Covid, Chemo & Christmas

Have you ever played Bubble shooter? I’ve literally been dodging covid bullets for the last 3 weeks. The bullets have been firing off and the protective layers below me have been falling away. But with three days to go I haven’t got the bullet myself!

I’m now on the extremely clinically vulnerable list putting me into a heightened group that are more susceptible. Chemotherapy whilst killing the cancer cells can’t identify the good cells and manages to wipe out them as well. If you’ve ever wondered why chemo is given with sometimes 3 week breaks this is because your white cells, platelets etc need to have the time to recover in between. This makes you very vulnerable for a period of time. 

Now is not the time to have a dodgy thermometer. At least once a day you have to to check and obviously if you are concerned more often. A temperature of 37.5c and you have to spend the night in hospital being monitored, IV antibiotics etc. When Sam had treatment he was going to school when he was up to it and as you can imagine (or you may not want to!) in a reception class with snotty kids and unwashed hands he picked up quite a few things. Many a night was spent lying with him whilst he was sleeping putting the thermometer in his ear at regular intervals. And 3 nights where it tipped 38c we ended up in the children’s ward at the Countess for iv antibiotics over night. 

And this time round there’s covid to deal with too. So this past 2 weeks that bullet has got too close for comfort. I’ve learnt a lot about how close covid needs to get. Amy, my daughter, is in a sixth form bubble. A girl in her year tested positive and 12 were asked to isolate. Whilst she hadn’t been near the original girl she had been close to some of the 12 so we spent a nail biting 48 hours waiting to see if any of them had it. Boom, another 5! Amy’s phone pinged from track and trace putting her into isolation. She’d spent 5 hours in a classroom with two of them. School didn’t feel she needed to isolate based on where she was sat but the app had got us! Amy was with her dad and whilst she didn’t have symptoms we got her tested. I make no apologies for this as I am on chemo, it was important to know. A big sigh of relief, she was negative, sixth form shut down as more cases came to light and we took the decision I would be able to see the kids again after another 5 days. Phew! But the covid bullet cane again..... this time Sam’s year. Sam said it would be ok based on the fact he was a quiet boy (or let’s just say similar words). He wasn’t identified by school as needing to self isolate and whilst he had sat diagonally opposite him at lunch it was for 2 minutes and he didn’t speak. We now had to see how this one played out. Luckily another covid bullet dodged!

This is not the first time we’ve shielded. Sam (my son) was on the vulnerable list at the start of covid back in March due to his cancer treatment when he was 4years old (he’s now 15). Sam had a Stage 4 Wilms Tumor (kidney cancer) and had his kidney removed before receiving 6 months of chemotherapy and 2 weeks of radiotherapy every day. The radiotherapy was targeted in the area of the kidney but the spleen is very close and  was affected too. Whilst they don’t know to what extent, they assume it doesn’t work anymore and therefore he is more susceptible to certain types of infection such as pneumonia. Sam has to take penicillin every day for the rest of his life (a small price to pay) in order to help fight off these infections. 

But we’re here, just 3 days out to the biggest  built up day of the calendar year, all covid free and staying in! We’ve made it, we can stuff our faces with turkey together, and forget about covid till Boxing day at least! 

And then it will be a Happy New Year for sure. I’ll get jabbed with the over 70s fairly quickly, my mum and Step dad will too and then maybe lockdowns permitting we can take those small tentative steps out. So with that in mind i would like to wish you all a HappyChristmas and a f**king brilliant 2021!