DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) DAY 1
Well here we go again. Up at 06:30 for toast and jam and a coffee supplied by my partner before driving to the hospital for the 8 o’clock appointment at the DVT clinic. At least as a dyslexic DVT is less of a challenge than metastatic prostate cancer. I choose to drive and as sods law would have it we have the fastest run into the hospital that we have ever had. The entire car park is ours to choose from. So we manage to arrive before the night team have gone and the day team arrive. I hand my letter to a nurse and we sit and wait to be called. We both read. I also check my phone and Amazon account and notice some rather nice men’s Sketchers, I could not resist, so they will arrive tomorrow. Just after 8 o’clock a nurse reassures us that we will be seen soon and sure enough I get called. A very efficient and people skilled nurse takes me through the initial assessment and checks my details She looks at my calf and measures my thighs, not something that happens often, if at all.
The nurse explains that because of my cancer they are not bothering with the blood test they are going straight to a scan; they have a slot at 9:20. So having done the initial interview we wander off to find coffee. The café is still not open so we get water and paper at one of the hospital shops and return to the waiting area. My partner reads the paper and I continue to read Radical Remission. 9:20rolls around quickly and I get called to the scan room where a couple of technicians are looking at screens and the nurse bustles around doing the privacy dance with the curtains. I drop my trousers and get on the couch and the nurse covers the non-offending leg with paper towel. The lights go down and then the head tech goes into action. First it’s the bloody cold gel from top thigh to knee and then the magic begins.
It is true magic, the sort that makes my heart leap. There on the screen are my arteries and veins as clear as day. In my arteries the bright reds and yellow indicate a good blood flow but it’s a different story in my veins, just loads of white/grey stuff, no flow at all or very little. The probe is up at the top of my thigh and the technician plays hunt the end of the clot. He finds it and shows me the end both length and breadth ways. The clot extends from my ankle up wards, I try not to find this alarming and try to stay with the wonder of the technology but inside I am saying to myself “Fuck that’s a big clot” but I notice that the technician and the nurse seem to be taking this in their stride so I guess this is not unusual. Then all of a sudden it’s over, I am wiping scan gel off my leg and from under my knee pit and pulling on my jeans again. I feel like that was an easy one for them and I did not pose much of a challenge to them but I guess with a clot that big it was always going to be easy for a competent technician to find it. We are invited to wait while they sort out the findings report and get it to the specialist nurses. We sit in the waiting area, I do the crosswords and my partner goes off to find coffee, which she does quickly. There is no time for coffee as we get called in to the nurse specialist prescriber who begins to explain the outcome and the treatment in detail. I had been made aware that the drugs would be delivered by injection but I think I had pushed it to one side as I loathe the whole ritual of self-stabbing. She tells me that she will write to my GP so that the step down dose can be given after the first month. Medication (self-stabbing), would last six months due to my cancerous state. My partner calculated that this would be approximately 180 times and kindly informed me. The nurse very kindly got me started by giving me my first injection with the cheery words “its stings a bit at first but it’s not the needle it’s the drugs that do that”. She was not wrong, it did sting, more than I had bargained for. She put together my meds pack including a sharps bin and a letter for my GP having checked the blood results from my blood test earlier in the morning. Apparently my platelets were around 115 which was up on last time, so all well there then. I am hoping to see the ful results on “patient view” later when they update the system. Thankfully my partner was with me as she asked about the letter for the insurance. The letter was duly produced and printed out on headed note paper. So that was is it, I was to make an appointment for my bloods to be done at the GP in seven days’ time to check I was not having an allergic reaction to the drug and I would get a follow up letter in due course. The oncologist would monitor in the longer term and the GP would oversee the future drugs administration. So with two green bags full of drugs, sharps bin and paper work we left the department and headed for the car.
I drove into town and we went for an early lunch at the Cosy Club. Always difficult to make interesting conversation over a meal after the sort of morning we had just had. We ate our mains but the waiter had a good attempts at spilling the after meal coffee over me, luckily my lightening reflexes spurred by my memory of having hot chocolate dashed in to my crotch avoided any harm coming to me. I of course got a new and free coffee as a result. Bill paid we headed for home.
Home and the life admin started. I had already cancelled the holiday taxi for the early morning but now it was time to tackle Tui. I got through the usual maze of press button instructions till I got to a person who was sympathetic and did the cancellation effectively and sent a cancellation invoice to use with the insurance company. So holiday in the trash can it was time to go to the GP surgery. We walked down and found a lone receptionist who booked me in for the blood I need on Monday and at the prompting of my partner I also booked in for my B12 jab that I had to cancel yesterday for this very morning. So come Monday I will get them both done. A brisk walk back as it is getting colder and will rain soon.
Home and time to rest. I put my feet up, wrap my calf in a heated blanket and write the blog. One thing I am going to investigate as a result of this is yoga classes or retreats. Since seeing the programme that demonstrated the ability of both exercise and yoga to lower blood pressure, the latter by dilation of the veins, I am persuaded that it is something that I could benefit from especially now I know my cancer is a risk factor for DVT. I am hoping bendy makes me better.
