The Rollercoaster Ride of (VERY SEVERE) Man Flu
The weekend
seemed to be (Possibly, and don’t shout it) where I turned the corner? Saturday
was spent at OBR watching Ma play for the Mighty Cents and lose to a decent
Henley side. They should perhaps have won, but kept coughing up the pill at
vital moments. Carol and I had a pleasant night by ourselves with a rather nice
bottle of red and some sea bass. The best part of 10 hours sleep meant that I
was feeling fully refreshed on Sunday.
I decided to
see if I could get through the whole day wearing the Hands Free filter, as
previously I’ve only managed about 3 hours maximum before the air blows out of
the bottom, making it impossible to use. So, in it went at 9am and off I
trotted up to OBR to watch some of the Colts match. I spent about three hours
at the club, chatting to various friends who happened to be up there and
feeling far more like my usual self. Once I got home I prep’d and cooked a full
roast dinner, probably the first we’ve had since I came out of hospital. I
managed to eat a pretty good portion, including roast potatoes which have previously
been sticking in my throat. I eventually took out the filter at about 9.30pm.
In all that time I hadn’t needed to change the filter of the base plate, I was
a seriously happy chappy. That night I slept without a base plate in place and
just used an adhesive flappy thing to protect the stoma during the night. I was
going to leave it totally open to the elements, then thought what would happen
if Penny happened to bring a mouse in during the night, open the lounge door,
get upstairs, open our bedroom door, all the time keeping hold of the mouse,
jump onto my chest and drop the mouse doing my stoma.
One of the only
downsides of not wearing the Lary tube is that in the morning the stoma is,
shall we say, a tad “Messy”. The tube would channel any overnight gunk, whereas
the stoma doesn’t. Monday morning involved a good 20 minutes of prep’ing myself
for my first day back at the office. I always wondered how I’d feel about
cleaning the stoma myself, but it’s no real problem. I’ve a pair of hospital
issue tweezers that I can use to pull out any stubborn bit of gunk out of the
hole, and I use a (Clean) finger nail to scrape off any stuck down stuff near
to the hole. Making sure that it’s clean is important to stop any chance of
infections starting. Once I’ve manually cleansed the area I then use the
special skin barrier wipes which prepare the skin for the base plate. The final
act before sticking the plate on is to brush on a coating of silicon based glue
to the area on my skin where the plate will be stuck, let it dry of four or
five minutes and then whack the plate on, pressing from the inside to the
outside to ensure there are no air pockets.
The morning
continued the positive mood of the weekend. I booted up the work laptop and hey
presto I was into all the system and emails without any delays! Just over 800
emails in 12 weeks, just over 800 emails were deleted with a flick of the
mouse! (If they’re important they’ll write back). The only issue is that my
work iPhone still won’t work. The IT Helpdesk suggested I do a factory reset
and leave it for 24 hours, I wasn’t overly convinced, but followed their
advice. And 24 hours later it still wasn’t working….
I worked
through until lunchtime and then met a good friend from lunch prior to having a
kip for the rest of the afternoon. Daft as it seems, but sitting at a desk and
having to concentrate does tire me out. As with Sunday, I’d worn the hands free
all day and had used my voice quite a bit too. But by around 7pm I was
beginning to feel decidedly rough. I ate hardly anything for dinner and took
myself off to bed at 9pm after having a large slug of morphine. My neck,
shoulder and scars were all hurting and even my throat round where the tumour had been was painful too. (Which is
quite surprising as that part of my throat is probably in a jar somewhere in
Churchill Hospital).
Monday night
was awful, the morphine knocked me out until about 1am and then I was awake on
and off for the rest of the night. I could hardly move as my neck, shoulder and
throat were so sore. At this point the mind starts working overtime. Is this a
sign that “Its” back? When I eventually got up after Carol had left for work I
was feeling a little bit more human, but my throat was still incredibly sore
and I struggled to get my porridge down. Carol sent me a message when she got
to work apologising for giving me a bad night last night? It appears she also
had a very sore throat and was generally feeling like crap. So, panic over,
“Its” not returning, I’ve got a common cold! Well, when I say common cold, I of
course mean a severe case of man-flu. It’s Carol who’s got the common cold.
It’s bloody typical too, Max has gone down to see Laura in Exeter for a couple
of days, so our plans of swinging naked from the chandeliers has been scuppered
by a nasty little bug. As I was still feeling pretty rough as Tuesday went on I
again packed in work at around lunch time and relaxed on the sofa. The throat
was throbbing away, but I wasn’t having to clear out the stoma any more than
the past couple of days, so the positive vibe continues……
I was asked a
week or so ago if I’d ever met anyone else who’s had a Lary, other than the
guys I’ve met whilst at hospital, and the answer is no I haven’t. That got me
thinking as to how many people are there in the UK who’ve gone through the
process. It took a bit of digging around to find the answer. Wiki only quoted
figures from the USA where around 3,000 people each year undergo the process. I
eventually found what I was looking for hidden in the depths of an NHS Page. It
turns out, that as of 2016 there were only circa 5,000 people living in the UK
with a Lary. I don’t know why, but I had it my mind that the figure would be
much higher than that.
