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.

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.

Social club meeting

Last week I was feeling a little bit better and I managed to host the annual social club meeting on the Tuesday. It was a 15-minute meeting to get through the agenda. Afterwards a senior scholar gave a speech about his experiences in the Middle East, particularly Jerusalem. It was an entertaining speech. We also had a meal in our lunchroom and we continued talking there, of course.

I have done some short excursions this past week. One day I took the train to Helsingborg, just to have lunch. I have also been to the nearest mall to go shopping. I have been told to keep active but it's not easy. The weather has been pretty bad with high winds and rain recently.

Last week my hair fell off, so now I really look sick. I made an inventory of my scarves and decided to use some of them for headwear. It works ok. Tomorrow it's time for the next injection. Not something I look forward to.

Hell started

My last working day for a long time was April 5 - my birthday. This fact was not celebrated much. I bought a cake for dessert, that was it.

The next day hell started. It is necessary for me to get chemotherapy. No one who hasn't endured this can understand what it's like. The first week after an injection it's a matter of surviving from one minute to the next. The side-effects are horrible. They stuff you full of extra medicine and that has side-effects too. The first five nights I didn't sleep. Chemo messes with your entire body. It affects the digestive system, blood, nails, hair, skin, immune defense, etc. I had to go to the hospital because I had a blood value that was hardly measureable. I was isolated at two different hospitals for a couple of days (and one night). Incredibly boring. There is not a part of my body that hasn't ached. After 12 days I have started to recover but there will be more problems ahead.

My mother came to help me for a few days. She is surprisingly energetic. She planted flowers on the balcony, cleaned floors and windows and cooked for me. It was very nice of her. She didn't get to see much of me though, since I had to go to hospital several times.

Presentations

I have been busy at work with lots of meetings. Last week there were four. I have also spent the weekends at work but for personal reasons. Mostly to do research but also to host a visit from my sister and her friends this Saturday. There were six of them who had made the trip, organized by my sister. She had not told any one in advance what they were going to do or even where they were going, so it was all a surprise. I showed them the library and told some of the history of the university, which celebrates its 350th year right now. I had gathered a sample of our vast collection to show. There were pamphlets, catalogues, children's books, postcards, ads, an 18th century newspaper, some of Carl von Linne's dissertations, a journal for ladies dating back to 1862 and a few other items. Some rather weird. This was well received and one of the most fun presentations I have done. They all seemed to be interested in books, which was great. After this, I joined them for lunch at a restaurant. It was a very nice brunch with a generous selection.

Today I have also given a presentation but it was slightly different. I showed my colleagues from the ephemera department some of the un-catalogued material we have in the stacks. Normally this would be placed in the ephemera collection but for some reason it was never moved there. We have a fair amount of this "grey" material and I thought it would be a good idea to tell the staff at the ephemera department about it. They agreed. I had made a list of this material and brought a few items to show. It turned out to be a varied selection with material on math, medicine, political science, law and fiction.

I still have to go to several doctor's appointments a week. The after-care will last for months.

Back to work

It was very boring to stay at home those two weeks after the surgery. My colleagues missed me. At least I think so, because they sent me two large bouquets of flowers and two boxes of chocolate. Very nice of them. The wound is healing the way it should and the doctor is happy about the result. My biggest problem is the fact that I'm allergic to plaster of all kinds. I have tried about five different kinds but it doesn't help. The kind of sticky tape for sensitive skin I was recommended was itching so badly I removed it after only a few hours. You are really supposed to have some plaster on the scars for three months afterwards but the doctor told me to ignore that instruction. The itching would have made me crazy.

I did get some things done during my sick-leave. I went to a mall once and visited the archive center twice. There are always projects to do there, this time I looked at sailor's records. My great great grandfather sailed the seven seas but I have never looked him up in the sailor's lists. It wasn't as difficult as I thought, but the information given was meagre. The only thing I didn't already know was his listing as a cook onboard. I also asked for some old tax records and managed to write incorrect information on the call slip. It meant that they couldn't find the material. Slightly embarrassing. I hope the staff didn't understand that processing call slips is a large part of my job...

Today I returned to work. It wasn't overwhelming. I have just done some minor tasks like talking to people, making plans and answering e-mails. I was given three requests my colleagues hadn't been able to process and solved two of those cases. Heavy lifting is out of the question, so book retrieval is not possible right now.

Operation

Last week I worked Monday and Tuesday, basically tidying up my desk. I managed to hand in a report also, which my boss had asked for. Tuesday evening my father arrived. This was not the plan from the beginning but my mother got health problems and couldn't come. Early Wednesday morning my father dropped me off at the hospital. After a long series of examinations, tests and medicine I was wheeled in to the operation room around noon. It was quite an experience. They sedated me and I was completely out until a few hours later. I was of course in pain when I woke up but that was all. I thought that I would be wiped out for days afterwards. This was not the case at all. The surgeon came and told me everything had gone according to plan. My father came to get me at 6 PM and we went to the pizza place in my town. Not something I thought we could do either, just a few hours after surgery. But I was not so affected by this experience as I had anticipated. Thursday afternoon my father left again, after watching a (according to him) very interesting reality show about American loggers in Maine on TV. My father hasn't had a TV in about a year, so he doesn't know what there is to watch these days.

Since then, I have tried to take it easy. This Friday I went to the hospital for a check-up in the morning and stopped by work to join my colleagues for the morning coffee and sandwiches. Everybody was surprised to see me. I can understand that, since I had given warning I would be away for some time. Apart from this, I have mostly spent my time watching TV, solving crossword puzzles and reading that book about the DNA background of Europeans. It's quite interesting, I have to say.