My last round of Chemo.
👎 It wasn't great.
🤒 I had high temperatures of 42degrees, which literally made me hallucinate. The special chemo medication that I got approved for on compassionated grounds... well it's like my body stopped tolerating it. I was given some other medication to help with the fever and then they decided to postpone the chemo during this last cycle in case it wouldn't agree with me.
Well it didn't.
🛑 We stopped the chemo because it was that bad. It was like my body is just fed up from being up and down.
👀 My eyes got really inflamed and had to get my eyesight testing too, one of them got really weird... I started to wonder if i could pull off eyepatch look? (ha, that's a joke... you need a sense of humour to go through this)
💔 While I was recovering from this round of chemo, my grandpa passed away in Mexico. I have so many good memories of him. It's so hard to be so sick and so far from family during a pandemic when this stuff happens.
❤️🩹 This round of chemo and 'recovery' (we'll get to that in a minute) have been incredibly hard. Not just on my body, but my mind and emotions. Somedays just really suck, I mean I do have cancer, so ya it would suck, but it really can get to you.
⭐️ I finally finished chemo (thank god)
🤒 My recovery since my last round of chemo has not been easy. It wasn't restful, and I barely spent any time at home to begin with.
🏥 I had been discharged from hospital not knowing that after only a couple of days after i was going to be re-admitted and that I would have heaps of ongoing doctor appointments.
⚠️ I was admitted into the Emergency Department in Christchurch Hospital as I was experiencing 39 degrees fever. It was considered at first as febrile neutropenia, basically I did not have an immune system.
🧪 After some tests they've discovered I had a bacteria called streptococcus the the doctors thought it was sitting on top of my heart as my blood pressure was extremely low so i spent 3 days in ICU trying to get it back to normal.
🧪🧪🧪 While in ICU had a few echocardiograms, X-rays, CT Scans, among other procedures and tests too.
🧪 I got diagnosed with endocarditis basically inflammation of the heart, in my case due to chemotherapy, plus the bacteria they found.
💉 While still in ICU I received a lot of liquids and then suffered from fluid overload.
I was 8 kg over baseline weight, this consecutively affected all my organs making them inflamed.
I was presenting discomfort in my belly area so another CT scan was needed.
😷 After receiving the results then general surgery department suggested a gallbladder surgery as it was believed I could have pus and infection in the area preventing my liver to function properly, luckily when they went in, they only drained bile.
I still have the drain and tube 🙃 that was given to get rid of the extra liquid, it is going to be removed on the 2nd of November.
💊 I was given another medication that worked and in a week I was back to my normal weight.
🤒 After all of these interventions I continued to experience 39+ fevers making doctors question where the infection was coming from and experimenting with different antibiotics.
🦷 Prior to having my cancer diagnosis, I was starting to feel a slight ache in my tooth. I then found out after my cancer diagnosis that I required a root canal, but I couldn't have it done due the cancer.
😩 However, it was decided that it could be the source of infection and they ended up extracting it.
🍒 For the cherry on top due to the constant change of antibiotics I ended up getting a horrible rash starting on my belly spreading rather quickly to the rest of my body ( yes, all of it ) and the rash itself was very angry.
💊 To combat the rash, I switched antibiotics once more and started to recover and fevers were less frequent.
📆 I was admitted on the 13th of September and discharge on the 29 of September.
🏥 Unfortunately this wasn't enough as I only got to stay home 2 days and got re-admitted to hospital.
This time life was a lot easier compared to the last admission - I was only there for a week and got sent home with Home IV antibiotics meaning I had to be connected to my antibiotics 24 /7 through a line, having a nurse to come home every day to change it - yes this included the weekends.
☠️ After all of these problems and complications I didn't think I was going to make it to my 32nd birthday.
☠️☠️☠️ It is hard to believe that I nearly died 3 times prior to my birthday.
🎂 Yes that's right I celebrated my 32nd birthday in October.
💫 Despite of all of it, I am still here.
💙 This birthday to me is probably the best birthday of all as I literally got the chance to reborn again.
👨⚕️ 👩⚕️ 🧑⚕️ This whole week I have been going to medical appointments and every single issue that I have or had is improving.
😆 My hair is growing back and i cannot be any happier.
I still have a long way to go, a bit longer than expected and I am just waiting to receive the sign off from Haematology to confirm I have no trace of bastard leukaemia.
🔥🔥 Life is good at the minute and I'm loving it!
Everything is going good these past few days.
I don't have to see my drs at the Haematology dept every week, its switching now to next appointment in one month 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
✨ I finally got my Home IV antibiotics line removed on Wed Oct 27
💜💜 Thank you all for your constant support during these terrible times, last update to come once i receive my last bone marrow results aprox 2 weeks. Loads of good vibes Carlos
