Thursday 1st September 2011 Chiropodist and Lumbar Puncture

Highlight of the morning -- a visit to a chiropodist. I have one slightly in growing toenail which I butchered last time I tried  to do something about it, because my hip made it difficult to bend. Now, I have had it treated and it is nicely cushioned from the next toe .. bliss. Next was a visit to Staples. I have been having intermittent problems with my existing portable disc drive. I am pretty much dependent on it at the moment, so having a hot standby seems a good idea. I still cannot really come to terms with the mechanical tolerances associated with a 1G 2½" disc drive. Early afternoon, and I am back at the Basing Unit at the hospital for a lumbar puncture. I am a little bit worried, because my hip is quite uncomfortable and I don't know what position I need to be in for the procedure. I have already forgotten that times tend to be very approximate. When I got an appointment for 2pm, I expected the lumbar puncture at 2pm. I obviously have to wait until the doctor who is going to do it is available. The only problem is that Sue does not know when she needs to be here. I had lots of misconceptions about what a lumbar puncture involves. In the event it was a completely painless procedure. The objective was to take a sample of spinal fluid for analysis and introduce a small amount of chemotherapy just in case some of the cancer cells had migrated there. The procedure was done with me sitting up, so fears about my hip proved groundless. Why do I worry about things I have little control over before they happen? I had to spend 90 minutes flat on back to ensure there were no problems. The process to make sure that I was injected with the correct drug was interesting. The drug was triple checked, once by the doctor, once by a specially qualified nurse and once by the patient, i.e. me. Obviously there have been mistakes and if it involves fluid that goes up to the brain, the results could be devastating. Anyway, my 90 minutes is up and I am free to go home. Back at home, and I have no scheduled medical appointment until NEXT WEDNESDAY. If everything goes OK, we can have a relatively normal life for a few days. We are planning to celebrate by going to Savill Garden for lunch tomorrow, to take advantage of the forecast fine weather. I'm not sure why, but I am having more discomfort from my hip today than over the last few days. I think I am going to have to resort to some liquid morphine sulphate to try to take the edge off the pain.