Notes from a hospital bed
So I've been pretty quiet recently. Online, of course. In real life I've been stewing in Glasgow's Royal Infirmary slowly going mad at the sheer length of each day, and droning on and on to every nurse, doctor and vistor who passed me by about how much I wanted to go home.
Here's the story. My lovely partner, Charlene, and I were in the tropical state of Florida doing anything and everything Disney-related when I started to get stomach cramps. I figured this was the result of a dodgy veggie burger and gulped down an Alka-Seltzer or two. The next day, the cramps got worse so I upped myself to Advil. Advil took the edge off and I was fine. Until the cramps got worse and instead upped themselves to a sharp burning in my iliac fossa (I've picked up doctor speak pretty well, by the way). But I took more painkillers and got on just fine. We ate dinner in both Cinderella and the Beast's Castles, we went on rollercoasters that terrified me more than the news I would later receive in A&E, we had the best time. This was truly living.
After a couple of days and a one-off night of shivering, freezing fever, the pain began to lessen and I went from six to four to two Advil per day. I was on the mend and boy, was I happy. We drank in the sun and the heat and sipped Butterbeer outside Hogwarts like the loved up Harry Potterheads that we are.
During this time I used trusty Google to diagnose myself with one of two disorders - stomach cancer or a torn muscle. I figured the torn muscle and did some excercises that felt like they were helping. So after a nightmare seven hour overnight flight of no sleep, we got back to dearest Glasgow at 7am and went out for a fry up. It was glorious and this was to be my cure, I told myself. After a brief jaunt shopping, my head spinning with the time and temperature difference, I decided to pop by Accident and Emergency just to double check my muscles and make sure I hadn't done any serious damage. They took one look at me and handed over a gown that barely tied up the back, leaving me afraid and exposed. "48 hours," I was promised. Then I could go home. And the time yawned in front of me.
Tests were run and blood was taken by the needleload. 48 hours became an unspecified amount of time and the nursing staff took pity as I told them the glory of Florida and they told me of the horrors of my ruptured appendix and subsequent massive, dangerous infection. They gave me painkillers that made my head heavy, and spoke a language I again turned to Google to translate. I was told I would need blood transfusions and they hooked my numerous cannulae up to four big bags of plasma. I was on drips throught day and night, and I was awoken by patients screaming, doctors checking my vital signs, and nurses offering pills and some of the best soup I've ever tasted.
I had a tube inserted just under my ribs into my abdomen to help fight the infection and was wheelchaired, pale, shaking and nearly unconscious, to a different ward where some of us were in for the long-haul, and some barely stayed the night. Here we listened to music with headphones on, we lay in our beds and traced the ceiling tiles with our eyes, we told each other our stories and I was reminded that there are people far sicker than me and I should be grateful for the infection the size of my mobile phone in my belly. Others were sicker and would be in longer. I would see people moved to wards that meant bad news. I would see people whose lives had been forever changed by their illnesses. I would pull the emergency alarm once and the nurses would come running and I would cry and cry and cry.
All the while my body fought and I ate and ate, my bodyweight still managing to plummet from a hard-fought ten stone to eight and a half in two weeks. I was scanned and rescanned, and my somehow bloodwork came back improved. I was told I was 24 hours away from Intensive Care when I came in, but now the infection was on the run and maybe, just maybe, I would go home. Each day I would look out of the window and try to see my house, a five minute walk from my ward. Each day I would ask to be set free and promise to come back for my drips and pills, and each day they would turn me down with a sad smile. Clip those wings, little bird, you're not ready yet.
Until yesterday morning, when they cancelled my final blood tests, printed out my discharge letter and handed me a bag of over 120 pills (my abdominal drain long since pulled from my body in a morphine haze far more comfortable than when they had to strain and push it in, leaving a hole through skin, muscle and all sorts of innards that I'm told will take around a further two weeks to heal) and sent me on my merry way, heavy headed, unaccustomed to the November chill and with muscle atrophy bad enough to make me have to rest three times just walking out of the hospital.
I'm incredibly grateful for the NHS, for the staff who tried to cheer me up, for the doctors who eventually gave me good news, for the members of staff I convinced to buy my novel, and to whoever donated the blood I received that meant we could get the ball rolling. In America my treatment would have cost around $138,000 and I would have been sunk. In Scotland I was able to walk into hospital and receive treatment for an illness that was not my fault all for the price of my taxes - taxes I will willingly and happily and thankfully pay for a much longer time than if I'd been handed a bill by the admissions nurse. So be nice to your NHS staff, donate blood, and most of all be grateful there are people out there who will show you exactly how much they love you by enduring hard plastic chairs and the old-gymnasium smell of visiting hours while you're dazed on codeine and morphine and that single buttered roll for breakfast. These are the people who will bring you Irn Bru and Chosen By You sandwiches to get you through the time. These are the people who will tell you jokes from TV shows you've missed and stories that will make you laugh so hard you hurt and you need to call for pain relief after they've gone. These are the people who make enduring each lonely day worth it and you will stretch a smile so wide when visiting hour begins. These are the people who remind you what is important.
