Healthcheck

I have had a bit of a setback. On Monday my Hickman line was flushed as usual without incident, but around 4 hours later I began to feel unwell. I had a headache, I thought I was going to have a rigor although it came to nothing, my limbs began to ache and I became flushed. My temperature had gone up to 99.6 and I called the hospital.

Both they and I thought a line infection was a possibility though I had a flu jab a few days ago, and I was certainly incubating a cold. Obviously I needed to have blood cultures taken, but they decided that it would be sensible to keep me in over night in case this was a Gram negative line infection.

I spent a very uncomfortable night in hospital. At first my temperature rose to 99.8 with a pulse rate of 114. My BP was normal and I was sneezing and coughing. I only slept for about three hours and by the next morning I was quite cross from lack of sleep, in part due to my cold, but in part due to the ward noises and the fact that a light above my bed and been on all night.

My temperature had settled to 98.4 the next morning and my pulse to 90. I felt better in myself and was anxious to go home.

Today, I had to go in again for my pre-chemo assessment before the next dose on Saturday. The Registrar greeted me with the news that a gram negative bacterium had been grown from my blood culture and that the line would have to come out. Rather than wait a couple of hours to have it removed, I went home for lunch and when I returned the decision had been changed. I was to be started on a course of antibiotics and they would review the decision when the bug and its antibiotic sensitivities had been identified. So I am up in the air at the moment band not sure where I will fall.