4 Doses and counting ……

Steve has just had his 4th dose of the Interlukin and he is getting use to know what to expect.
Typically after about 2 hours the side effects start to kick in. The worst at the moment have been terrible shaking which takes over his whole body. It is so violent that it makes the whole bed shake.
The shakes seem to be getting worse as after the third dose the pethadine did not work enough for them to stop, so he had to have a further couple of doses.

He has also had some problems with his blood pressure where it goes to low and they are monitoring it every 15 minutes. A couple of times it has dropped below 100 and they need to give him some fluids which then brings it back up. He has also suffered with a very high temperature and at one point it hit 40! But again the staff are fantastic and are very quick to react to all of these things.

It is a world away from our experience of St Peters our local NHS hospital, the staff are so professional and friendly. Their also appears to be more staff than patients. Steve is the only person having this treatment in the hospital this week but as this is a cancer ward they are use to dealing with people going through extensive treatment.

I’ve also been keeping a diary of all of the medicines, temperature, blood pressure readings and side effects. I think the staff think I’m mad but it means that I can be proactive for Steve and ask for medicines to help him before he suffers with the side effects, which they don’t mind at all.
He will have the 5th dose if all goes well with this one at about 2am. The maximum doses he can have are 14 but they are aiming for 10 and the doctor said he would be very happy with 8.

Steve is in and out of a sleepy state most of the time and so isn’t up for seeing or speaking to anyone but I’ve been passing on everyone’s well wishes and he looks so cute in his new blue stripped pyjamas bought specifically for the hospital stay!