This blog has now reached a certain maturity and with it stability. I post updates on Thursdays after the weekly visit to my doctor told me a bit more about myself and the progression of my disease. This regularity means that nothing bad has happened in the intervening days. No sudden deterioration of my health and no visits to the emergency department. This is what I thought when I optimistically prewrote this first paragraph on Wednesday night.
This week was a very good one. On Monday, for no good reason that I can figure out, I woke up feeling stronger and better than at any time since before Christmas. I ate more easily and had plenty of energy to take the boy to childcare. I wasn’t back to where I was last year, but it was a huge improvement to the weeks before. I was very happy.
The weekend had been all right, without suffering but also without feeling particularly well. I had the same issues with my stomach and my digestion that I’ve had for a while. Flucha kept urging me to go to the emergency room and get a CT. I understand that she wants to help (and also know about her theory that I have water in my abdomen), but if my state doesn’t change, it’s not really an emergency, is it? I promised I’d call the oncologist on Monday to request a CT, but in the end that didn’t turn out to be necessary because I felt so much better on Monday.
All changed on Thursday. I already didn’t feel too good in the morning. With the doctor’s appointment coming up in a few hours, I logged a half day of sick leave at work. I took the boy to childcare. When I returned, I rested a bit before wanting to take the shower that makes a visit to the doctor more pleasant for both sides. On the sofa in my office, I got colder and colder until I started shivering. I put on my puffy jacket. My body got warm. The shivering continued. It was like nothing I had experienced before. I was shaking everywhere. It was impossible to hold still. I was afraid to bite my tongue off. Finally I called the hospital to call off my appointment. I could hardly make myself understood.
My oncologist got back to me, urging me to report to the emergency ward. Something was seriously wrong. You just don’t shake like that. Taking the bus wasn’t really an option. He asked me to call an ambulance. It took me another ten minutes to find the strength to make that call. Again, communication was difficult. I was shaking so much, I was nearly impossible to understand. In the end, we figured it out. I put the phone down and not too much later, the shaking ended. The episode had lasted forty minutes.
The ambulance arrived soon after and took me up to the hospital. In the emergency ward, I was put in a bed right away. Doctors hooked me up to machines and did many tests. My temperature was elevated. They took blood from two different parts of my body. A bacterial infection was the prime suspect, bacteria that had invaded my bloodstream. Before knowing the results of the blood tests, the doctors already gave me antibiotics. Reading and writing about this now, it sounds as if the situation was not without its dangers.
I was later taken to a CT. This didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. The stent in the gall duct seemed in place, though the blood tests had by now shown elevated bile values. There must have been a temporary block. This might have caused bacteria to enter the bloodstream. After eight hours in the emergency ward, I was informed that I’d have another endoscopic procedure the next day to check in greater detail on the stent and to fix anything that might be wrong.
I will spend the night in an observation ward, my blood pressure taken every hour and my heart rate monitored through five electrodes on my chest and corresponding cables running to a machine by my bed. A clamp on one of my fingers makes sure my blood oxygen level is known to the nurses. I’ve got a few more doses of antibiotics. Above my bed is a camera. It feels a bit dramatic but is probably all for the best.
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