Donderdag 220120 | Thursday

No news is good news?

(Nederlandstalige lezers: heb je moeite met de engelse tekst, probeer [een gedeelte van] onderstaande te kopiëren en plakken in Google Translate oline; maximaal 1000 tekens per keer. Zelf vertalen kost mij veel tijd en ik heb zojuist een proef gedaan – ik ben onder de indruk; kon geen kromme of inhoudelijk onjuiste vertalingen ontdekken.)

Well, not quite. Avoiding the habit of qualifying almost everything with ‘good’ or ‘bad’, let’s say there have been developments which detracted from my sense of well-being and others which promoted it.
During the twelve days of convalescence I found myself counting my blessings, despite the tribulations endowed upon me to test my mettle: the constant itchy rash on practically my whole body took its toll on the quality and duration of my sleep. The pain in my fractured hip was secondary to the discomfort on the outside of my body, as it was dependent on movement and lying or sitting posture, which could be influenced. The dedication, friendliness and communication skills of the caregivers was a blessing. My mood and confidence in a speedy recovery were certainly stimulated by their interaction. Once I was cleared by a negative Covid test and could join the other patients in the living-room for the three main meals and three inbetweens, I became aware of how lucky I was: I didn’t need an operation, still had both legs and could move around with a choice of accessories: wheelchair, walker or crutches. Physical therapy helped monitoring my healing and discovering how I would cope after discharge.

My biggest challenge was the food, so alienated from my own tried and tested diet. The caregivers could do little about that: the hot meals came from a catering company far away, in sealed plastic trays which were kept hot during transportation. One tasteless, over-cooked vegetable, potatoes or other starch and processed meat in different forms with the same taste – none – compensated by a glue-like  gravy with a flavour indeterminable by my taste-buds, which are well-trained in discerning individual ingredients. By the time a dietitian had intervened and ordered  hypo-allergenic meals (which were entirely devoid of taste), I could ‘enjoy’ them twice before being discharged.

Other events which contributed to variation in the daily routine were a visit to a dermatologist and an oral surgeon, which I could pay by wheeling myself along the corridor connecting the convalescence centre and the main hospital building. A biopt of my skin would later pinpoint my skin condition as eczema. The recommendation to apply a corticosteroid ointment wasn’t very welcome; I’m wary of introducing pharmaceuticals in my already overstimulated immune system; I postponed the application until I noticed that the hypo-allergenic gel and creams recommended by a trusted pharmacist, although certainly alleviating, did not succeed in curing the ailment. At a follow-up consultation with the dermatologist, I decided to give the prescribed cream a try for a limited period. To be honest, it did help, though not permanently – repeated local treatment is necessary. Now the rash and itch are bearable at a threshold level.

In the same week I had a molar extracted by the oral surgeon. A previously made panoramic X-ray and a CT scan of my jaw (the day I broke my hip) confirmed that the chronic sinusitis and restless jaw I’d had for several years were being fired by abscesses in all three roots of said molar. Extraction was a relief, increasingly so as the after-pain abated and the gum healed. From the research I’ve done, along with my intuition, I’m convinced that this long-term abscess – if not solely responsible for – certainly contributed to the development of my chronic disease. This (long-lasting inflammation or abscess) is something I feel should be a standard aspect of health screening to detect early symptoms of, and prevent cancer and other immune system disturbances. I intend to follow-up on this.

Equally important: the same molar had a root canal treatment almost 30 years ago. There’s lots of easily accessible information on the dangers of root canal extraction.

In my next post I’ll report on the developments in my cancer therapy.