"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!!!" 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.
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