Pt 2: the funny side of my ordeal

Well you know me by now. With my trusty side-kick by my side, Mum, there is always a giggle to be had. Now i must warn you, for those who have squeamish tummy's or don't like the word shit stop reading now!

About two days into my hospital stay i started to develop an awful tummy ache on top of everything else and the morphine wasn't controlling it. This wasn't a pain as such, more a discomfort. Every time i ate or drank it would get stuck in my chest as if it couldn't go down. A bit like getting a lump of dry bread stuck in your throat. Also my stomach was starting to go hard and stick out so they sent me off for a x-ray. I was absolutely scared stiff that i had fluid in my abdomen from the cancer or worse still another tumor having a growth spurt and pressing on my stomach. A couple of hours later my lovely little ward doctor, Jess, came in to give me the results, my bowels were backed up! Like most women i do tend to suffer from constipation quite often but keep it under control with lots of fluids and fresh fruit. Unfortunately though with all the drugs i was on and practically being bed bound this had made it worse. The x-ray confirmed it and made it official...I was full of shit, literally!! Now, in the past I've been told I'm full of ideas, full of knowledge, full of lip and even full of mischief but never full of shit! I couldn't help but laugh until the laxatives started. Bearing in mind i was hooked up to a blood transfusion machine, a morphine pump and oxygen, this soon became something from a comedy show.

It began with one sachet mixed in with my glass of water after breakfast. That will shift it, i thought! Next was a sachet in my glass of water after my dinner. Ha! That will shift it, but i was so worried i would block the toilet. I was in a single room with my own bathroom, thank goodness, but it wasn't like i could blame anyone else. Fortunately it did start shifting but clearly not enough because for the next three to four days i was being given a sachet in my glass of water with every meal. I remember thinking, "for Gods sake, how much shit can one person be full of!?" and then it came...the jug! I'm not even joking when i say this but they put six sachets in a 500ml jug and i had to drink it within four hours!! The nurses called it a purge or surge.Whatever it was called I'm sure those bitches were laughing, mind you i was by that stage too because every time i went to the toilet i had to unplug the blood transfusion machine and the morphine pump (both of which would beep with an alarm like a tracking device so everyone knew where i was) and then the oxygen nasal cannula, so planning ahead was essential. At one stage the urge came on so fast i managed to unplug the machine but forgot the nasal cannula and nearly ripped my nostrils clear off my face. I couldn't giggle about how funny it was in case i shit myself. I was spending 60% of the day on the toilet and my poor little botty was getting sore but now with the surge i may as well take my pillow in there. All i could think was that must have been one massive shit the radiologist saw on the screen. Guinness book of records style. Fortunately though there was no more. Nothing. I was no longer full of shit!

The pain that brought no tears...

Have you ever been in hospital, in excruciating pain and the doctor asks you,

"On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the least and 10 being the most pain you've ever been in, what would you rate yourself?"

Well a couple of Fridays ago at 2.30am, i experienced 10x10x10x10!! As usual, when all is quiet on the home and health front, i woke up with a tummy ache. Within five minutes that ache turned into a pain and started riding round my back. On my 'old' pain scale i would have classed it a 4, bearable. So I got up to take some Paracetamol and snuggled back down into bed. Ten minutes later my 4 had become a 6, so i got up again took some Codeine and thought "that'll knock you on the head you little shit", and snuggled back down into bed. Another ten minutes of tossing and turning in my bed later, my pain was now a 9 and i knew something wasn't right so i got up and took oral Morphine. The pain in my back was excruciating and i didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't lay down, i couldn't sit, i just found myself walking around the room or leaning against my wardrobe swaying my hips like i did when i was in labour. Then the vomiting started! The pain was getting worse by the minute and was a serious 10+ by this stage and because I'd been sick i didn't know if the pain killers would still be in my system or not so i called the on call doctor. He was going to ring back as soon as he could so at that stage I rang Mum, my 'safe face', to get her round.

By the time Mum got there, ten minutes later, i was on all fours on the bedroom floor vomiting and groaning in pain saying "oh my god, oh my god, oh my god", the pain being at least 15 out of 10 and that's when i told her to call the ambulance. They were literally there in five minutes and funnily enough that was when the on call doctor rang back! From then all i can remember is thinking breathe Lisa the pain can't get worse than this...but it did, i would think again, breathe Lisa the pain can't get worse than this...but it did! It got to the stage I thought how much pain can a human body take before it gives up? The paramedics gave me gas and air which didn't touch the pain, but concentrating on my breathing and biting and screaming down that tube was giving me something else to think about. Mum couldn't come in the ambulance so she followed behind with Joe in the car. I was so scared that that was when i realised i was in so much pain i couldn't cry. I really did think my battle with this terrible disease was over and my poor Mum and Joe had to see me and remember me in that much pain. From then on I don't remember much else.

I came to in A&E, hooked up to all sorts and being injected with god knows but i didn't care as long as they took the pain away. On the pain scale i was buzzing but it was still at least a 7. According to Mum, aka Connie Beachamp from Holby City, my blood pressure was very low and my heart rate was very high. I was put through a CT scanner only to find that i had internal bleeding coming from my Adrenal Gland. This is where my hope and faith got a shake up and that bloody hypothetical 4x2 plank of wood that smacks me round the head occasionally had now become a railway sleeper!

Over the weekend i remained in CDU where they tried to maintain my blood pressure and get on top of the pain until Monday when i was moved to the Oncology ward. That's when Dr Alice came in and i could tell by the look on her face it wasn't good. Apparently the cancer had spread further and the mass on the Adrenal Glands had grown quite substantially which is what caused the left one to bleed. Alice had never come across an Adrenal Gland bleeder before so an Endocrinologist had to be consulted with because the Adrenal Glands excrete Cortisone which raises blood pressure and because mine wasn't working that's why i was dangerously low, also the fact that i had had internal bleeding didn't help. I tried joking telling Alice "i told you I'd make you famous", but inside i was so scared. It was explained that the capsule of an Adrenal Gland is like the skin of a grape and it has no pain sensors so it stretched and stretched till it couldn't stretch any more and that's why i didn't feel it growing until it bled. As if that information wasn't enough, we then had to have the 'rescusatation' talk. Wow!! I was not expecting that! Thank God mum was there to take it all in as well because all i could think was "this isn't right...i haven't been in any pain for months... i felt well up to now...it wasn't in the tea leaves...I'm not ready to go!!!" 

Dr Alice was fantastic and as compassionate as she could be. She explained that because of the uncertainty and rarity of my 'little bleeder', there was a chance that the Adrenal Gland could hemorrhage again but more seriously next time which then could cause my heart to give out. As a rule I'm pro-life. Take any measure, do anything just save me but she explained that because i have a young healthy heart, if my heart were to give out it would be because something more serious had given out on the inside and that even if they could resuscitate me i could just end up on life support and not be myself anyway. Looking at it from that point of view put a different light on it so I opted for the 'do not rescusatate'.

I found myself in shock for a couple of days. I was crying for no reason, but i had every reason. I always thought if this damn disease did get me, i would just start getting more and more unwell and know my end of life was coming but now it had been explained as if i was a time bomb. In my mind i was weighing up the pros and cons to both scenarios....firstly my body shutting down over a couple of weeks while i was so high on morphine i couldn't function or secondly going out with a bang when the adrenal gland burst and my heart giving out. I did decided option two was better but then i had to explain this to Joe so that he was prepared if it happened again. This was heartbreaking.