Today...

Well, it's been just over four months since I've posted an entry on The Big Sea blog. I had to stop writing back in May as things really began to get bad.

I have also run into trouble trying to remember exactly what happened, it's as though large parts of what happened have been erased from my memory... perhaps some kind of coping mechanisim, I'm not too sure. I think I'd like to sumarise the highlights of what happened during those darker months just so that you the reader can get a sense of continuity, as well as allowing me a chance to piece things together. Reading the final posts it all sounds pretty rosy, but I guess I was in for a shock

As the radiotherapy finished I began suffering several different symptoms. My saliva turned into long thick, stringy ropes of goo that would ensnare food in my throat causing me to gag and choke. Sickness and nausia were never too far away. I  began to develop chronic pain in the side of my face that ran from my upper jaw into the side of my face, more about that later.

So began the sleeping (and these are the times that are difficult to recall). All I remember is having so little energy that I would often wake up to see Bethan holding a seringe, pumping a cocktail of medication or thick pink milkshake supplements into the food tube protruding from my torso. I would look at her and she would look at me just before I passed out again.


At this point I had zero energy and large white sores in the roof and back of my mouth. My tounge resembled a lump of cooked pork and my mouth and throat felt stripped out. My jaw had also become very stiff which was making me talk through my teeth. Despite the massive amount of pain medication I was taking the pain in the side of my head was incredible.

This went on for a long time with my condition getting worse and worse as I was less and less able to take on fluids and food with out them coming back up again. I was getting thinner and thinner and more and more dehydrated. I was being visited once a week by the community nurses. They would change dressings, check medication and generally see that I was doing okay. I could see with each visit there seemed to be a growing concern. It had to be taken into my next clinc meeting in a wheelchair as I was unable to walk. I saw a young doctor from the oncology team who pretty much straight away insisted that I was admitted and given hydration and a blood transfusion. I felt my heart sink at the prospect of having to stay in hospital again away from home and family.

I was admitted that evening and placed on hydration, which involved a couple of bags of saline and drip in the crook of my arm. I had been put of some heavier pain medication to help with the pain in the side of my face. I was struggling a bit with the side affects. I didn't feel myself at all and I was getting some very strange hallucinations that would usually center around spiders or other animals in my peripheral vision... not good. The troubling side effects peaked on the first night of my stay in hospital. It was about 3am and I needed to use the toilet. I woke up and looked around noticing that the drip had been moved to the other side of my bed. Usually the drip (on wheels) would come with me to the toilet, but this time there was a large table in the way blocking the drips exit. Looking back I'm not too sure what I had in mind other than I was going to use the toilet and thats that. I reached down and found the junction in the drip tube and pulled as hard as could. With a "pop" the drip tube snapped at the connector and I was free. I walked off down the corridor to use the bathroom with the drip tube hanging out of my arm. I stood there having a pee (with the door wide open). I heard a loud shriek and I turned to see the staff nurse wide eyed with her hand over mouth. "Goodness me Mr McQueen, what are you doing!?!" she said, "Having a pee" I replied looking down to see the trail of blood which lead down the corridor and was rapidly pooling at my feet... oops!

In the morning I woke up certain that it was all a very vivid dream. I looked down at my blood stained slippers beside the bed and realised it was no dream.

I was visited that morning by another doctor who was a mouth specialist. Having looked in my mouth and felt my jaw he promptly announced "Yes, we need to get those wisdom teeth out"... great!