Tuesday 16 May 2017

Here we go.

Those readers who know Mike and I on Facebook will already know that late on Saturday afternoon Mike got a call from Heartlands hospital saying they had a bed. It wasn't our first choice of hospital, but as Mike's numbers were steadily rising and there was little hope of a bed at the QE we had little choice. The biggest problem is how inaccessible it is unless you happen to live that side of Birmingham. We knew that I would only be able to visit maybe once or twice a week rather than every day. Still we put on brave faces and managed to get through Sunday, and then yesterday I visited and sat there as they gave him the melphalan. I left Mike in good spirits and planned to keep in touch via messages on our phones and the occasional phone call until Thursday when I would visit again. We both knew it would be the last chance to have a reasonable conversation before his counts bottomed out and he became ill.

What we hadn't planned on was his reaction and accompanying infection. By the early hour Mike was feeling very poorly with nausea and a high temperature. By the time he had eaten breakfast and sent me a good morning the nausea had become full blown sickness. The took him off to dialysis and that is the last I heard from him. It seems the radio silence has started far earlier than we had hoped and all I can do is sit here and cross my fingers that they manage to get the infection under control and that the stem cells he is due to be having as we speak do their job. 

I have been a blubbering wreck 10 o'clock this morning.  I thought after the last time we knew what to expect, I was wrong. 😭

UPDATE: At 19:30 today Mike was taken to ITU. Hold tight it's going to be a bumpy ride.