Tick, Tock 2
Things are progressing according to plan. Hair’s starting to fall out, so I trimmed my beard and head down so less accumulates on my bed. Rash is reducing itself with the help of the cream, and according to one of the doctors my lower lip now being dry and chapped is a good sign of improvement. I received a bag of platelets this afternoon, and tomorrow will be getting blood transfusions of two bags of blood.
Improvement Cream
One of the haemotologists said they want me to use something else on my lips, separate from just the petroleum jelly for moistening them. (Actually, a nurse and I both misunderstood and thought he was replacing the jelly with the cream, so I’m actually still trying to get the jelly back.) He gave me a prescription for Acic 5% Cream, used as an anti-viral medication for cold sores. I’m supposed to be applying it five times a day; maybe tomorrow I’ll have managed to come up with the routine which lets me remember properly. 😉
My daily routine now includes: 1) Acic cream for my lip five times a day; 2) Eumovate cream for the rash on my legs twice a day; 3) regular mouthwash with sodium chloride (saline) at least four times a day; 4) after the mouthwash a regular application of Mycostatin anti-fungal medicine for my mouth at least four times a day; and, 5) drinking a goal of 2 liters of water a day (and keeping track of my liquid intake, including soup).
This is separate from things like weekly events including busy Tuesdays with swabs, a full cleaning of where beds 4/5/6 are which involves moving all of our stuff out of the way and, usually, knitting in the hallway, and re-dressing my Hickman line (which also happens on Fridays).
Somewhere, a party’s goin’ on…
Jealous, much?
It was interesting, getting to move beds the other day. I found myself actually jealous of the other patient who was lucky enough to get discharged to go home. Today, I overheard another patient’s doctor talking about good news in his platelet count. I’m genuinely happy about their good fortune, but to be honest it just makes me impatient for my turn to have things go the same way. And all I can do is wait and hope.
To answer one question before it’s asked by others: no, we don’t know when I’ll be able to leave. It’s all dependent upon the relationship between my body and the chemo, and how they deal with each other. We’ll be repeating our exercise of watching the cell count numbers, looking for increases. But nobody can accelerate it.
Doesn’t mean we don’t want to… 😉
