My leukaemia cure: a month in a hotel
Published: November 20, 2005
A hotel, in Goldstone’s view, is likely to be safer than a hospital ward. “In a hospital setting some of the other patients are bound to be carrying infections. With 40 beds there may be half a dozen patients who have some bug in their bloodstream,” he says. And it’s cheaper. A night at the Radisson is one-third of the cost of a hospital bed. The hotel charges the NHS about £160 a night for a double room; a fully staffed NHS hospital bed costs £500.
“It’s important to emphasise this is not a waste of public money on luxury accommodation,” Goldstone says. “The financial situation is complicated, but it probably does mean we can do more transplants for the same amount of money than we would have done.”
The decision to treat me with a low-intensity “mini” bone marrow transplant for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) made me an ideal candidate for the hotel option. So throughout last month I found myself in the surreal situation of battling a life-threatening illness in hospital, yet every morning I was able to wake up to a splendid hotel breakfast of muesli, orange juice, coffee, croissants and eggs. Sometimes I had to pinch myself.
The term “cancer tourist” is usually applied unkindly to people who travel the world looking for a cure. But I was a new kind of cancer tourist, able to have my daily treatment then eat out, if I felt well enough, at any one of 100 fancy restaurants or sip a cappuccino at a pavement cafe and watch the world go by.
My daily routine was straightforward. After breakfast I would walk across the road to UCH to be given a check-up by a haematology nurse and receive the day’s treatment. At some point in the morning I would be seen by a doctor. Then, providing my blood pressure and temperature were normal, I could be free for the rest of the day.
Even though for much of the time I had no defence against infection, it was perfectly all right for me to walk the streets of the West End. The only proviso was that I had to stay within easy reach of the hospital and avoid crowds. I couldn’t take buses or rub shoulders with strangers.
One afternoon I spent in the reading room of the British Museum and, on another, sat in the open outside the Northumberland Arms drinking an orange juice.
When friends rang on my mobile I was able to tell them: “The treatment’s going fine — I’m in a Brazilian cafe on Grafton Way,” or, “We’re off to find somewhere quiet to get a bite to eat.” I had to be careful and for part of the time avoided anything with uncooked egg, live yoghurt, meat that hadn’t been cooked properly, unwashed salad and unpeeled fruit, for fear of food poisoning. It was a bit like being in Delhi.
Every day it was my responsibility to make sure I took up to a dozen pills, medications and vile-tasting mouthwashes to ward off infection and side effects. As I walked the streets I carried a card with a telephone number to ring if I felt unwell, and there was a panic button installed in the hotel. If my temperature went above 38F I would be admitted into hospital. I never used it.
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