I am lucky and I am loved and I am slowly getting better.
Here's the story. My lovely partner, Charlene, and I were in the tropical state of Florida doing anything and everything Disney-related when I started to get stomach cramps. I figured this was the result of a dodgy veggie burger and gulped down an Alka-Seltzer or two. The next day, the cramps got worse so I upped myself to Advil. Advil took the edge off and I was fine. Until the cramps got worse and instead upped themselves to a sharp burning in my iliac fossa (I've picked up doctor speak pretty well, by the way). But I took more painkillers and got on just fine. We ate dinner in both Cinderella and the Beast's Castles, we went on rollercoasters that terrified me more than the news I would later receive in A&E, we had the best time. This was truly living.
After a couple of days and a one-off night of shivering, freezing fever, the pain began to lessen and I went from six to four to two Advil per day. I was on the mend and boy, was I happy. We drank in the sun and the heat and sipped Butterbeer outside Hogwarts like the loved up Harry Potterheads that we are.
During this time I used trusty Google to diagnose myself with one of two disorders - stomach cancer or a torn muscle. I figured the torn muscle and did some excercises that felt like they were helping. So after a nightmare seven hour overnight flight of no sleep, we got back to dearest Glasgow at 7am and went out for a fry up. It was glorious and this was to be my cure, I told myself. After a brief jaunt shopping, my head spinning with the time and temperature difference, I decided to pop by Accident and Emergency just to double check my muscles and make sure I hadn't done any serious damage. They took one look at me and handed over a gown that barely tied up the back, leaving me afraid and exposed. "48 hours," I was promised. Then I could go home. And the time yawned in front of me.
Tests were run and blood was taken by the needleload. 48 hours became an unspecified amount of time and the nursing staff took pity as I told them the glory of Florida and they told me of the horrors of my ruptured appendix and subsequent massive, dangerous infection. They gave me painkillers that made my head heavy, and spoke a language I again turned to Google to translate. I was told I would need blood transfusions and they hooked my numerous cannulae up to four big bags of plasma. I was on drips throught day and night, and I was awoken by patients screaming, doctors checking my vital signs, and nurses offering pills and some of the best soup I've ever tasted.
I had a tube inserted just under my ribs into my abdomen to help fight the infection and was wheelchaired, pale, shaking and nearly unconscious, to a different ward where some of us were in for the long-haul, and some barely stayed the night. Here we listened to music with headphones on, we lay in our beds and traced the ceiling tiles with our eyes, we told each other our stories and I was reminded that there are people far sicker than me and I should be grateful for the infection the size of my mobile phone in my belly. Others were sicker and would be in longer. I would see people moved to wards that meant bad news. I would see people whose lives had been forever changed by their illnesses. I would pull the emergency alarm once and the nurses would come running and I would cry and cry and cry.
All the while my body fought and I ate and ate, my bodyweight still managing to plummet from a hard-fought ten stone to eight and a half in two weeks. I was scanned and rescanned, and my somehow bloodwork came back improved. I was told I was 24 hours away from Intensive Care when I came in, but now the infection was on the run and maybe, just maybe, I would go home. Each day I would look out of the window and try to see my house, a five minute walk from my ward. Each day I would ask to be set free and promise to come back for my drips and pills, and each day they would turn me down with a sad smile. Clip those wings, little bird, you're not ready yet.
Until yesterday morning, when they cancelled my final blood tests, printed out my discharge letter and handed me a bag of over 120 pills (my abdominal drain long since pulled from my body in a morphine haze far more comfortable than when they had to strain and push it in, leaving a hole through skin, muscle and all sorts of innards that I'm told will take around a further two weeks to heal) and sent me on my merry way, heavy headed, unaccustomed to the November chill and with muscle atrophy bad enough to make me have to rest three times just walking out of the hospital.
I'm incredibly grateful for the NHS, for the staff who tried to cheer me up, for the doctors who eventually gave me good news, for the members of staff I convinced to buy my novel, and to whoever donated the blood I received that meant we could get the ball rolling. In America my treatment would have cost around $138,000 and I would have been sunk. In Scotland I was able to walk into hospital and receive treatment for an illness that was not my fault all for the price of my taxes - taxes I will willingly and happily and thankfully pay for a much longer time than if I'd been handed a bill by the admissions nurse. So be nice to your NHS staff, donate blood, and most of all be grateful there are people out there who will show you exactly how much they love you by enduring hard plastic chairs and the old-gymnasium smell of visiting hours while you're dazed on codeine and morphine and that single buttered roll for breakfast. These are the people who will bring you Irn Bru and Chosen By You sandwiches to get you through the time. These are the people who will tell you jokes from TV shows you've missed and stories that will make you laugh so hard you hurt and you need to call for pain relief after they've gone. These are the people who make enduring each lonely day worth it and you will stretch a smile so wide when visiting hour begins. These are the people who remind you what is important.
I am lucky and I am loved and I am slowly getting better.
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