May 2014 - Another Trip Down to A&E - My Mysterious Fever

So my month of freedom was too much to ask for after all ! My cancer as usual dictates my life.
Yes you might say I brought it on myself but I had to try, try to stop this horrible illness from spreading through my body even further. I had to try and buy myself some more time before I ran out of all the options. After all when you are so close to dying thats when you realise how precious the life actually is and you want to do everything just to try and enjoy it for a little bit longer.

While I had "my month of freedom" I was on a search for alternative and experimental treatments. I had to do something as I know one day all my treatments will stop working

So I decided after some research  (along with my LDN therapy) to try Heat treated Mycobacterium Obuense. Luckily, my Prof of oncology is so open to new things and treatments too. So he gave me a go ahead to try some of those if I wanted to.

So I went to see professor of immunology for my Heat treated bacterial injections.
Its an injection given just under the skin of your upper arm and it should slowly stimulate your immune system. I was given a brochure to read on it and time to decide if I wanted to go ahead with it.
My uncle and aunty are both Vets in Canada and they have been using similar preparations on dogs and cats with cancer. The only possible difference is route of administration of those injections.

They ve approved them for use in London about 2 years ago from what I've gathered after reading about it. So I decided to give it a try

This was me on a day of my injection, having my veins warmed up for a blood sample with heat pad:

My friend Deesha came with me to keep me company. She made me laugh and her so chilled out attitude helped me greatly.
So we arrived to this swanky and very posh central London clinic. It seemed out of this world to me. Even when we arrived we had in my mind a "champagne reception". However its was only water with two glasses for us in a nicely presented tray !
Usual consent signing was scary ...as you re kind of signing your life away in a way. Then my dreaded injections came... They are still painful even after all this time ! and I must have had at least about 500 injections in various parts of my body in the past 2 1/2 years but you never get use to them and they still hurt like hell.
It amazing to think what human body can endure.

I had to stay in the clinic for an extra hour in case of allergic reaction and later I was free to go. Ive asked to get a copy of my blood results as well. At least they are improving a little !

When I got home I did have a little bit of reaction but I was told to expect that anyway.

So initially I felt fine. A friend of mine who I ve not seen for a long, long time now came from Oxford to see me and we had a fantastic time together, catching up on life and little life problems.
We had a really good walk, talk, we laughed a lot and overall I had a fantastic day with her.
Another friend had to cancel a trip to London due to tube strike (which later on was cancelled) and my good old friend Lizzie came to see me.
Unfortunately, the day she came I wasn't feeling that great. I had rather severe back/ muscle pain but I ve decided to push thru the pain. I wasn't gonna let this get to me and stop me from enjoying my day with her. We walked a lot but every now and than Id get those sharp, shooting and crushing pains despite of painkillers. But I kept on going.

This is me pushing and laughing through the pain:

Also I think my chemo Has Given me My Superpowers after all. With only one strand of hair Im Preventing a Shard building from tipping over ! Wonder Hair Woman I became....

By the way this was my sexy pose thru the pain !

On our walk we met an angry bird as well. My friend Kate reckons it might have been a bad worm ! If he lived in the country, that wouldn't be a problem she said !

So i had another fantastic day but little did I know that few days later Id end up in A&E yet again !

I had this high temp of 38C out of nowhere and severe muscle aches around my bum and lower extremities! I called oncology at 2 am in the morning. They asked me to go to A&E to have my bloods checked. I was hoping they would advise couple of painkillers....so reluctantly i got ready to go to A&E instead. 

As soon as I arrived by taxi they ve immediately got me thru. I hardly waited 2 minutes which was great. My nurse jokingly said that I was the first patient to walk thru the doors of A&E that night with a real problem. I came down on my own and I guess I wasn't looking my best and in a way she felt sympathy for me. Everyone immediately jumped and within a seconds I had more bloods done, was connected to IV fluids, IV antibiotics (meropenem) and IV paracetamols. Not long after I was sent for chest X-rays, ECG of my heart , urine sample and everyone was so attentive and kind to me. I arrived well equipped with all my medical info / current treatments including LDN and injections as well and they greatly appreciated it. However, they could not find the source of my mysterious fever. So I was sent home with advice to report to oncology the next day. My good old mum came to the rescue again as soon as she heard I spent a night in A&E.

I called my prof of immunology as well and he didn't think its was the injections but possibly start of something viral. There are a lot of people with a flu like symptoms around these day so it could well be that but I m glad that finally after 3 long painful days my temperature seems to be under control. 

Now I have to try and rebuild my energy slowly again 

At least my bloods have improved, hooray  !

This week was also sad as my last ties with my ex partner have been destroyed. Our frozen kids have been donated for research purposes. Again this was another reminder of what stupid cancer had taken away from me.

On 12 th May I get to find out what my cancer is doing to my body. Im so scared and dreading what they ll tell me. All the scans are done (Bone and CT). Im going in for results on monday and treatment planning. I would hate the idea of further chemo and at best I hope I ll be given hormone  tablets. Please cancer be gentle with me.

Wish me luck everyone !