Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Hospital time

So here I am as an inpatient in the Bristol Royal infirmary..... Long story short, Monday was a good day- took the dogs out to abbots pool with my sister , it was a beautiful spring morning, we met an amorous retriever called Merlin and played musical dogs for 25 minutes after he decided he wanted a go in my car (and truth be told a go on my sisters dog Dora!)  but that's another story! I felt a bit  poorly with a sore ear and swollen glands that I was okay and it was beautiful day.
Tuesday morning I woke up with a terrible stomachache.  I mentioned to Simon and cracked on with is your morning activities, took some buscopan and hope this will do the trick. Ironically  I then had to take my cat (affectionally known as golden balls)to the vets to be castrated. On the way to the vets I was really struggling with stomach cramps but was determined to get him there as I already cancelled his appointment once due to my illness. Golden balls of dutifully delivered for his De- knackering I got back in the car and had to sit for a moment before I could drive home as my stomach was so painful. I drove very slowly home and come to the conclusion that I would need to utilise my painkillers when I got home as today was not a good day. I got home, took four codeine, curled up on the sofa  with, as always my lovely furry nurse Fifi not very far from me. The pain however seem to be increasing and eventually I gave in  and rang my mum and as I was in so much pain. Mum came down and we decided that a phone all to the GP would be a good idea. I rang the GP  and asked for a call back with on-call doctor. I was told by the receptionist that the GP would call me back soon.  The most unusual symptoms I had was that I wasn't hungry at all. I am always hungry I am a "good eater" and especially since I've been on the steroids,  if you sit too close to me for too long I may eat you!!! Over the course of the morning my pain got stronger and stronger to spite my 4 codeine tablets. there was no sign of a call back from the GP so I rang 111. After reassuring call handler that no I wasn't bleeding from every orifice, trying to explain my condition  and indeed my drug regime she decided that I need to speak to my GP. No shit Sherlock.  Decided the 111 would put a report through to the GP hopefully to speed up the so far non-existent callback. But half an hour after this the pain dramatically increased there was still no sign of a phone call back so my mum decided to ring 999 My mother-in-law had arrived by now on standby for school run so I had two mums, no callback and off the scale pain.  999 decided that I needed, you couldn't make this up, a call back! So don't use the phone I'm waiting for a call from the GP!! The GP via 111 and ambulance service. Eventually I managed  to speak to the GP who rang my Gastro team here at BRI and it was decided I needed to come in ASAP to the GP support unit which is housed in the same place as the been back clinic where is  where are spent my previous three admissions at least it's familiar!

Once I'm settled my consultant Dr Dixon comes to see me -he is a marvellous chap and is very thorough in his explanations of what is happening and what his plan is. He decided  that I needed a CT scan urgently to establish what was going on as this is now my fourth trip to hospital since Christmas. He then places my first  of many cannulas and we start the merry-go-round of giving blood and receiving drugs. At this point it is about 4:30 PM

The BRI  is currently on black alert and there are no beds at all. I then find out that there is a queue of 120 people waiting to be seen in A&E.  We're not sure at this point if I will get my CT scan that evening or not however despite the lack of beds Dr Dixon decided that I will be admitted as we really need to work out what's going on and were not getting any better despite doubling my humira dosage and the oral steroids I've been on the last month.

To be continued- 4.30am and I've just been woken up for a blood test. In a vein in my foot as my arm veins have given up and collapsed and/or hidden. Ouch

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