. The complete blood count (CBC) numbers are a vital part of diagnosis and treatment. By drawing blood that early, our blood is first on the list for the lab to process. The results are back in time for the doctor in charge to read, analyze and make decisions when he or she visits later that morning.

At 5am, vitals are taken (blood pressure, temperature and pulse) to check that all is ok. Vitals are checked throughout the day, every 3 hours! At 6am the cleaners change your bed linen and clean your room. Bear in mind you never get more than a maximum of three hours of broken sleep at a time!

After breakfast at 8am, it is time to wait for the doctor and any other people that may pop in (dietician, physio, social worker or head nurse). They are also required to wear the protective kit and no physical contact is allowed. You are then left to do whatever you please, I thought I would be exceptionally bored in the room during the day so I brought lots of books and magazines to keep me busy but to be honest, today is the first day I have felt well enough to do anything more than just lie in bed.

At 2pm, your visitors are allowed in. Obviously if they have any sign of infection they aren’t allowed to visit and if the patient isn’t feeling well then the ward turns visitors away. I have been luckily enough to have had my Mum up here with me in Pretoria since day one so she comes in everyday to see me and can stay until 8pm. I honestly couldn’t have done this without her! Here are a few snaps of my special visitors:

 

Mum and Mands Dutton

 

Special Dad

 

 

Hello there, Fiance!

Chemo

I started chemo the day after I was admitted into hospital; it has been the strongest regiment in this little journey so far. It’s called IGIV and has been dreadful! As a mentioned in my previous blog posts, my veins are so scarred that it is virtually impossible to draw blood from them or administer a drip. The Nurses poked and prodded me SO many times last week and it was horrendous. After they eventually got a line up, it tissued which means that it fluids went into my tissue instead of my veins- I ended up with an arm that looked like Popeye’s!

Eventually on Friday, my Doctor decided to put a central line into my neck. This is a long, thin, flexible tube used to give medicines, fluids, nutrients, or blood products over a long period of time, usually several weeks or more. A catheter is often inserted in the neck through the skin into a large vein. The catheter is threaded through this vein until it reaches a large vein near the heart. It wasn’t too painful and I am so grateful because now my morning blood samples are drawn from the line instead.

 

 The central line

 

Today is the first day I feel semi normal again and not in pain, the chemo side effects are starting to slacken off and I have got my appetite back. I’m still so fatigued so I will spend the day in bed but hopefully I can start reading again. I had to have a blood transfusion yesterday because my haemoglobin levels were low and I can feel my cell count is a bit low today, hence the fatigue.

This has honestly been the toughest 10 days of my life- it has been so incredibly emotionally draining and I can’t wait to get out! I have so much to look forward to in the next few weeks, here is what kind of love and fun awaits me and is getting me through this tough time:

 

·         My kitchen tea

·         Valentine’s day (my favourite day of the year!)

·         Ingy and Craig’s wedding in CT

·         My Hens party

·         OUR WEDDING <3

·         My Birthday

·         Honeymoon!

·         The Arrival of our very first little Niece <3

 

All of the above happening in the space of the next 50 days, there's no reason not to smile! YIPPEE!

Every morning I read a page from my wedding countdown book that my special Bridesmaids made me- have a look at the page from yesterday <3 Had me in tears!

 

 

Aaaaand we are officially in the 30’s in terms of wedding countdown days- 39 to go! Have a lovely day friends!

xxx