Doing the drip stand shuffle

I had a visit from Gareth, Andy and Paul in the afternoon and from Mom, Dad and Gareth in the evening yesterday. Dad had popped round to my flat to pick up a few things for me and he spoke to my downstairs neighbours to let them know what was going on. They said they thought something might be up and wished me all the best. I must drop them a note to explain the details of being in and out of hospitals or at mom and dad's now and then. I was planning to let them know in the gap between having my line fitted and coming in for my first cycle of chemo, but of course there was no gap.

At about 19:15 last night my central line was connected to a pump on a drip stand to be able to give meds intravenously. I was then given 1 litre of saline to infuse over 10 hours. This just to fully hydrate me ready for the cytotoxins that will start attacking my lymphoma cells.

It also gave me a chance to practise walking round with a drip stand before they connect anything expensive. There is a definite knack to it. You see lots of people walking around the ward with drip stands and they have a bit of a shuffle. I naively thought it was because they were poorly and feeling weak. Undoubtedly some of them are poorly but I have discovered it's not practical to keep your normal stride pattern when wheeling a drip stand by your side. I'm getting used to it and my stand corners quite well, it could do with 4 wheel drive for getting over floor strips between the corridor and the bathroom and day room. I should imagine the miles per gallon is pretty good with a flow rate of 100ml / hour.

Didn't sleep quite as well last night. I was woken about 02:00 by the the guy in the next bed having his drip meds change. The pumps beep when they they have a problem or the bag is empty. I tossed and turned ( delicately ) for a bit and dropped off about 03:00. It was the same between 04:00 and 05:00 though I don't know what woke me. At 05:15 my ten hours was up and my saline bag was empty so my pump was bleeping. Sadly they don't have a snooze button so I called the nurse to get a free refill and decided I was not going to get back to sleep again so sat up, listened to the radio and did this post. I feel pretty pretty rested but maybe a power nap will be called for later.

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