My dad feels marvelous. Psychologically, he feels as though the chemo has now ended and he can "feel" it leaving his body. This is, of course, bollocks. He now has a greater concentration of chemicals in his system than ever before. But if it makes him feel better, suits me.
But the wider impact is being felt, kind of. This story is slightly unrelated to cancer, but bear with me.
I went to stay with my grandmother yesterday. She has done her back in and has nerve pain shooting up her leg and up to her back. I went over to help her out. She went to an orthopedic specialist, who gave her some codeine based medicine (with caffeine) and a COX2 inhibitor. She's in pain, but is coping.
We went to bed at about 9.30 last night. At about 10pm, she came to my room saying that she didn't feel well. She had tightness in her chest and a heavy head. She was flushed but not hot. And her blood pressure was 205/77 . So we called her private emergency health people, who came and claimed that it was because she had forgotten to take her blood pressure meds and had OD-ed on the caffeine from the new pills. I don't buy it, but anyway.
They went away, she took the pills and went to sleep. She didn't want to wake my parents because she did not want my father to worry, which is how this ties in with the cancer. She still has very high blood pressure this morning, and the doctor says its the COX2 interacting with other stuff. Whatever. I am less than convinced, but don't have a better explanation as to why a woman's blood pressure would spike in the middle of the night. When I do, I will let you know.
So, in short, we are all feeling the burden of my father's illness in our own ways. My grandmother could be having a stress related reaction, although this seems unlikely. But I am beginning to feel a bit like a firefighter: you get one fire under control and another one starts somewhere else and you need to leave the first one unattended to deal with the second, and so forth.
Heading to Geneva on Sunday, which will be nice.
Otherwise, what are we doing? Oh yes, I almost forgot. Waiting.
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Cardiovascular problems are the biggest risk with cox2s. The risks are considered to be so high that generally GPs over here won't prescribe them unless on the say so of a pain clinic.
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