Hotting Up!!!

Steve has now had in total 5 doses this week and they are hoping for at least one more tomorrow if not 2, which would bring the total up to 6 or 7.....


It  has been a terrible day with the side effects and when Steve was just starting to feel remotely normal, the next dose of HD IL2 was given at 5:30pm.

His temperature hit 40 today which is approximately 110 degrees! And with such a high temperature lasting hours and hours, his skin became incredibly red and his joints swollen.

All of the usual side effects were also out in force, the rigors (shakes) lasted longer then before and it took 125 mil of pethadine to stop them on both doses today. That is nearly 3 times the amount of pethdaine that it normally takes.



I almost go onto auto pilot with these side effects and ensure he has everything he needs to get through them as easily as possible but tonight a new one developed which made me realise how dangerous this whole treatment is.

Shortly after his 125 mils of pethdine, he became very incoherent and started to make painful sounds and his breathing became very erratic and almost like he couldn’t catch his breath but his eyes were shut. I watched him and tried to see if he would open his eyes but he couldn’t. I rushed to get a nurse and asked them to come quickly, Steve was quickly put on Oxygen and has remained on Oxygen for the last 3 hours. That was the most scared Ive been through this whole process I couldnt do anything to help and it really scared me that Steve was not able to respond.

I couldnt stop the tears from coming when the Doctor came in the room to monitor his breathing. It really shook me that he was trying to take a breath but couldnt. The Oxygen helped really quickly and Steve settled down and his moaning and erratic breathing stopped.

I can’t describe how amazing Steve is being about all of this, he still when asked by the Doctors how his doing, says he is okay. It made me think about the times people ask each other this question and how we respond.. I know going forward I will certainly complain less if I’m feeling under the weather or fed up! And yes Steve this is in writing so you can hold me to this!

I’m leaving in a minute as Steve is asleep now but just before he went to sleep, he said to me "We are going to be alright, you know that don’t you?" I want to believe we will be. I want to believe that this is the last time we see inside of a hospital again for a long time but know that isn’t and cant be the case, however being alright can be different things to different people , so for us, for now, hospitals and doctors visits are going to be part of our lives but that doesn’t mean that other things cant be alright, we have each other and 2 beautiful daughters, wonderful family and friends and we can focus on these things and above all Steve knows I’m there for him 100% and will battle with him against this cancer in what ever shape that takes and at the moment that is being here with him and getting him through the final 1 or 2 doses for this week..