Tuesday night /
Wednesday morning were pretty dire in the Clark household with both Carol and I
feeling distinctly under the weather. Bed by 8.30pm, trying to sleep by 9pm.
We’re turning into an old married couple. One of the problems I’m having with
this severe dose of man flu is the inability to swallow properly, and therefore
eat properly. My throat has been as sore as it was in the dark days of Chemo
and RT. However, I’m still not having any problems with the stoma, it’s clean
and tidy in the morning when I get up, so, so long as this is just a severe
case of man flu then I’ve got to be happy with the progress I’ve made.
As my work
phone still wasn’t working properly on Wednesday morning (there’s a surprise!)
I called up the IT Helpdesk, the first call I made was I’m afraid totally
unsatisfactory, ok my voice wasn’t great on Wednesday, it was a bit “Gurglery”
but it wasn’t that bad. The first person I got through to kept saying “I can’t
understand you, please speak up……….” I hung up rather than spoke up! The second
chap was fine, he asked me to repeat myself a couple of times but didn’t sound
annoyed or bored with me, unlike the first operator. As I suspected, the
original advice of doing a factory reset was incorrect. So as requested I
emailed a specific team in out Tech Dept. and await their response. At the time
of publishing I’m still not able to recover any of my contacts / emails /
company apps on my phone and I’m now becoming annoyed. The rest of the morning
was taken up with mandatory training, form filling and trying to get up to
speed with my cases. I then turned off the laptop, sat on the sofa and promptly
fell asleep for an hour or so. This “Working for a living” lark is grossly over
rated!
By Thursday I
was getting thoroughly pee’d off with this “REALLY SEVERE” man flu.
Another dose of
“My mate, morphine” ensured I got to sleep quickly, but again, and I’ve no idea
why, I woke around 1am and struggled to sleep deeply again. I eventually
emerged from my bed around 8am, long after Carol had left for work, and I
didn’t feel too bad. I’d again slept with the flap over the stoma and was
pleased that it was pretty clean when I unpeeled. A quick clean and polish, on
with the hands free and another day beckoned.
Friday was a
much better day, I felt vaguely like a human again and had fewer coughing fits
than in previous days this week. The only continuing issue was the scar on the
left hand side of my neck which is quite swollen and very sore. Carol thinks
this could be due to the infection that caused the “REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, YES
REALLY, SEVERVE” man flu. I’ll bring it up with the Consultant next
week if it continues.
It’s been a
really strange week. It started off on such a high, plummeted downhill at a
rate of knots, all down to a case of man flu (Albeit a really severe case in
case you hadn’t got the point) ended back on an upward curve by the
time Friday arrived.
I think what
I’ve learnt this week is that if I’m going to be ill (non-cancer related) and
it has any impact on my head, neck or chest, then I need to be resigned to the
fact that it’s not going to be a pleasant experience and will have added knock
on effects. The trick will be not to panic, listen to my body and hunker down
on the sofa until whatever it is buggers off.
I realise this
hasn’t been the most upbeat blog posting I’ve written recently, and perhaps
some of the details haven’t been ideal tea time reading, but it’s a truthful
reflection of the week. Probably the worst week I’ve had since the tunnel from
Churchill was completed. So, a bit of amusement to finish with.
Regular readers
will remember Amy from the Rams Sirens team who broke her leg a few weeks ago.
Amy hasn’t been wasting her time whilst she’s been on strict non-weight baring
instructions from the hospital. She’s been reading up on various coaching
methods and signing up to some FB pages to get further ideas. One of the pages
Amy signed up to was England Rugby, nothing wrong with that you might think?
Until you know that Amy is rather Welsh, cut her and she’d bleed leeks! Her
“Liking” of England rugby drew some rather interesting comment on her FB page,
so as I was at a loose end I thought I’d show her how good she’d look wearing
the red rose and white shirt.
I also know
that Amy is a good sport who takes the ribbing in the manner in which it’s
delivered. Also, she’s wheelchair bound at the moment, so can’t catch me 😊
I’ve no real
idea as to what the weekend will bring, it will depend heavily on the weather
and how I’m feeling. The Rams 1st XV are making the relatively short
hop to Chinnor on Saturday, a fixture I’d normally drive over to in just under
an hour. I like Chinnor rugby club. Last year we were over there for a
returning students match. The barman noticed I was struggling somewhat with my
voice and instead of the usual “Heavy night was it?” quip, he actually asked if
I’d had it seen by a doctor. Some rugby clubs in the locality can be known for
serving “Home” supporters first at the bar, I’ve never had that problem over at
Chinnor. We may not be best of friends on the pitch, but after 80 minutes that
should all be forgotten over a pint.
As always,
thanks for reading.
To be
continued………
#Shoulder2Shoulder
PS - Did I mention I'd had man flu?
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