Friday 24 April 2009

Live, from ward 52.

Well, maybe not live, seeing as I was released a few hours ago. But the two days I spent on that ward were... boring. It wasn't all just lying in bed and demanding pain killers, I had an ultrasound (twice, as I messed the first one having eaten before) to look for my gall bladder and an x-ray, plenty of blood taken from my arm and the mandatory, how to loose your dignity in 10 seconds MRSA test.

The ultrasound was to look and see what my gall bladder was up to - it was suspected that the pain I had could have been caused from gall stones. My Doc later said that there were no gall stones, and my gall bladder is just a slushy mess from having CF. What was/is wrong with me, is pleurisy (I knew it!) which has been a painful little fucker for the past 10 days. It reached unbelievable pain on Thursday, so I'll walk you through the fun parts

Thursday morning, getting everything ready for school, my Dad asks if I'm alright to go, seeing as I was knackered after walking the short 2 minute walk from the bus stop to home after school yesterday, and I thought I was OK, but realised that as Thursday is my only full day of the week with no frees, my Dad said I should stay off for the sake of not getting any worse. So I go back to my room and watch some TV, and 30 minutes later, I'm in excruciating pain and can bearly breathe - my Mum calls the hospital and they say to bring me straight in, and to pack a bag in case the Doc says to stay in. We checked my sats on my own sat monitor, they said 89. Frankly that's high for what I felt like. I had some paracetamol (I have no idea why I took it, as I knew it didn't work on my pain but I needed to try something) whilst my Mum packed my bag and I sat on my bed looking pathetic (and apparently a little bit grey).

We got to the hospital and waited for a bed, and when they finally found my hospital folder, the Lady Doc came along, prescribed painkillers, and some codeine or something like that. There was also something else, which was a 'once only' tablet, and knowing me, I've forgotten what it was called. Anyhoo, these worked on taking the edge off pain (it seems to be impossible to get rid of it completely) Then I have all these tests and after everything, The Doc comes along and says 'Yeah, its pleurisy'. Fun. I spent most of the day either being taken to the x-ray/ultrasound dept via wheelchair or just sitting in bed. I was on a bay, which meant there were 5 other beds, and its kinda scary to see 4-5 older people with barely enough energy to sit up or talk.

I was eventually moved to a cubicle about 11pm and as the nurses were busy, they asked if I could do my own IVs and I said yes. I later regretted that as the intermates took their sweet time and I kept falling asleep and then having to wake up and finish the IVs. The food was OK though (Isn't that shocking!) and I actually got two dinners as a CF option. Even though I didn't eat it all it was nice to have the extra potato things and extra dessert and stuff. My sats were quite disobedient and only once went up to 94, and then hung around 90-92 for every other reading, but I wasn't deemed oxygen starved enough to need O2, which in a way is handy, as the masks are too big and the nose ones don't sit round my ears properly as these silly hearing aids kinda take up all the room. Anyhow, I'm better now, armed with plenty of painkillers, new doses of ursodeoxycholic acid and managed to leave my Tobi in the hospital fridge.

Its been an interesting few days.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm glad you're feeling better and back home! Sometimes not knowing what is going on is worse than the pain itself...Good thing they got things figured out!

Ronnie

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