Ovareactions

Other than my near-death experience, the first few days of chemo at Charing Cross went relatively smoothly. I quickly adapted to life as a chemo patient. Sit-down showers with a glove-plastic bag combo covering my cannula and jacket potatoes for lunch every single day became the norm.

Of course, it wasn’t all plain sailing. I cycled through a range of side effects. On day 2, my skin was covered in red blotches and I’d put on 10kg. The nurses actually questioned whether the scales had broken because it was such a significant weight gain. My face and legs ballooned, and Lambros had to explain to the doctor that I didn’t normally look like this. The cisplatin had caused major water retention, and because I was just lying there, it wasn’t really going anywhere.

By the third day, the lack of sleep was getting to me. I was absolutely exhausted but trying to get proper sleep when nurses are doing your obs every couple of hours, other patients are snoring/screaming/sobbing, and steroids are pinging you WIDE AWAKE is tough. I was also starting to get tightness in my chest, which after looking into it, the nurses put down to anxiety.

I was starting to really get cabin fever by day 4. One of the other patients told me about Maggie’s Centre so off I went, desperate for a change of scenery before that day’s treatment started. As soon as I stepped into Maggie’s, I instantly felt calmer. It was a beautiful space and although it was on hospital grounds, it felt like another world. I was greeted by a friendly face and a cup of coffee, and just sat there chatting until I got that dreaded call from one of the nurses to say my chemo drugs had arrived. The rest of my day was not so calm. I had to have a new cannula which is always one of my least favourite activities. By the evening, my chest felt really tight and I was short of breath, which resulted in a 2am ECG and blood test. Everything came back normal; again, it was anxiety that had caused the symptoms.

As if the whole chemo thing wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t even have a decent cup of tea. I’m sorry if this offends any Londoners reading but your tap water is gross and Birmingham tap water is elite. It goes without saying that hospital food is generally not great¹. Toast and jacket potatoes were my safe foods. I also ate a lot of ice-cream and crumble with custard. Lambros would bring me food every evening, usually a salad from M&S so I could have a bit of relief from my exclusively beige food diet.

By day 5, I was so ready to get out of there. I managed to get out to Maggie’s again, this time with Lambros in tow, before starting on my final infusions of the week. The Prof came to see me and gave me the news I’d been hoping for; the QE in Birmingham had agreed to take on the rest of my treatment. I’d have my bleomycin infusion at Charing Cross on Monday, and after that, no more trips to London. It was a massive relief. As if chemo wasn’t disruptive enough anyway, we had been looking at the very real possibility that we’d have to base ourselves in London for the next 9 weeks. The logistics, the cost, my cat! So, you can imagine my relief at being told the rest of my treatment would be in a hospital a 10-minute drive from my house. It wasn’t goodbye from Charing Cross though. They would still be overseeing everything from afar. I’d still need to send them blood samples every month and have monthly phone calls with them. It was reassuring to know that so many experts were looking out for me.

My treatment that day ran late. My bloods showed I had low calcium so a calcium transfusion was added into the mix, meaning I couldn’t go home that evening. On Saturday, I was up and dressed bright and early, eager to leave. I had my pre-chemo bloods and Covid test, ahead of Monday’s round, and then I waited. I waited and I waited. I was given two massive bags of medication to take with me. And then I waited some more. Eventually, one of the Prof’s registrars came to see me.

“What are you still doing here?!”

The nurses had been waiting for a doctor to discharge me. The doctors didn’t know this. A whole day I could have been recovering in a non-hospital environment, I was just sat waiting. It was about 5:30pm before I was finally free.

Back at the hotel, Lambros resumed his nurse duties, giving me my nightly injection in my stomach. Apart from the nights I’d been in hospital, he’d been doing this daily since my surgery. First, injecting me with a blood thinner to reduce my risk of blood clots post-surgery, and now, a white blood cell booster to help strengthen my immune system. He was completely unfazed by it. I know I would have been freaking out if it was the other way around. We were running out of non-bruised space on my stomach to inject and I moaned about it every time, but he took it all completely in this stride.

The next morning, I was wide awake watching re-runs of The Bill at 6am. We managed to get out and walk for a bit, and then the fatigue hit. I thought I knew what tired was until I experienced chemo fatigue. It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a very slow walk back to the hotel. The rest of the day was spent watching Crufts (which I became obsessed with).

Monday came around too quickly and I was back at Charing Cross again. This time, on the chemo day unit. It was a very different set-up to the comparably cosy ward I’d been on the previous week. A long, stark room with rows of reclining chairs on either side. After seeing one of the registrars, I was set up for a full day of bleomycin. There’s a specific sort of boredom when you’re in hospital. You want to be distracted and entertained, but can’t concentrate on anything. You try to sleep, but there’s too much going on. I jumped at the chance when a student doctor who was on an oncology placement asked if she could chat to me as part of her learning, just so I could have something to do for a while.

As the day progressed, I felt my throat getting sorer and sorer. By the end of the day, I could barely swallow. I mentioned it to the nurse discharging me. She took my temperature, which was normal so she wasn’t concerned. She didn’t even look at my throat and I was too out of it to even realise that this probably would have been the normal thing to do. If she’d looked, like I did when I got back to the hotel, she would have seen the huge white lumps which had formed on my tonsils. I took my temperature again. This time, it was high. Before starting chemo, you get given a ‘red card’ which has the details of a 24/7 hotline on it. The Prof’s story of the patient who had ignored their high temp and subsequently died played in my head, so I called. No answer. I was pretty sure I was going to be told to come back into hospital, so we decided to start making our way. I called again. This time, a nurse answered and I explained my symptoms. To my surprise (and relief), she advised paracetamol and an antiseptic mouthwash, so we diverted to Tesco to get the goods. Luckily, this worked; my temp came down and the pain in my throat started to ease.

This meant we could make our way back to Birmingham the next morning. By this point, I was really starting to feel the effects of 6 days of chemo. I described it to Lambros as ‘the worst hangover ever’. I spent the entire journey nibbling Ritz crackers like a mouse, trying not to vomit.

My time at home would be short-lived. The next day, I was due at the QE to meet my team in Birmingham for the first time. Here we go again.

¹My friend who worked in hospital catering at the time gave me a top tip. Ask for the ‘cultural menu’ and you’ll have loads more options, which are often much more interesting and tastier.