Back home again!

Hi everyone, I was passed fit to return home today. There are still a couple of niggles to deal with. My urticaria (Hives to you) seems to want to kick in again. There was a particularly lurid episode at around 7.30 last night. I've had a lot of blood samples taken from my arm and the skin is a bit sensitive. It suddenly started itching and after a few minutes was red and blistered. I showed it to the duty doctor and asked if I could put some hydrocortisone cream on it. He agreed, and within 30 minutes it had completely cleared up without a mark showing, no redness, anything.
Then there's my chest, my other elbow, etc all of which seem to have spontaneous outbreaks of itching and blistering. The doctors have now decided that the treatment isn't triggering it, so one less hurdle to freedom.
I've now got to set up a regime at home that will let me keep track of things, note any wierd happenings, and not be scared to ring the hospital when I feel ill.

They tell me that I was very ill when they admitted me on Wednesday last. My kidneys were struggling, my blood pressure was very low, 71 over 67 at one point, and I had diarrhoea. Not good. I'd actually started feeling ill on Saturday and I should have called them then. I did ring on Monday and they pumped me full of fluid but had no bed for me. I then had all manner of complications including severe arthritis in my hands, which ballooned up. I couldn't grip or pick anything up. Mind you, my hands were back to normal the next day.
Then my feet swelled up. I couldn't get a sock on, let alone my new slippers. I diuretic injection soon sorted that. My liquid output soared. I was in quarantine and had to use bottles to pee into. The nurse was bringing them in by the armful.
Eventually the doctors sorted out what was caused by my condition, what was caused by the drugs, and what was down to me. My blood pressure has been steady for almost a week, and the doctors finally agreed to let me go home today.

My next bout of chemo was due to have started next week, but it's been put back a week to give me some time to recover. My blood tests are showing negligible amounts of leukaemia cells so teh treatment is working.