To Hell and Back. Literally.

Hi guys,

I am sorry that I haven't updated my blog in a very long while, but it's due to quite difficult circumstances. I was really sick and I ended up in hospital for about 15 days, which was a much more horrible experience than it needed to be.

In the early hours of the 26th Feb, I was getting very short of breath and getting severe chest pains on the right side. I called my GP in the morning and asked him to get me an ambulance to the specialist respiratory hospital in S. Kensington. When he called the hospital they said there were no beds there, so instead the ambulance took me to the local general hospital, which is a complete disgrace. We got there around 1pm. They took me to the A&E (aka ER). We waited for four hours for the doctor to come. He decided they needed to draw  blood. Because my veins are so thin, they tend to collapse and then roll if the needle is lucky enough to even find it on the first try. Which is fun. Really fun. So when my mum told this to the nurse and asked how experienced she was,  the nurse got pissed off and defensive and accused mum of undermining her. After the doctor took my  blood, we waiting until 11pm in the A&E before they took us  up to the ward. 

At 7am the next morning the nurse comes and wakes me up for a full towel bath, which was horrible and awkward, insisting that the doctors don't like untidy patience. To be frank, I was a hell of a lot tidier than her. We waited in this small room with two carers and my mum until Thurs morning when they transferred me to the respiratory ward. Amazingly it was an open ward. At that point, the hell began. Because it was an open ward with 40 elderly patients coughing and sneezing and breathing their germs all over the place. In my condition, and with my immune system, you can imagine how terrible it was. On my left, was a patient with TB, and on the right there was a patient who spent much of his night going:

CRAHWAWHAHWAHA3y595edshfs <-- Imagine that as the sound of an elderly man farting and snoring at the same time. Well. You can imagine.

The patient on the left kept screaming "DOCTOOOORR" all night.

Within three hours of being in the open ward, I started vomiting uncontrollably. To make matters worse the Diarrhea began. The doctors tried to tell me I brought them home. I was like no I bloody well didn't you liars. It was pretty severe.

Thursday afternoon, the doctors added even more antibiotics to what I was already taking (in addition to the three courses I took before for a chest infection). This served to make the diarrhea worse. The doctors and nurses were absolutely horrible. They would come stick needles in my arteries to test blood gases, tried to get it from my wrists, which was very painful; as well as taking blood from veins. The breathing got worse, the diarrhea got worse. On Thursday afternoon, when I was alone, one of the doctors came and said they would need to put a trache into my throat. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a tube that goes into your throat to help you breathe. My understanding of it was that it was a painful procedure, and life-changing as well. I figured it would send my quality of life down the toilet. He asked how I felt about the trache. And I told him I don't need that, and that it would be the very last thing that I would want. I told them there is no reason for me to use it, as there were plenty of safer alternatives that they hadn't even tried yet. They just said, we'll see. 

By Friday I was fed up beyond belief. They started me on a full face ventilator. On Friday night, one of the ICU doctors came and said my condition had deteriorated and that I should be in the ICU.

They transferred me on Saturday with my parents, Once we got there, these bitches in the ICU wouldn't let anyone in, even though I am dependent on my parents or carers to take care of my basic needs (i.e. moving etc). When they transferred me from the stretcher to the bed the head was raised too high, which meant I couldn't breathe. It was a  pulsating bed to prevent pressure sores. I  kept asking them to call my dad but they ignored me and instead put a full face ventilator on me, through which it's very hard to understand anything I say. I hardly have any mobility so I rely on my ability to speak to allow me to be safe and comfortable. You can imagine how difficult this was. This stupid nurse kept saying "it's okay!" and I wanted to tell her to shut up and get my dad so he could lay me down properly so I could breathe.

They finally let him in, but tried to insist that he couldn't stay overnight. Considering how poorly looked after I was without him, this was a problem. 

When my mum came on Sunday, they wouldn't let her in at first.

Meanwhile the care company and my family were desperately trying to get me transferred to the specialist hospital in South Kensington. Sarah spent Saturday by my bedside, because dad got really sick with severe diarrhea himself, and mum had spent the whole day with me and was exhausted. On Saturday, my nurse Jarek (who was actually really good) looked after me along with Sarah. All the other nurses and doctors were stressing me out by refusing to tell me anything.  Because of the full face mask, I got a really painful pressure sore on my nose... I've still got the scar. It also made my mouth really crusty and blocked up so that I would need a little suction thing every half an hour (like at the dentist). At around 2am, I shouted at Sarah that I needed suction. She jumped up and tried to understand but couldn't. I got more and more frustrated, and stressed. Jarek stood right next to Sarah and couldn't understand either. It went like this:

Me (muffled): SUCTION. SUCTION.
Sarah: I can't understand you darling, say it again!
Me: SUCTION
Sarah (half asleep, half panicking): Sexing?
Me: ...
Jarek: ...

Then it clicked, and she understood. "Suction?" "YES!!"

Also catheters are sooo horribly and undignified. I hope I never need to go through that again, no guy should ever have to go through that.

At some point. a doctor came and said they needed more blood. He kept poking me, but no joy. So he goes, okay we'll just draw it from your groin. I was quite resigned to this, and wanted to get it over with. He stuck the needle in a few times, but still no luck. That was really fun, trust me. As he was trying to find the vein, he was commenting on how difficult my veins were. I was trying to be casual about the whole thing, and before I could stop myself I said, "Yeah, I'm very hard...." I then panicked and finished it off with "...to draw blood from." (This is even funnier considering he was trying to take blood from my groin and was feeling around my groin find a good vein to get blood from when I said that! ;-0 But, in my defense I was SO tired and was out of it b/c my blood oxygen level was dropping rapidly hourly...)

After Sarah stayed with me on Saturday night, my mum told the nurses that I can only have a maximum of 750mls of feed via my peg (a tube through my stomach that feeds me special milk all night to make sure I get enough calories), because any more will make me ill. Sunday night they very rudely and aggressively kicked my dad out of the hospital saying I would be fine without him. Sure enough they gave me a full 1200+ ml feed that night which sent the diarrhea into overdrive. Luckily the vomiting stopped after a bit. Jarek was the one to find out that I had had too much feed because my stomach was bloated. He had to get the excess feed out. As he was doing that, another senior nurse yelled at him... I'm not sure why.  When my mum found out she blew her top. 

The night they kicked my dad out, was really truly awful. I got stuck with this rude Chinese nurse, who insisted on keeping some windows open. She also insisted on giving me a towel bath with cold water, and wouldn't understand what I was saying. I was freezing cold that whole night and no one could understand me through the mask.

On Thursday, after eleven days of torture, they finally transferred me to the specialist hospital. I stayed over the weekend, where I received much better treatment from the specialist hospital, and went home on Tuesday, 11 March. I was very happy to go home especially after my ordeal at the first hospital. Thankfully, I'm doing much better. Slowly but surely, I am recovering.