"And it's no never in the livelong day,
Will you find me back in Durham Jail.
No never in the livelong day,
Will you find me back in Durham Jail."
That traditional English song seems a fitting marker for today, my twenty-eighth in hospital and my seventh, and final, day of a seven day course of induction chemotherapy.
Here is Jez Lowe's version of the song:
https://youtu.be/oor6H2BA5gQ
I have joked with the medical staff that I have seen most of the odd spots in this Durham hospital but have yet to locate the parole office.
My primary health complaints since entering the hospital have been:
- Fever, which landed me here in the first place and expressed itself every day or two, typically in the afternoon, presenting with chills and rigors and knocking a five-hour hole in the day.
- Headache. Daily, fierce migraines began on the day I entered the hospital.
- The yips. This is my own decorative name for a condition that arose a week or so ago, in which walking or standing, to Starbucks or in the shower, produces pressure on my knees, setting up some neurological cascade that runs up my legs and spine into me shoulders and leaves them pulsing for thirty minutes to an hour.
Fortunately, the first two of these have been resolved by the chemotherapy itself. The fevers disappeared after the second day of chemo. The migraines have also apparently departed. My first migraine-free day was the result of a dose of Toradol (keterolac) that I received for the yips four days ago. Toradol is an amazing NSAID, but limited to very short-term use, and hard on platelets, which I have precious few of to begin with. So the Toradol was not repeated. Nevertheless, I have gone the past two days without migraine.
The Yips remain a problem. I received Neurontin last night to see if that might help, so we shall see.
The docs and nurses tell me that, with wrapping up chemo, next week and the next will be the toughest part of the process, with unavoidable small infections — and the antibiotics they occasion — sapping energy.
Given that, I reckon it’s better for me to be here in Durham Jail than on the outside.