Admitted to the hospital during the pandemic, part 2 - May 2020

Hello there everyone and welcome to Part 2 of being admitted to the hospital during the Coronavirus pandemic. If you haven't read part one I suggest you read that post first. 

Here is the link to that post - Admitted to hospital during the pandemic. (Part 1)

As I got transferred to the GI ward in the evening I just saw one of the FY1 doctors and she gave me the good news that my bowel x-ray showed no blockages, as Tthere was nothing more that could be done that evening so she said she would see me in the morning with the registrar that was covering the ward that week.

Monday - The next day I wasn't feeling much better and when the doctors came round the registrar said that there was nothing obvious going on, the x-ray was clear and my inflammatory markers were normal so it wasn't a Crohn's flare. My blood tests did show that my potassium and phosphate were low so I needed to take medication to bring those levels back up. The registrar decided that it would be a good idea for them to test my urine and stool (poop) and when I mentioned to her about my perianal wound being gunky she decided that it should be swabbed to see if it was infected. The rest of the day was your pretty standard inpatient hospital day, they decided to keep me on fluids for another day as I was still dehydrated.

Tuesday - On Tuesday afternoon the nurse came into my room and said I need to start iv vancomycin because I had tested positive for cdiff. I was so shocked to be told that I had cdiff, I hadn't been out of the house to catch it from anyone, no one in my house had been displaying symptoms and I had not been on antibiotics recently. I was really worried that the iv vancomycin was going to give me red mans syndrome because every time I am on antibiotics I always end up with side effects but thankfully it didn't happen. The only thing that happened was my face felt like something was brushing up against it all the time.

Wednesday - On Wednesday I was told by the registrar that I just didn't have cdiff, I also had a urine infection and my perianal wound was infected so as well as being on vancomycin I also needed to take metronidazole by mouth. T hey also decided to switch the vancomycin from iv to tablets. There was a slight issue with the vancomycin tablets though, they only came in capsules but it wasn't powder that was in the capsule it was this hard stuff that wouldn't come out of the capsule when opened. The decision was made to give me liquid vancomycin but the liquid vancomycin was the stuff they used in the iv's which really concerned me but they said it was alright for me to take it that way. As well as being told that I 3 infections they also told me that my B12 was low which meant I needed to start taking injections for the rest of my life and my folic acid was also low so I needed to take folic acid tablets for 3 months.

Thursday - I was starting to feel better, I was able to eat and drink more, I no longer needed to be on any iv fluids and I could manage the nausea by taking ondansetron and cyclizine orally. The doctors said if I did okay on Thursday that I would be allowed to go home on Friday.

Well, that's it for part 2. You may be wondering if I was discharged home on Friday why am I not finishing this blog post, well when I was discharged home things did not exactly go to plan so that means there will be an Admitted to the hospital during the pandemic, part 2 coming your way next week. Until next time...............

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

You can also follow me on 

twitter | facebook | instagram
youtube | twitch

Admitted to hospital during the pandemic. (Part 1)

For a good number of months, I had been feeling really run down physically but on Wednesday the 23rd of April, I started to get a sore stomach and was feeling sick over the next few days I continued to get worse and by Saturday evening I was feeling extremely unwell and dehydrated. I knew I needed to phone the out of hours doctors but I was really scared to because I didn't want to go into hospital in case I would end up getting Coronavirus. I kept telling myself I can do this, I am strong and I can wait until Monday to phone my GP and then I won't have to go into hospital but Sunday came around and I couldn't cope anymore. I was in too much pain, I felt like I was going to throw up, I was very weak because I hadn't eaten or really drank anything for 3 days and I was very tired because I hadn't been able to sleep. Even though I was terrified of going into hospital I also knew that it was really bad for me to stay at home and even if I did wait until Monday and phoned my GP they would have put me in the hospital because there was nothing they could really do.

I phoned 111 and explained to the call handler about my situation and then I was put through to a nurse immediately and we discussed what was going on, she decided I had to speak to a doctor but I couldn't speak to one straight away so I had to wait a couple of hours for one to phone me back. When the doctor phoned I explained what was going on he said I had to go A&E and I began to panic because A&E was where all the people who had the virus or were thought to have virus went. I really started to have second thoughts about going to the hospital and my anxiety was through the roof. My mum was also concerned so she decided to phone the A&E department and we found out that the department had been split into 2 so there was the clean area which means it's virus-free and there was the infected area and the staff who worked in the virus area never went to the clean area so that made me feel a little better.

My mum drove me to the hospital and when we arrived we found out that I would have to stand in the queue which was outside because everybody that wanted to go in needed to be checked to make sure that they had no symptoms of the virus. There was a slight issue though and that was I was unable to stand in a queue because I was too weak, thankfully though the people who were in the queue were very nice and let me go straight to the front and I got taken in straight away. As soon as you went in through the entrance you were met by 2 nurses, who took your details, checked your temperature, and asked you questions to see if you had symptoms of Covid. Once I was cleared to go into the hospital I went to the A&E reception and told the receptionist my name and why I was there. I was really pleased to find out that I didn't have to go into the A&E department because the GP had managed to get me on a bed in the medical assessment ward.

When I arrived in the medical assessment ward I was immediately taken to my bed and the nurse started taking my vitals and doing the hospital admission paperwork. Once that was done I was then seen by one of the wards nurse practitioners, she inserted a cannula and gave me iv cyclizine (an anti-sickness) and paracetamol which was then followed by iv fluids to rehydrate me. The nurse practitioner also felt my stomach, listened to my chest, took blood, and ordered an x-ray of my stomach to see if there were was a blockage which, thankfully there was not. It was decided by the medical team on the assessment ward that I needed to stay in hospital as they did not know what was making me unwell and they were going to transfer me to the GI ward.

That is all for part 1 of my hospital admission post,  I hope you enjoyed reading it and I will try and post part 2 as soon as I possibly can but until next time..........

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

You can also follow me on 

twitter | facebook | instagram
youtube | twitch

It's been a long time

Well hello there everyone it's been a very long time and I am really sorry about that but mentally I was not in a good place and had to take some time to myself. Despite being on anti-depressants and anxiety medications I wasn't in a good place, I lost interest in everything I liked to do and I had no energy or motivation to do anything, even the simple things like making food and taking care of my personal hygiene was tough. Thankfully though things have got better after I was treated for a B12 and folate deficiency. B12 and folate deficiency can cause depression, anxiety, tiredness, and lack of energy so it explains why I was still struggling despite taking the anti-depressants and anxiety medication. Sadly though despite being treated for the deficiencies I do still suffer fatigue but at least my mental health is doing better than it was and hopefully I do not go back to the place I was at mentally for the past 10-11 months.

Now that I have got myself out of the hole and got my passion for blogging back I will be posting new posts on this blog as well as my new blog Crohn's Dysphagia and Ostomies. Hopefully, my first post will be up on this blog this week but I can't 100% guarantee that because right now I am on antibiotics which gives me really bad side effects but I will try my very best to get it posted by next week.

Well, that's it for today's post, until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

You can also follow me on 

twitter | facebook | instagram
youtube | twitch