I haven't lasted a day without having a fever attack, despite the removal of the Hickman's line. Developed a bit of a lung infection, which explained the cough. The fever spikes, however, are getting lower and lower. Which is better than nothing, I guess.
On one of the nights, I had a horrible chill attack. It didn't feel cold, but I was shivering like mad. It turned out that a medicine (Ampho-B) that was supposed to run for 4 hours plus was given to me within less that 2 hours. The chills were horrible, horrible, horrible!!! I will never trust that nurse again.
I partially got over the loss of the Hickman's line. Thought of a few good things about it gone (although it took me a few days):
- less fevers
- people won't wonder why my chest looks uneven
- being poked with needles for blood samples isn't too bad
- err...will think of more things...
Anyway, I just would like to share an experience I had a few nights ago about the attitude of an M.O. here. I was having one of those fevers, quite high, about 39.8 degrees Celcius. In cases like this, the staff nurse will have to call the MO (Medical Officer) On-Call to do a blood culture on me. It's basically just taking a sample of your blood, and putting it into a couple of bottles to be sent to the microbiology lab. So, a couple of hours after the nurse took my temperature, the MO finally arrived. He had a look on his face as if i disturbed him from sleep or watching EPL or something. After he cleaned the part of my arm where he wanted to withdraw blood from, he asked me to turn my arm a bit. Apparently I didn't turn my arm up to his satisfaction, so he took it (roughly, I might add) and fixed the position to his liking. I mean, as a doctor, couldn't he be more gentle? It's not like I want to have that fever or be in this hospital at all!! Anyway, I was so pissed so I just did not look at his face. My mum was also quite shocked at that kind of behavior. I have a couple of other incidents with this unkindly person, but let's save it for another time. The consultants here are always kind and gentle to the patients, I don't understand why he cannot observe and learn from them. So in the end we just concluded that maybe he was forced by his father to study medicine (when he wanted to be in fashion school maybe), hence the attitude. If a person can't be bothered being kind to a patient, then don't bother being a doctor. To be in this profession, it must be your PASSION to help people. If you don't have that in you, then just go do business improvement projects like me.
Ok, enough complaining. Good news today. My total white blood count went up to 5.2 (avg 4.0-11.0). Alhamdulillah and Yay!!! Although it wasn't without a bit of cheating. I was given a drug called GCSF, that is supposed to induce the growth of white blood cells. The better news is that the doctor said that there are no more blasts seen from my blood film, but we'll get a better picture from my next bone marrow test scheduled after Hari Raya. More Alhamdulillahs and Yayss!! I'm also drip-free starting today, since they took off all IV drugs and switched me to oral antibiotics. They suspected that my fevers may have been drug-induced..which could happen to some patients given too many antibiotics.
For now, I'm hoping to sustain my blood counts tomorrow so I can get the hell out of here!
ciao tutti!
