Penumonia

One of the most dreaded possibilities that can arise in the treatment of cancer is the possibility of pneumonia.

Advice is provided to patients undergoing radio and chemo therapy that in the event that they feel even the slightest rise in temperature they should get to the emergency ward of nearest hospital.

With chemo and radio-therapy there is a lowering of both the white blood cell levels and also baby white cells called neutrophils. The count can reduce to very low levels which means that the body is really defenceless against even the most minute infections.

In my case I know that I stayed at home between treatments and rarely ventured outside the home to minimise the possibility of catching something. Visitors were restricted during and in between treatments for the time that white cells usually need to recover a ten day period generally.

In spite of this I was silly enough to venture outside into the garden and lay out feed for the wild birds that abound around our home. This simple act of charity during the winter months in a four year drought proved to be my undoing. I managed to get a spore from a bird feather or something that infected my lungs and I was taken down with a rare form of bird pneumonia.

With temperatures fluctuating between 38° and 42° Celsius, ice packs applied to the neck and forehead to reduce the temperatures I spent around ten days hovering between life and death with doctors frantically pumping me full of antibiotics to help me beat the infection. All treatment for the cancer was stopped while we dealt with the more immediate threat to my life.

I have no advice for anyone about what they should do in their own situation. All that I can say is that the realisation that the body is completely defenceless should be known and taken into account in a conscious way.

In my own case - too late of course and with the benefit of 20/20 vision in hindsight, all of the things that I normally take for granted have to be examined with a view to assessing the risk in the new circumstances.

Hopefully there will not be a need to do this again. However a lesson learned is better than one that is forgotten.