Good morning everyone, this is my follow-up message that I referenced earlier. I will explain my title as the past 48 hours have been a little on the scary side with regards to coincidences. I sat down and wrote the “Gentle Lesson” message a couple of nights ago, as I explained my little review of the past week’s messages left me wanting to explain my situation a little better and more importantly talk a little about what lies ahead for me, specifically answer the question “what is my process from here”. This is something I have not really discussed at this point so it does need attention and as always I am eager to share. So to continue to “set-up” I wrote the message but did not send it immediately, for one reason or another I figured I would send it sometime later, which is something I NEVER do. In the past I write and send immediately. Having written my message regarding one’s behavior towards people and their serious situations I planned to also write a message titled “reality check” to give you all an idea of what really lies ahead for me. Kind of a two part message, which would see you receive the “gentle lesson” first and then a fairly accurate picture of how my life will be for the next many months. My primary intent behind writing to explain how my future months will be was and is to help you all understand that I have 22 months left in my recovery process and that as good as I feel and sound the reality is that I have a long road ahead of me.
I’ll explain more in a moment but first you should know that I am writing to you all from a room at Princess Margaret. I was re-admitted last night after a “ryger incident” which occurred very shortly after I finished supper. I am fine, very tired but feeling fine. My gut tells me that it is my fatigue which lead to my rygers, which are like intense shakes, you’ve heard me mention them before as I have had several “run-ins” with Mr. Ryger. Immediately after I stopped shaking I called the hospital, as I had to do, and Dr. Lipton, who was on call and is one of the more senior members of the Transplant team, instructed me that I need to come back into hospital as I could have a “central line infection”. A central line infection is an infection that is in my Hickman, as I have mentioned this is a relatively high infection area, one of the few drawbacks of the Hickman but it is a serious one. So I returned to hospital last night around 9:00 and went through the traditional process, ‘blood work’ and Cultures and am now resting.
What all this means: Through out my rygers my temp. never did rise, which is a very good sign as a rise in temp. is often a solid indicator that an infection is present somewhere. Dr. Lipton is also being very cautious, as he explained to me he would be the first time we met back in February. This is not a time to play the odds or take any risks what so ever so I am in the best place and will learn more over the next several hours and by tomorrow evening I will have the results of my Cultures. These will tell if there is an infection present, in the mean time I am receiving antibiotics and will be here for the next few days.
The past 5-6 days have been such a wild combination of ‘backwards and forwards’ it is frightening, my head has been ‘dazed and confused’ yet I have had some of the best thought processes with regards to my future since November, my plans to write and explain that I’m not “out of the woods” were interrupted by a return to the hospital, and I could go on… These are interesting times, know that I am fine and this is another bump in the road, I will progress through as I have in the past and will be back on my chosen path shortly. Due to the length of this message I have decided to save my thoughts with respect to my “22 month process” for my next message, which I will probably write now and send later.
Doctor Visit: Just saw Dr. Lipton and he informed me we will do another blood test to check for CMV, which is a virus that is present in the blood and can cause complications in Transplant Patient’s. It is nothing serious and is treated with drugs given through an ambulatory pump, which is the same kind of pump that I received pre-Transplant outpatient chemo. It is about the size of a walkman and you wear it in a hip sack. Again just a pre-caution, he is not overly concerned except that he obviously wants to get to the bottom of my rygers as he mentioned my past relationship with Mr. Ryger is his main concern. The next 24-48 hours will provide much more info and as always I will pass it along as I receive it.
I’ll be in touch soon, enjoy your day.
Geoff
#4
