Denise has had an intermittent cough for a few months now. It comes and goes in bouts. She took it to Romina a couple of weeks ago who diagnosed an upper respiratory tract infection. Romina put Denise on antibiotics. Oops, she turned out to be allergic to Rulide so she was put back on the roids (Oh Joy! Oh Joy! - prayers were said for my safety).
On Tuesday Jan 17th Denise made one of her regular treks to the RPA to see her oncologist. As usual, Denise being Denise, she refused my offer to drive her and took public transport. She sang her old song "It Only Costs Me $2.50 With My Opal Card So I Am Using Public Transport". All went well at the clinic - no paraproteins so no myeloma. She had a CT scan to check the carcinoids on her lungs and jumped on a bus back to Central. The Newcastle Flyer got her to Epping and she climbed on the M54 to Carlingford. That's when it all turned to shite. By the time she walked up to number 10 from the bus stop she had a raging fever, felt like the proverbial and began throwing up. I was blissfully unaware of these events but luckily Kate was at home.
I walked into the Vestibule of Hell at 6:30 - "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" - Google is your friend. Denise was throwing up fluid, had a temperature of 38.9 and was a tad pissed off with the world. I took her blood pressure and got 3 readings of high 50's over high 38's. I called 000 and was put through to an ambulance triage nurse. We went through all of the questions on her check-list and I told her about the BP problems. The nurse said she didn't think there was a need to transport D and told me to take her to Romina on Wednesday. With the benefit of 20-20 hindsight I see that I should have insisted that ambos be dispatched to make an assessment of Denise at home.
Come Wednesday morning she seemed to have improved, not dramatically, but improved. I got her in to see Romina at 11:30 and by that time she had started to go downhill again. Romina took one look at her BP and said "I know you don't want to do this Denise, but you're going to the RPA.". She gave us a letter and off we went - back to where it all began.
Denise was assessed and then treated in the emergency unit. They put up a couple of bags of fluid, took some x-rays, took blood for testing, put up a general purpose antibiotic and worked their usual magic. As I've said before, if anyone ever slags off at the RPA staff to me I will drop em where they stand. The nursing staff are wonderful. Anyway, around 16:00 Denise was moved down to ICU, aka: The Dungeon. One of the ICU doctors had already talked to us in the emergency unit so both of us knew the score. Once Denise got settled in she started to go febrile, not convulsing but shaking all over and very anxious. The doctor in charge got the the drips removed - antibiotics and noradrenaline - and hit the phone to one of his associates to talk about possible complications with the drugs and carcinoids. The outcome was that all of the drugs they were using were replaced and Denise became stable within 30 minutes. All was well and still is.
When I left at 21:30 she was getting back to her stroppy self and laughing and joking with me and her nurses. The chest x-rays taken in EU were compared with those the RPA had on file from last year and no changes in the carcinoids were evident. The next step is to isolate the infection and introduce a specific antibiotic rather than perform a general purpose treatment. Once Denise is stable and the infection has been identified she will be moved to a ward.
As always, she doesn't want any visitors until she says so. I have been told that I will be singing soprano if I allow anyone to visit her while she is in the ICU. I am in Cairns and Blake, Kate and Tahira will be visiting her regularly. To paraphrase the great Jeff Fenech again, she loves yez all but she ain't ready to see any of yez yet. By all means call her on her mobile. I will update this again later tonight or tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment