It went downhill from there

Not long after the excitement of getting back on the bike last Tuesday (In the end, the wig ditched me), things started to go downhill.

I’d been feeling really tired since starting radiotherapy towards the end of the previous week, on 4th February, but I started to feel physically unwell as well as tired last Thursday. Also, the reconstruction was looking red and more swollen than usual. Skin reactions to radiotherapy are common, but not that early in the programme; I was only five sessions in at that point. Things got progressively worse and they culminated in me being admitted to hospital this Monday evening – exactly half-way through my 16-session course of radiotherapy – for a short course of iv antibiotics to treat a rather nasty bacterial infection that I’ve developed of the skin and underlying tissue in and around the operated area.

I had a dose of antibiotics via iv injection every eight hours between arriving at the hospital late on Monday and leaving earlier today after I’d had the last of six doses (my doses were given at 10pm, 6am and 2pm). The good news is that the infection is responding to the antibiotics. It hadn’t responded to a different antibiotic I’d been started on on Friday. I’m now back home, with a supply of oral antibiotics to take over the coming week.

I’m still tired – guess I’m stuck with that for a while – but otherwise I’m feeling almost fine. The extremely swollen, extremely red and extremely warm right boob is less swollen, less red and less warm than it was on Monday and the rash that covered nearly a quarter of my midriff looks much less angry and is receding. It really was quite impressive on Monday, but there are no photos, as there are things even I won’t photograph! Some areas feel a little sore and tender but it would hurt a whole lot more if I weren’t numb in most of that area following the operation back in December. Every cloud, eh?

For those who like details, I have breast cellulitis, a known but not common complication in women who’ve had certain types of breast cancer surgery. The consultant breast surgeon, who decided I should be admitted to hospital, said the infection needed to be cleared up “pdq”. (The consultant keeps trying to get rid of me but I keep coming back. I’ve now gone to him with one complication or another three times since he supposedly signed me off on 8th January, saying he’d see me in April for a three-month check-up.)

I’m aware this all sounds terribly dramatic. However, for most of the time I was in hospital – apart from the night I was admitted – I actually felt more or less ok, although you’d have found that hard to believe if you’d seen the infection.

This has been an interesting diversion in my breast cancer “journey” (I’m so sick of that term now). It has included:

• two nights in hospital;
• the best part of two days spent at home in bed with a fever and the shivers, either sleeping or just feeling really lousy;
• another ultrasound scan, to see whether any fluid needed draining off – it didn’t;
• a two-day break in radiotherapy while we got on top of the infection;
• seeing two consultants who thought they’d seen the back of me for a while; and
• more people than I care to remember examining my inflamed and burning hot boob.

I have had some lovely visits over the past couple of days… and the friend who came with me to hospital on Monday has finally accepted that I do have something serious wrong with me and that I haven’t just been slacking all these months!

I’ll start back at radiotherapy tomorrow. Coincidentally, it turns out that the machine was down both today and yesterday, which means I wouldn’t have had the sessions anyway. Maybe there was so much heat coming off me during my session on Monday that I caused the machine to shortcircuit! To make up the two missing sessions, I’ll have one this Saturday (they’re running Saturday sessions to work through the backlog) and they’ll add one on at the end. Assuming all goes to plan from now on, my final radiotherapy session will be on Friday 26th February.

Onwards and upwards.