Welcome to Tessa's blog

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Recovering

I have taken it rather slow lately. I have been to several doctor's appointments. After 20 days I am still on antibiotics. The situation is getting better every day but it will be a very long process. I have done some excursions, just to get out of the house. I have noticed that the two months I was unwell and didn't do anything have meant that I don't have much energy now. I get tired pretty fast and walking up stairs is exhausting.

The summer weather is here after a long and rather cold spring. It's about 20 degrees and usually sunny. My mother has moved to the summerhouse now.

There will be a Nelson family reunion in Milaca, Minnesota this year. The date is July 23. I am unable to attend because of my health but if any one wants to go I will share the details if you contact me.

Monday, May 15, 2017

Hospital stay

After the second injection of chemo I suffered basically the same side-effects as last time but I got a lot more fever now. The problem is that I didn't understand I was that sick. I didn't check the temperature since I thought it would pass without any medication, like the first time. I experienced two nights with chills and then I noticed the fever. It got worse by the minute and my heart rate was getting high and I breathed heavily. After calling the clinic they arranged for an ambulance to pick me up. It was an interesting experience. The ambulance staff asked me questions and I clearly noticed how difficult it was to give replies; my brain was deteriorating. They saw this and lead me to the ambulance pretty quickly. During the "priority one" transport the doctor slapped me every time I closed my eyes for more than a few seconds. He thought I was losing consciousness. At the emergency room eight people were waiting, two of them with antibiotics in syringes. They did of course already know about me. The doctor had sent the info from the ambulance. All is very high-tech these days.

After about an hour they had managed to slow the raging infection down with a massive dose of antibiotics. They took large amounts of tests on me and hooked me up to all sorts of machines. I had needles and cords everywhere. I didn't care about any of this. I was just glad to be alive.

Later in the evening I was moved to the oncology ward. They kept me there for eight days. Rather surprising, since there is a shortage of hospital beds. I was told my infection was very serious and that I should be happy there was still antibiotics to be found that had any effect on it.

I must say that all the staff members at the hospital were great, they deserve gold stars for all their hard work. I was a challenging patient because my veins do not cooperate at all. It's very difficult to draw blood from me. Even worse now when the chemo has destroyed the veins.

It's going to take a long time to recover completely from the infection, so the chemotherapy is on hold for now. My focus at the moment is just to get better, and it seems to be going in the right direction.