Friday, December 03, 2010

The Royal

SoI vanished for over a week, and what a week it has been.
Last time I posted, I had started some anti biotics as I was feeling unwell. I went to bed and slept well, though did wake up early to mum shouting at me to do my nebs as I was coughing a lot. I felt even worse when I woke up so I checked my temp, and sure enough it was high again at 39.2. I was starting to worry, as the temperature was so high and I felt so rough with it. Of course, me being stuborn, was doing the whole, I have meds, I am fine and not getting any further help. So I tried to sleep it off.

By 5pm, I literally felt like I was dying. Everything ached so much, I was shivering despite having many layers on and although I felt the need to cough, I wasnt, partly due to hurting so much, but more so because my chest was backing up. I checked my temperature again, and it seemed to be going up and was at 39.8, despite having taken painkillers an hour before.

I knew at that point that I needed more meds and I really didnt want to go through the night incase my temp rose anymore. From training I remember that 37.5 is a temp, but once you get to 40, you run the risk of brain damage and seizures. So off I went to the Royal Liverpool Hospital. Now anyone who has known me for a while, knows how much I hate that hospital. To be fair, its about 3 years since I was last in there. But generally its unclean and the staff dont know what they are doing. I had no choice at this point and so off I trundled to A&E.

As soon as I stepped foot in A&E, I was moved straight to resus as my breathing was very noisy. After sometime, I saw the doctor who ran a load of tests. I had a fast pulse and high blood pressure, but my oxygen sats were remaining stable at 96%. Although they were not low, the doctor decided he wanted to check my arterial gases anyway. Ouch!! My artieries are well battered and deep, it took him a couple of tries and he hit a nerve a few time, but eventually got it. Well, all my gases were out of the normal range, meaning I was storing Carbon Dioxide. This along with the temperature was why I was in so much pain. I was started on a couple of differnt IV anti biotics a load of new nebs and some painkillers. I was moved to an assessment ward.

They expected the meds to kick in pretty fast but 24 hours later, my temperature was still jumping every 2 hours. There was also difficulty keeping an IV in as my veins were shutting down within an hour of stopping the IV. I was changed to oral anti biotics and given tons of chest physio and nebulizers every hour.

I dont deal well with small amounts of sleep so being woken constantly as well as feeling crap, began to wind me up. The nurses were busy and so when I started to feel rough, I was unable to do much. I told them my temp was going up and that I needed painkillers and a drink, all of which I kept getting told, in a minute. I curled up in agony but then began to panic. My throat was dry and felt like it was closing not to mention my muscles were begining to ache more.

In the end, I burst out crying at one of the nurses. She was a little shocked, but then told me that I didnt need oxygen as my levels were fine according to the machine. At this point, I wanted to scream that my levels where fine last time and in A&E, but that wasnt why I was on oxygen. In the end, I demanded to speak to a doctor, as I was getting scared my airway was about to shut down again.

The doctor didnt really listen and in the end turned around to me and said, well there is no mircle cure to fix your throat, you should just learn to get on with it. At this point, I truly wanted to scream. I was not looking for a miracle cure, I was looking for the correct meds, and for someone to keep an eye out and keep me breathing should my throat go on me.

Anyway, long story short, they wanted rid of me and so moved me to a respiratory high dependancy ward. This was much better, it was clean, the staff knew what they were doing and I was able to get some sleep.

It took about 5 days, for my temperature to settle down, but then my cells in my body began to play up. The CRP which shows if you have an infection, should be about 5 or below, mine was reading at just over 80. Then, my immune system took a hit too. As I began to get better, my infection fighting cells, dropped right down to almost zero. I was immediately put in isolation and everyone who came in had to be gowned and such.

I was not allowed to leave my room, until the cell count came back up to closer than normal. I had bloods drawn daily and a load of tests done to ensure that there is no underlying reason why my count dropped so low.

I still feel pretty crappy and keep getting stabbing pains in the bottom of my lung that has had surgery. But now, I just need to work on getting better again. Its amazing how much fitness I have lost on this admission. Usually, I work hard to keep moving, but feeling so rotten and being in isolation, meant that I didnt really. Simple things, like tying my hair up today, left my arms aching like mad. So thats my next thing to work on.

Not to mention that I now need to rearrange my admission to London as I missed it this week.

So that was my exciting week, spent in the hospital, again, bored out of my mind. I also missed my mums 60th brthday. I was discharged yesterday, and now I am going to enjoy curling up in my own bed and sleeping right through. No sill early morning breakfast wake up calls.

1 comment:

  1. Well! That's definitely NOT gallivanting around is it?! Hope everything tests out okay, and that you start back on the road to recovery, as you were so nicely starting to do. Take care :D

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