IVE and Recovering

I started my IVE the same day as my line was put in I think from what I remember! Anyway it all seemed to go ok for the first few days. I was on ward with other people, none of them particularly young but all ok. Although on the first night I had this woman who had a different kind of blood cancer to me but she only had 2 years to live and kept talking about this! And also about her husband who had killed himself. Which was thrilling stuff to be hearing about on your first night! Needless to say I was sympathetic to her but what do you say to someone who tells you all this?! And on your first night when your pretty scared anyway!! But aside from that there was a lovely old lady called Margaret who was very ill at first but by the time I left she was well on the mend. And a lady called Sue who was bed ridden but again very nice. I was moved wards after a day or so but was with the same people bar sue plus another lady whose name I didn’t know and a young girl who was only in for one night and was a bit odd! There was some kind of bug going round on the ward so they moved everyone and deep cleaned everywhere!

The IVE was connected to me 24/7 for 5 days. So I was constantly on a drip which I did kinda get used too. The first few days passed by fine and I felt okish, was able to get up and use the toilet on my own and get around fairly well. But by the third day, the Thursday I think it was I started aching all over and feeling really weak, I was then sick, quite a bit and was exhausted and I don’t mean exhausted like you normally feel, I mean exhausted like I have never felt before, to the point where I was lying down with my drink on the table next to me and I didn’t have the energy to reach and get it. I was barely eating at this point and was put on a food chart as well as a fluid chart. I saw the dietician and was given more forti-juice to help me get the nutrients I wanted but I got the point where I couldn’t even drink those. I also saw the psychologist when I was in there but when I was feeling well, I now see her regularly as it helps.

By the Sunday I had improved slightly but I was still very weak, however the doctors said it was ok for me to go home once my chemo had finished that day and so I did. Not entirely convinced I should be going home but I was so sick of hospital I had to get out of there! Plus the ward was potentially riddled with infection and I think they wanted me out of there asap!!

Once I was home I was pretty much sleeping most of the day, I was really weak and mum and dad had to do pretty much everything for me. It was probably the worst time we had really. Slowly I began to improve but I didn’t ever feel any better than when I went into hospital and I started to wonder if this was a bad sign….