Cycle 2 - Day 2
The last 24 hrs haven’t been without drama…
My original bloods cannula gave up the ghost at about 8pm last night. It was so sore being tugged in all directions - the nurses had to move it about incase it was sat on a valve. They tried to get blood from it, tugging it, hanging upside down, heat packs, Tourniquets, syringe pumping, the works. In the end I had a fat wrist where the saline was building up around the muscle tissue of the site. Ouch. So they removed it. At 2pm the on-call doc fitted a new cannula - another Ouch! It was a big one and very very sore to touch - good to flush, but like before, wouldn’t deliver blood.
So we gave up with night time blood samples.
Today, the fat cannula was used for the micro-bubbles ultrasound. But still no blood. Again, majorly sore to attempt the torture options as listed above. It was removed and my arm is now swollen and bruised - another Ouch! The nurses then inserted another cannula into the back of the arm and so far, so good. It continues to give the blood samples the drug company require.
This afternoon the cannula in my right arm was used to receive the second drug. The trial protocol asks that the drug is infused over a 90 minute period. Unfortunately, due to a genuine mistake, the drug was infused in a speedy 30 minutes. Oops.
So far the team have done nothing but apologise - they’ve been worried that it may have increased my anxiety levels. Which it actually hasn’t, at all! The good thing is that I feel fine and all my obs are normal. There’s a lot of chaos going in these two days. It will probably have an impact on their data collection.
Right now, I’m all hooked up to the holter monitor again which is due to come off at 3:30pm tomorrow. So I should be set to come home by tomorrow lunch time and then venture back on Friday for more bloods. I can’t wait to get home to enjoy a lovely warm shower! I’m itching to get rid of all the sticky patches from the holter and the ECG.
Oh! and one more positive thing - my tumour markers have gone down. They’ve halved in fact. Good times :)
