Woke up about 5.30 am feeling really bad, I had an excess of mucous at the back of my throat which I kept trying to clear and was causing me to gag. But even worse was wind coming from my gut that I had to keep belching to clear, this left me with a sharp pain in the middle of my chest. I tried going back to sleep but couldn't get comfortable and after 20 or 30 minutes the symptoms came back and again I had to sit up and keep belching and clearing my throat. Eventually I did drop off for a short while but by 7.00 am I decided to get up and set up a visit to my GP. Her surgery opens at 8.30 am but after 10 minutes of phoning I could not get connected so having had breakfast I cycled to the surgery and saw the receptionist and got an appointment for 11.10 am straight away ( This is how we normally get appointments on the day). Meanwhile I got together the records of my daily blood pressure that I had been taking to show my GP as instructed by my nurse on Wednesday.
The GP that I saw was a young male locum, normally all our practice GPs are female. Firstly he checked my blood pressure which he observed was higher than the readings that I was taking. The reading was something like 163/80 and he decided that I should immediately start taking blood pressure tablets. He then checked my ears as I was having trouble with excess mucous and blocked ears and he found that only my left ear was blocked up with wax so he gave me oil to put in the ear three drops three times a day. He couldn't do much about the wind and pain in my chest as he felt this was entirely due to the chemotherapy but I could take some antacid (chalk) tablets if it made me more comfortable. Finally he checked my stomach and agreed that it was nice and soft. (soft is good, hard lumps are bad I guess).
Today the effects of the chemo have kicked in hard and I have felt quite tired and had a 2 hour sleep after coming back from the GPs and a further 2 hours in the afternoon and then after our evening meal I settled down to read a book borrowed from my cousin Ann called "Dissolution" a crime novel set in a monastery at the time of Henry the 8th. What will tomorrow bring?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add your comments here.