I woke up on Thursday morning in exactly the same way I woke up the previous day. I did everything I did on the Wednesday morning, right down to eating porridge for breakfast. – Quick interlude, I just let the dog out for a pee and it reminded me that there was a difference on Thursday morning, I had a supermarket delivery arrive between 08.00-09.00. It was due at a more reasonable time, but I had to change it because my treatment was postponed. You might think that this is an unnessary detail, but having a full fridge brings me so much joy. Anyway, back to my story – If I was following my superstitious mind, I would have shaken the routine up a bit, but for reasons unknown, my brain had decided to behave; I was calm. I did not feel that nervous. I might have had a tiny, tiny bit of trepidation somewhere in my gut, but my predominant feeling was quite optimism. I just woke up wanting to get on with everything. In my flat that morning, I was more of a robot. That said, I did change my outfit twice and I asked Housemate whether I looked okay on both occasions and he responded with a sterotypical boy answer of ‘I don’t know’. I’m not sure why I was getting dressed up for the Daratumumab, I just needed to feel confident. Or at least fool myself that I felt confident. I might have even fooled all of you.
Once again I felt the need to share my day on Instagram, it had two benefits. As well as sharing with strangers the glamourous and enviable life I lead, it also kept track of the day’s timeline, so I didn’t have to remember them for this blog. I’m thankful for that because it ended up being a long long day at the hospital. I say it ‘ended up’ being a long day, I always knew it was going to be a long day, I just didn’t compute the reality of it.
If you count my waking hours it was an even longer day. In terms of hours out of my house, I was out for 11 hours, and in the hospital for 10 of those. I didn’t even do rfar for my friends’ weddings. I woke up at 07.00 and past out at 22.30, so I was awake for 15.5 hours. I’m not normally awake for 15.5 hours and I am even more surprised that I managed to stay awake that long after having some IV Piriton. That would usually send me straight to sleep, but then it was followed by 20mg of Dexamethasone, so that probably counteracted the immediate need to snooze.
As you may have worked out by now, I got the Daratumumab. Pause for your applause. Despite having an hour and 20 minutes of pre meds before the big infusion, I did, when I was in the seat for a brief moment begin to doubt that I would ever see the drug. Even when the Medically Trained Person told me that pharmacy had called her and said it was ready, I still had doubts. Completely irrational doubts, but they were doubts all the same. When I eventually saw the bag and confirmed my name and date of birth I was excited. Internally, it was an internal excitement. When the bag was eventually hooked up to me, I sighed with relief. It was a theatrical sigh, but if was the only way I could think at the time, of commemorating the occasion. I was officially on the trial, and apart from the Medically Trained People, I was the only person to see it.
I should add at this point that Mamma Jones felt (and probably still feels) terrible about not being able to accompany her baby girl for her big day of treatment. Mamma Jones just couldn’t get the day off of work, which I understood completely. Mamma Jones on the other hand felt guilty. I think she must have felt the guilt a lot because she was very apologetic on the Wednesday about not being able to come and then she phoned my twice on the Thursday to say she could come after work if I needed her. People have to work, and I knew that my Mum would have been there for my first infusion if she could have been. It’s just one of those things, we planned family cover for the Wednesday, but as you know things changed at short notice.
I explained in my previous blog that Big Sister could not come to London for the big day, take two. The lack of family members present did have my two main female family members in a spin. Fortunately for me, there actually exists people who live in London who care about me, so when I found out I was going to be family-less, I contacted the London family and immediately I had a volunteer. I had a simple task for them, and that was, in addition to entertaining me for a period of the day, to bring me lunch. I had seen the hospital lunch the previous day and decided that just would not do. If I was going to be in the hospital all day, I needed to eat well. If in the process of bringing me lunch, my friend wanted to stay and talk with me a bit, then that was okay too. I understand that this offered my mother some reassurance.
Whilst we are on the subject of food, I arrived at the hospital with a handful of cherry tomatoes, an apple and a flapjack. The flapjack was for emergencies. My friend was arriving at one, and in addition to my actually lunch of sushi (please do not complain to me about eating raw fish, my counts were fine, and I am adult) and a bowl of miso soup, I asked her to bring a punnet of tomatoes because the tomatoes I packed had disappeared into my mouth by the time my infusion started. Despite a brief feeling of nausea, timed perfectly for the arrival of my food, I spent the rest of the day absolutely ravenous. It was fortunate for my waistline that I was attached to a drip and under such stringent monitoring, because I would have gone on a search for more food otherwise. I probably would have had one of the free sandwiches if they had done a late afternoon visit, such was my irrational hunger. As my stocks dwindled to nothing, I even had to lower myself to a custard cream and I hate a custard cream. You do not need to know, correction, I am unwilling to tell you what I had to eat when I got home. I need to maintain an air of elegant mystery. Next Thursday, I am going to have to rectify the hospital food situation. I am going to need a bigger bag.
