Saturday 25 July 2015

D+1 - "Dig It* " - In praise of the Nottingham Haematology Dept part 2

The work can be unpredictable. The number of transplant patients seems pretty high. Almost all will 'spike' a temperature several times both during chemotherapy & after transplant. Very often this occurs over the course of a few minutes. I should explain that without any proper immunity we don't display any of the signs of gradually becoming unwell. All of a sudden the body throws up a high temperature by which time the infection is often well established. The big dangers are septicaemia & pneumonia which can come on very suddenly. The nurses react incredibly quickly when this happens. Blood cultures & swabs are taken straight away. Two lots of IV antibiotics are started together with hydrocortisone & Piriton IV. All this in under an hour. Sometimes several patients will spike a temperature within an hour of each other so you can see why the wards have a reputation for being busy.

This is not to mention all the other complications, mostly minor but one or two serious ones as well. I think they should keep for another time!

Finally the Drs have been excellent. The consultants & junior Drs all have time to listen & to talk to me, to calm my fears, answer my questions even when I've already asked them before.  I knew it was a good department from when I was working but hadn't realised how truly excellent it is, very much at the cutting edge.. One of the top two depts in the country by all accounts with an international reputation in stem cell transplants & and perhaps other transplants too but this is outside my experience.

(Everything I talk about relates to AML only.) The department in conjunction with other leading centres leads a lot of the national & international trials & research in haematology. Cancer treatment is all about clinical trials. Yes there are new drugs which one reads about in the press but they all need proper independent transparent trials to establish their role in the haematologist's armamentarium.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how lucky I am to be in this unit. Not to mention that we only live five minutes away. From what I can tell there are patients here from the east coast of of Lincolnshire & Northamptonshire.

Enough for now! Please feel free to respond to this, I would welcome the feedback. Let me know if it's too long & boring!

With love

David

* Beatles "Let It Be" track 5

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Not long or boring! It's good to read about the unit I've heard so much about both from working and from Charlotte. Heartwarming to hear how the staff all work together to genuinely care for their patients regardless of their dedicated roles. Thanks for posting and glad you're in such safe hands.

Unknown said...

Not long or boring! It's good to read about the unit I've heard so much about both from working and from Charlotte. Heartwarming to hear how the staff all work together to genuinely care for their patients regardless of their dedicated roles. Thanks for posting and glad you're in such safe hands.

Mrs W said...

Not at all boring David. It was such a good idea to set this up and be able to share your thoughts. We are in France at the moment ready to join the celebrations in Razines tomorrow. I think you would have been here had things turned out differently. It is so good that you have access to the internet and can keep in touch with everyone. Needless to say we will be thinking of you and following your progress. Helen and David.