Tag Archives: spleen

Thursday 11th August 2016 – NOW HERE’S A THING!

Yes, having had blood counts recently of 9.4, 10.0 and 10.5, today’s blood count is … 11.9. And that’s without any medication whatever. It compares with the “normal” figure of between 13.0 and 15.0, and the count that I had when I was first diagnosed with lymphoma – namely 3.8.

In fact, the hospital was so impressed that the doctor refused to give me the blood stimulator that I have every visit, and I was thrown out without having even a pretence whatsoever of medication.

This is astonishing, as far as I’m concerned. And so is the hospital. The doctor has said that I’ll have just two more sessions of Mapthera and that will be that. The next session will be next Thursday – and they will keep me in hospital overnight to check for side-effects – and again three weeks after that, and then I’ll be done. If things go according to plan, I’ll just need a regular follow-up to check my immunity situation and that my blood count is holding up.

And this is causing me no amount of issues. Had I still had my spleen and my immune system, I’d be half-way home by now so you’ve no idea just how depressed I am by that. I’ve said before that it’s not going to be the lymphoma that will kill me but something that I will pick up that I can’t fight off. I can’t even vent my spleen about that.

And not only that, the time scale is all wrong. They don’t know how often I will need following up and the second helping of Mapthera coincides with the date that I leave here. So do I risk renting a studio for 10 months and waste the money by being allowed to go back to France? Or do I bank on going home and then have to come back every week or fortnight at whatever the expense of the journey might be?

But nevertheless, it’s a major step forward and you’ve no idea just how pleased I am by my news today.

Last night I had another miserable night – still awake at 02:00. I was up though at 07:30 for breakfast (and still no muesli) and even had time to go for a shower before setting off for the hospital – on foot af course because I’m feeling better. I picked up my injection, but didn’t need it so the hospital nurse took it back to the apothecary.

But as for the nurse who saw me, she was quite brutal with my catheter and I can still feel the pain even now. Ohh for Tara – the pretty little nurse on the ward where I stayed who was so gentle with me.

Back here in time for lunch (and yet another brisk walk in the rain) and then after a good chat with Liz I crashed out for an hour or two – properly too. I was well away.

Tonight, I finished off the pastries and potatoes and veg and it tasted just as nice as last night. I shall have to look into the idea of making my own vegan pies some time.

So tonight I’ll try – yet again – to have an early night. And hope that I’ll be on my travels again. I was off during the night and I was in the company of the girl who has been described on many occasions as “The One That Got Away”. She didn’t get away last night either – we were planning on visiting the north coast of Norway or Russia, but ended up on a snowy island like Svalbard where we spent most of the night encountering polar bears. And it was another night where I awoke in the middle of it all to go off down the corridor and then went back to bed, and to sleep, right at the very position where I had left off my ramble. That’s been happening a few times just recently.

But Ironically, just as last time she featured in a nocturnal ramble, there she was on the internet having sent me a message just about the time that all of this was going on. This clearly signified something, but I’ve no idea what it might be.

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Wednesday 23rd December 2015 – I KNEW THAT IT WAS A MISTAKE …

… to drink that half-litre of sparkling water with blackcurrant syrup last night. I was up and down like a yo-yo all through the night and I didn’t really have a very decent sleep because of it. Serve me right.

And the film that I saw – the James T Wong film – was the first time that I’d seen it. It was the first one of the series apparently and Boris Karloff had only a supporting role rather than the lead role that he had later in the series. And the film lost quite a lot because of it. The plot was rather thin and the denouément was rather weak.

Anyway, I was up at the usual time, had my injection and then had my breakfast. It was about 11:00 when everyone was ready to leave and so while they shot off to Montlucon and shopping, I went round to my house to check it over and relax for a while. Surprisingly (or maybe it isn’t), even though the day was grey and depressing, the batteries were fully-charged and the water was heating up nicely.

I headed off to Montlucon at about 14:00 and went to Carrefour, but I couldn’t remember what it was that I wanted to buy so it was rather pointless. And then I went off to the hospital.

16:30 was my appointment, and so I was seen bang on 17:45, and least I now know what they think might be up with me. Apparently I have a lymphoma of the ganglions, and the cure for that is quite drastic. They intend to take out my spleen. The spleen is also the organ that controls a great deal of the immune system and so while removing the spleen MIGHT (and only “might”) solve the lymphoma problem, it might provoke problems all of its own.

But it did lead to an interesting dialogue –
Doctor – “I’m afraid we are going to have to take your spleen out”
Our Hero – “Blimey – isn’t that a really difficult operation?”
Doctor – “Rubbish! Generations of surgeons have been taking the backbone out of politicians for almost 100 years! It’s child’s play by comparison!”

Anyway, after the holidays, they will arrange an appointment for me with the surgeon and the anaesthetist and we’ll see what happens then.

So rather chastened by the news I headed back here to tell Liz.

Liz – “Are they going to do that here?”
Our Hero – “No Liz – not in the kitchen”

To cheer me up, there was home-made ice-cream. The strawberry was excellent but as for my inspiration of the choco-mint-chip (made by the simple expedient of grinding up a mint-chocolate bar into a litre of coconut milk), it was astonishingly good. I was amazed.

At least that cheered me up. And I needed cheering up too because that wasn’t the only bad news that I had had. I mentioned to the doctor the story about the twice-daily injections and she confirmed that unfortunately they do have to continue.

So I shan’t be having my lie-in after all. Drat and double-drat!

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