Tuesday 12 July 2011

More Needles than a Hedgehog


A nurse came to the house today to teach Rod how to inject himself. It’s all to do with his low kidney function. He’s got to administer weekly jabs of EPO to boost his red blood cells. But that’s not all.  Two weeks ago they gave him all his childhood injections at the hospital. At the same time they started him on a twice weekly course of B12 jabs... and I’m not even trying to count how many times they keep taking samples of blood to ‘see how it’s all going’.

I decided to use a picture of a cute hedgehog here rather than a not-so-cute hypodermic needle.
This time last year he was preparing himself for a seven week hospital stay which was to include a ridiculously high dose of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, four weeks in isolation and a period of kidney failure. The doctors are pleased with the way his Amyloidosis has responded to this onslaught. The levels of nasties in his blood have reduced considerably but every time I look at him I have this picture in my mind of a man leaking water...