About a week after being discharged from hospital in July, Steve started to get severe pains in his chest. We had no idea what these pains were or why they were happening, but it was completely debilitating. It happened a few times a day/night to begin with, and he'd be keeled over in agony. There didn't seem to be any lasting effects from the pains - they came on very suddenly, lasted up to a minute and then disappeared just as quickly as they started.
After a few days, the pains were becoming more frequent and more intense.
I had to call an ambulance on two occasions because he fell to his knees and appeared to be struggling to breathe. He was given gas and air on the way to the hospital for the pains but it did nothing to help.
In total, we went to the hospital 4 times regarding these pains. Obviously, each time, we explained Steve's medical history and that we were aware of a tumour around the area where the pains were occurring.
Three times, he was told that he'd probably just pulled something playing golf or when carrying one of his nephews when they'd come to visit. We always reiterated that he had cancer on his left lung where the pains were, and on one occasion an x-ray was performed, but this didn't show anything. They looked for further signs of infection following his recent hospital admission for the Staphylococcal infection in his blood but found nothing.
Steve was sent away with bottles of morphine each time, and each time the bottle was almost empty by the following morning. We went to our GP in the hope that they could prescribe something stronger to deal with the pain and he was given different forms of morphine based medication, but nothing seemed to touch the pain he was feeling.
Eventually, we managed to get an appointment with one of the oncology doctors, who arranged a CT scan. The pains had now been happening for around three weeks - none of the pain relief had been anywhere near sufficient and the doctors seemed to be shrugging their shoulders and not knowing what to do.
The CT scan showed that the tumour was pressing on nerve entrances, causing the intense pains.
Further medication was provided, and although it helped more than the previous methods, Steve was still experiencing a lot of pain several times a day.
Finally, in October, a routine CT scan was carried out (these pains had been going on since he left hospital in JULY!) and when we met with the oncologist to discuss the results, he could clearly see how much Steve was suffering and arranged for Macmillan to contact him immediately.
We're now in mid-November and the pain is *almost* under control - he has a combination of different drugs to take, and takes a minimum of 2320mg per day in total - some of his drugs are to be taken as and when needed, so often he exceeds this amount.
As I said in my previous post, the upcoming trial drug Steve will be on aims to reduce all symptoms of cancer, so hopefully the pain, fatigue, loss of appetite etc caused by the cancer will e eradicated. This is due to start within the next week or two, so I'll do my best to keep up to date with the blog and report back on how it's going!
Lots of love,
Xx
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