Taking a hit with pneumonia

Greg’s Greatest Journey – Weekly Update

Click image for Border Mail background story …

Dear family and friends

The wheels fell off this week as I went down with pleurisy and pneumonia.  Isn’t it amazing, I never got so much as a sore throat with Pauline’s recent bout of the flu, and here we go, copping the worst of it.

With the immune system under stress from the pain management and hormone therapy treatments, this is the second last thing a cancer patient needs. (the other is waking up dead).

Through the Border Mail article, I have become good friends with a lady in Sydney doing it tough with lymphoma.  We share our ups and downs on a daily basis through email.  I have been unable to contact Dianne all week so I figured there must be something wrong.  I phoned last night to find she has been in hospital and on oxygen since Tuesday also with pneumonia.  Poor bugger! There is always someone doing it tougher than you are.

This week I have learned so much more about intense pain.  It has been so severe that yelling becomes involuntary.  Breathing becomes so difficult that you really wonder if you will survive.  When I go to bed, I have to have a charged syringe of liquid morphine and the Ventolin at the ready because I know I could not get to the supplies without collapsing.

For the first time in my life, I resorted to a ‘joint’ to help ease the distress … and yes, I did inhale!. Used over the top of the morphine liquid, it really did help and, whilst I was expecting the high we hear so much about, it never eventuated.  That is one more tool now in the arsenal of pain management.  Fortunately, the anti-biotics and anti-inflamatories are kicking in and I expect the worst has passed … this time.  Bloody scary though!

As a result, the vegie patch has not had much attention this week although I got some tomatoes planted together with Chinese cabbage seeds.  The corn seed I planted a fortnight ago have failed to germinate so they will be replaced with purple popcorn seeds that a friend has supplied. I have to confess to purchasing lettuce and basil seedlings for the first time ever – I just love collecting and planting my own home grown seed.
Regards
Greg