I had heard a lot about the reactions I could have on Daratumumab, which is one of the reason why I had to be monitored so closely. The other reason, I guess, is because it is a trial requirement. I know I started this paragraph talking about reactions, but I think I should just add here that I think I won the clinical trial nurse jackpot, I mean, if there was such a thing. My nurse was probably with me for 4-5 hours of my 10 hour day, and the biggest complement I could give was that I enjoyed her company. I also liked that she brought me drinks and made toilet jokes. Anyway, after yet another brief interlude to the narrative, I can confirm that I experienced no major side effects.
If I had experienced any major side effects, I can confirm that the hospital was well prepared for them. They even had Mamma Jones and Big Sister’s contact numbers so they could keep them up to date if I became indisposed. I also had the nurses’ bell to hand and my Medically Trained Person’s phone number should anything change. I was well covered.
The only issues I had was some light dizziness lasting about half an hour shortly after the infusion started, which coincided with some nausea, which unfortunately coincided with the arrival of my lunch. My oxygen also went down, so I got to have extra oxygen shoved up my nose for good measure. As soon as I had the oxygen, the nausea and dizziness past and I was able to eat my feast, which if I am being perfectly honest, is what I cared about the most.
Although I was there, on the same bed for hours, I must admit that the time until about 17.00 went by so quickly. From then on, it went slowly, but this tied in with all the patients in my bay going home, the cleaners cleaning around me and the sun go down. In the last three hours, it felt very quiet and lonely in that room, which is strange because I had spent most of the day mentally lambasting the other patients for making noise, especially the one, who at one point had six very loud visitors. I missed them all once they were gone.
I did not start watching my TV programmes until about 18.00 and even then, I only watched half an hour of one show, that I kept having to rewind because I was distracted by my phones or simply because I was tired and struggling to concentrate. I had to postpone Line of Duty because I was beginning to feel very tired and I felt that I would be unable to give it the attention it deserves. I will have to review my viewing choices before next week. Maybe Disney would be more suitable.
I really do not know how I managed to fill 10 hours of my day, when all I did was sit on a bed. A lot of my time was spent on my phone. I was inundated with messages from my friends and calls from my family, which when added to the two hour visit from a real life human friend meant that I felt well and truly supported. I received my weekly call from my UCLH CNS, a Medically Trained Person who always, I feel, goes above and beyond what is required from her when it comes to supporting me and for that, I am most grateful. I also wrote one of these, which takes more time to complete than you can imagine. On a more practical level, I was also very thankful for packing a phone charger.
The infusion bag was huge, and prior to receiving that, I received a bag of antihistamine, two bags of Dexamethosome, because the pharmacy changed my dose halfway through the first infusion (thus adding a 30 minute delay to my day). Each bag of drugs was followed by a flush. I should have, but I did not record the size of the Daratumumab bag, but just trust me when I say it contained a lot of liquid. On top of the liquid going through my veins, was the liquid going through my bladder. The Medically Trained People kept offering me more refills of water and top ups to my herbal tea. Plus, I had a clear soup for lunch. All this means one thing, and one thing only. I needed to go to the toilet a lot.
Going to the toilet whilst attached to an drip with a cannula in your dominant hand is no easy feat. It is especially difficult if you have aching bones and struggle to get on and off anything. The first time I went, I did not realise that the line was long enough for me to get off the left hand side of the bed, so I had to lift my legs, one by one and squeeze them between a gap mid chair. Such gymnastics was necessary because the table was attached to the bed, cutting the right hand side of the bed in half with a metal pole. Thank goodness two of my curtains were closed when I did this. On my return, I realised I could get on the bed from the left hand side, negating the need to negotiate the pole and more crucially, negating the need to look stupid.
The trial dictates that patients are monitored for two hours post infusion. My infusion ended at 19.00 hrs and as I had had no major side effects, I asked if I could leave at 20.00hrs. This was against medical recommendation, but I was hungry and tired, and the Medically Trained Person said she would not have left me leave early if she thought anything further was going to happen. And so, I left at 20.00hrs, got in an Uber and instructed Housemate to put the oven on, so I could heat my ready made cottage pie, which had arrived that morning.
There isn’t much more to tell you. I was absolutely exhausted yesterday and I do not know if this is because I was out of the flat for so long or because of the medication. I imagine it was a combination of the two. I was the sort of tired where every activity felt like a marathon. I was mortified to discover that I had incorrectly spelt ‘belatedly’ in a birthday card, by brain just wasn’t working properly. Needless to say it was a flat day. I imagine that today too, is going to be a flat day.
The reassuring thing, at least I find it reassuring, is that although I am still tired from my treatment, I know that I get to do it all over again next week. For those of you who are interested, I have to go in for tests next Wednesday morning, ahead of my treatment on Thursday. I imagine after a few more doses, my excitement will fade and Daratumumab, like every other drug I have taken will become routine. I just hope, with ever ounce (and there are a lot of them) of my being, that this treatment and this investment does what we hope it will do.
EJB x
