After celebrating a false alarm on Friday, KS wakes up in the night with terrible pains in his abdomen. I phone 999 and an ambulance is sent. It arrives after about 20 minutes, which is fantastic. It is now becoming more difficult to get anything in or out of KS’s veins, so the morphine cannot be administered via the vein. It has to be orally, which takes more time to kick in. By then we are in the ambulance and shortly after that we are on our way. The two excellent paramedics look weary coming to the end of their shift. After we have arrived at the hospital and before we go in, KS gets another dose of morphine. We are now in a cubicle in the Majors ward and it is nearly 6am. KS gets a scan. After quite some time and a shift of staff, we hear that the problem doesn’t seem to be as serious as was feared. KS is still in a lot of pain. A nurse walks in after the takeover and says that KS is free to go home as the potassium is not dangerously high. Here I start crying. I am more upset than I remember being since this whole journey started. KS is still in a lot of pain and I feel desperate. I explain this is wrong, and this info is about yesterday evening. It is all understandable, but yet it is hard. It is also very cold and KS has lots of blankets piled on top of him. The nurse tells me later the heating has stopped working a few days ago. I am getting a cup of tea to warm me up. For KS it is nil by mouth, as they say. By midday things seem to clear up. It was said it was not serious. KS is able to walk around a bit to stretch his legs and he has less pain.
We will now be waiting for the haematologist to decide what needs to happen next. And the hospital is on weekend time, so seeing a specialist is much slower. I take the opportunity to go home for a few hours to receive the broadband engineer. KS is adamant I should go as it is important for us to have a working internet connection, he says. After I go, things go down again. His blood pressure drops and it is hard to get a working drip for him. I reenter the cubicle a few hours later when everyone is working to make this happen. By this time (5pm) he hasn’t had some important meds for quite a while. I have brought them along from home, and we access a list of medications on his phone, and soon he is getting the most important ones. He is also transferred to the medical ward. A haematologist comes and because of the blood pressure dipping, he still wants to make sure nothing is damaged in that bowel, which could happen as a result of the chemo. Now we are waiting for the surgeons, who have been operating the whole day. KS is sleeping through most of it now, finding it difficult to be present with so much pain medication in his body. But occasionally he comes out with a joke, an apology, a grunt or a tired smile. I leave, which is difficult to do but which makes sense. He texts me late in the evening he will be transferred to Guys hospital. Which is where he is now. It means the bowel was considered to be undamaged and other treatment can start to help the bowel and the pain. I have spoken to the nurse who is looking after him this morning. I will go to see him this afternoon when the visiting hours start, but I am taking the morning to decompress, text and write.
