FILMER FINAL DRAFTxxx.pub

three hours in the chair to pull the 14 back teeth out and sew the gums up because
my platelets are low and I bleed. I can assure you this was not the most enjoyable
experience I have had.
When you receive your meal in the Mount Hospital the utensils were wrapped in a
bright red napkin. I would keep these to tear up at night to put on the white sheet,
so I could find one quickly if needed. One morning the night nurse came in and said
you gave me an awful scare last night, I thought you had a massive bleed on the
sheet then realised it was your ssue.
Another issue was a trade off from a form of chemotherapy called Mabthera which
had a possible side effect of shingles. I got it on top of the head. This became out of
control and caused severe pain with lightning bolts coming down the side of your
head and open sores in the hair.
On another occasion, they gave me a new drug called Imuran. Our daughter, Jane
was having her first baby and her waters broke twelve weeks early so Linley stayed
in Perth to help Jane and I drove home to the farm thinking this new drug would fix
me. A er two weeks, I wasn’t feeling too good so decided to drive myself the 53
kilometres to hospital. On arrival, they measured my temperature at 41 degrees.
They wouldn’t even let me go out to the car to get my hospital bag. This turned very
nasty and was flown to Royal Perth hospital the day Linley had a ride back to the
farm with neighbours John and Roz Miles. This turned out to be a very bad reac on
to the tablet, never to be taken again. It caused Sweets Syndrome.
I decided I needed to record all my blood tests, medica on and X-rays. This has
proven to be a good thing as it doesn’t ma er if I’m in hospital in Albany, Katanning,
Mount, Royal Perth, Saint John of God Murdoch or Subiaco or Charles Gairdner,
I have the records of what has happened to me.
The Doctors appreciate it and I can track what is happening. To this point of me, I
have had 24 different types of an bio cs trying to suppress infec on in my lungs
and skin tears.
I was booked in for ten rounds of radiotherapy to shrink my very enlarged spleen in
2016. A er five shots, I was star ng to fall over and my blood stats plummeted to
very low levels. When you are a baby your blood is made in your spleen and liver,
when older it is made in your bone marrow. Because my bone marrow is crowded
out with CLL and immature white cells it isn’t making blood, so has gone back to
making blood in my spleen. We discovered that the radiotherapy had killed my
blood causing me to have several blood transfusions and injec ons over two weeks
before it made any sense of making blood properly. It just shows you how amazing
our body can adapt like that.
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