Friday 7 April - There goes the pain relief

The real pain began when the PCA on my wrist began to malfunction: not surprising when you consider the trouble I have had with my right arm since the removal of a tumour on the ulna bone, and its subsequent removal [both tumour and half of ulna] 14 years ago.

The veins had decided it was time to pack up again and it was not going to play ball, I wish they had put it further up my arm as I had requested. As I attempted to administer some pain relief by pressing the button on the PCA I felt the resistance in the vein: I just knew it had malfunctioned.

As you can see from this photo, taken by my daughter whilst I was asleep, the arm was somewhat bruised by either the anesthetists failure to find a vein during the operation or as a result of the problem with the PCA [probably the latter].
If you are going through cancer yourself and are reading this then please take heart, I have a 're-engineered' right arm that was operated on with tremendous success in the early 90's which does not help matters. I only print this now because it is relevant to me.