hospital dramas :(

hi all,

Again i must apologise for my recent lack of blogging however, as always i have excuses! So firstly im sorry i've been rubbish at this blogging malarkey lately and secondly i will explain....

So - since april i have had an infected venous leg ulcer among other bits of stuff too. But mostly the leg ulcer has been a pain. I tried to carry on regardless for a while and had two lovely days out with a couple of good friends. One trip to the big shopping centre near where i live and the other to the steel museum which was split into different zones and had everything from a fire tornado through to indoor rain which was cool! Spending time with my friends was fab and we all had a real giggle which is always great. I was however not very well really and had been on antibiotics from april with only about a week off them from then to now! Various different antibiotics were tried to get on top of the infection but being on antibiotics for such a sustained period of time was playing havoc with my adrenal insufficiency making me drowsy and weak and leaving my blood pressure really very low. I ended up getting admitted to my local hospital as i had a fever and was right at the start of an adrenal crisis. The drama began as soon as the doctors tried to take bloods and put a canula into one of my veins. This proved rather tricky and after the first doctor had had 6 attempts he got his registrar to try she tried a further 8 times before finally managing to get a very small paediatric canula into a small vein in my foot right on my ankle! Was very painful and didn't last very long.... Due to the infection i had i was unable to keep much down without throwing up even with my syringe driver of cyclizine (my antiemetic). Due mostly to vomiting so much i had not managed to keep my theophyline down for almost 5 days so my asthma started to kick off too, i ended up having magnesium and hydrocortisone through this canula and was put on more nebs and 15 litres a minute of oxygen! ICU were called down to see me but i was getting there once they then started a theophyline infusion to get my levels back to theraputic range! At the same time the canula was starting to get very sore and after a day and a half the nurse decided to remove it and recanulate me. This didn't work. After 5 people tried several times each they decided to give up and hope that i would be able to keep my meds down on stronger antibiotics! After another 3 days the infection got so bad i ended up in a full blown adrenal crisis so and they moved me to my usual ward from the surgical admissions unit. On this ward they instantly gave me an injection of steroids and continued to do so every 6 hours as per the adrenal suppression protocol which unfortunately had not been followed on the first ward which probably contributed to me getting so poorly so quickly! Anyway thats a different gripe which is going to be dealt with by my care coordinator who is rather cross with the surgical ward for how they dealt with me as when she came to visit me i could hardly stay awake and was quite fevery and had dangerously low blood pressure apparently. :(

So - on my usual ward where the staff all know me well they tend to know when im really poorly as i sleep the clock round till i feel better they just wake me for meds and i go back to sleep. The oncall consultant came to see me and wanted to start two lots of IV antibiotics again i had several doctors try several times to get a canula into me but they couldn't get a vein as all my veins were either too badly scared from previous admissions or collapsed because i was so poorly. In the end they decided that as it was only really for antibiotics if i tried to drink plenty of fluids then i could have the antibiotics intramuscularly... This didn't quite register with me at first but i soon tired of it. Two days and 8 injections after starting the antibiotics and sleeping around 20 hours each day as opposed to all day i refused to let them do the IM jabs i know it was stupid looking back at it but it was really painful and i had had enough of it all, i thought if i refused the jabs then they'd have to try and find a vein again for IV's which once the canula is in is a whole heap less painful!

They didn't. I was prescribed the kiddies syrup medicine to try but they left the IM injections written up for if i couldn't keep the syrup down. I couldn't even take the syrup. I tried. It was strawberry flavoured but very mild strawberry, the main flavour that came through was more of a rotten egg kinda taste which did actually make me sick. I ended up having to put up with the IM injections as just missing two doses had made the infection spread further up my leg and made my adrenal issues play up more! The nurses were good though as they knew it was painful as i was so bruised after just 3 days and 12 injections that they started giving me a good dose of oramorph before each injection and they also (most of them) injected the fluid very very slowly as the faster it was injected the more painful it was for longer and it bruised more too. Anyways, i was in for two weeks and had about 11 days of IM injections then i was put on oral meds and made to stay an extra day to make sure my adrenal issues were stable still and that the infection didn't seem to get worse again off the stronger dose of antibiotics! During the admission i saw the tissue viability nurse who decided i needed to have my leg all strapped up to my knee with special bandages to help improve blood flow and the healing of the ulcer, though towards the end of my admission i developed another ulcer on the same foot so i now have two nasty unhealing ulcers on the same leg. They are getting a bit better but they are also still quite infected. I finished my last dose of my discharge med antibiotics yesterday but the district nurses reckon i will need some more but are waiting till i see dermatology tomorrow about them. Its been a little mad to say the least!!

Hopefully things will heal a little quicker with these new dressings and bandages etc but i kind of have to just see how it all goes really. So, thats whats been happening healthwise bit of a rollercoaster ride.

I have some fab news though to end this post with! :-) i applied to go back to uni in september to do a part time masters degree as i wanted to do something productive with the time i cant work so that it'll look a bit better when i do try and get a job as i can say yes i have been unable to work due to ill health but i have done this masters degree whilst i have been trying to stabilise my health conditions! Thought it may just help me get a job once things are back on track. I applied to return to the uni i did my biomedical sciences degree at and whilst i was in hospital i was on the net on my laptop and recieved an email from the uni confirming that i have an unconditional offer to start in september. :-) i am thoroughly chuffed to pieces about it! Cant wait. I had to go down to uni today to have an assessment of need interview so that they can sort out my care and support needs for september as my disabled students allowance will not be sorted in time for my course starting so they need to try and get a temporary package in place prior to me getting the DSA funding and stuff. It was good really they have been incredibly helpful and very accomodating which is great as i was worried about a few things like how id manage getting between lectures etc, they have been good though and are sorting it out for me to be able to use my chair etc whilst im there and i will have a space to park the car outside the university (if im allowed to drive again by then)!

So that is where i am at at the moment. Things still grumbling along no better no worse but i did have some good news so it wasn't too much doom and gloom. I have a few exciting things coming up too. I have a good male friend staying over this weekend and in a couple of weeks a good mate is staying for the week so it'll be nice to have a bit of a social life again for a little while!! I also just had a birthday. Yesterday. I am feeling rather old though lol i cant kid myself im in my mid twenties anymore-i am definatly unquestionably in my late twenties which is disturbing but thats life, just another year closer to that dreaded 3-0! :( i spent this birthday with my family which was lovely i was spoiled rotten which was nice and i did feel very blessed my family are my rock at times and after having such a rubbish few months they made such an effort for everything to be perfect which was just lovely.

Anyways i am gonna leave it at that and try again to get some sleep been struggling a bit to sleep as its very very painful so thought id bring my blog up to speed with things. I hope that everyone is ok and staying well and enjoying the lovely weather! :-)

Take care and i promise to try harder to keep this blog up to date! (and sorry this post has become a bit long! Guess i had a lot to catch up with! Lol)

Loadsa lv Rattles Xxxx