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

💓💙💚💛💜 

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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 

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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 

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Friday 26th July 2019

Well, this past week has been a bit of a nightmare for my health because we are going through a heatwave right now and with what I have they do not go together. Having your large bowel removed means you are more prone to dehydration because that part of the bowel plays a big part in absorbing water so you can probably imagine how hard it is to stay hydrated in this ridiculous heat. I have been struggling really bad and have been dealing with all the symptoms you can get, dry mouth, dry skin, low urine output, headaches, I actually had chest pain last night which made me think my potassium was low so I drunk a lot of water and thankfully the pain went away.

This past week my stomach pain has been acting up but thankfully it's not long until my IBD clinic appointment. I don't know how much they will be able to do if it is adhesions, I know they can do surgery but the last abdominal surgery I had was extremely painful to the point that ketamine barely touched the pain post-operation. Even though surgery is a way to fix the adhesions it will just cause more scarring tissue to happen which will cause more adhesions because scarring from surgery is what causes adhesions.

Well, that's it for today's post, I hope you enjoyed reading and it shouldn't be too long before you see a new one, until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

previous post - Tuesday 16th July

next post -                          

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Tuesday 16th July 2019

The chronic pain in my shoulder has been driving me round the twist this past weekend. It really is starting to control my life, I am barely using my right arm because I am scared to cause myself any more pain. I don't understand how bad joint pain can be so bad when there is no inflammation in my body plus I don't have anything like arthritis even though that can be a side effect of having Crohn's. When I went to get my shoulder x-ray done two and a half weeks ago they said the results would be back within two weeks but surprise, surprise they are not. To be honest, I am not surprised they weren't, I have never had radiology results come back so quickly as an outpatient. I am really getting to the tether as my depression is now being triggered but I really don't know what more they can do as I am already on 3 pain medications, paracetamol, dihydrocodeine, and gabapentin.

Despite all the pain, I took another step forward in beating my social anxiety. I don't really think I have talked about it much on here but I am a PC gamer and one of my all-time favorite games is Arma 3 which is a military simulator. I have been with the same Arma 3 community for the past two and a half years but this past weekend I decided to take the plunge and apply to another community. Previously with my social anxiety, I would never have gone out of my comfort zone and apply for this other community. I am pleased to announce that I got accepted and I just have to do my 2 phases of training before I can join in the missions, I wish I applied sooner now.

Well, that's it for today's post, I hope you enjoyed reading and it shouldn't be too long before you see a new one, until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

previous post - Friday 12th 2019

next post -                          

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Groups I have set up for my chronically ill family
The IBD family facebook group
Spoonie bookworms Goodreads group
Spoonie warrior gamers steam group
Chronically ill and disabled equestrian's facebook group

Friday 12th July 2019

Since I last wrote several positive and negative things have happened since I last posted on here. I think I will start with the positive things. After 2 previous failed attempts I finally managed to go and visit my friend Lizzy down in the London area and get on a plane to Heathrow which is one of the World's busiest airports all by myself.

For those who are new to reading my blog, I use to have agoraphobia and was not able to go out of the house for a couple of years so doing this trip was a massive achievement for me. Sadly though my trip didn't go completely to plan and it was cut short due to me ending up with some type of gastro bug type thing. Trying to get a flight home was a bit of a nightmare because the flight I managed to book from Heathrow was overbooked so I couldn't get on that plane but thankfully Loganair came to the rescue and I was able to get a seat on their flight from Southend.

You may be wondering why I decided to come home, it was due to my being unsure of what the actual cause was. Five days before I left I had a partial blockage which will become more relevant later on but the last time I got an upset stomach as bad as what I was having I had to be admitted to the hospital for fluids and potassium because my body couldn't cope with having gastroenteritis. As much as I didn't want to come home, I also didn't really want to be stuck in a hospital with a gastro team that didn't know me because I am so complex and I also didn't want to be a bother to Lizzy and her family because as my fellow chronic illness warriors know life can be tough on the patient, family, and friends. Once I arrived home on Sunday evening I immediately had a shower so that I didn't pick any bugs from being on the plane and headed straight to bed. I woke up the following day and was still not feeling any better so I phoned my doctor's surgery and thankfully I got seen just after 11am in the morning which is pretty quick for a Monday as waiting times can be pretty long. The doctor that I saw was not 100% sure what was causing my illness so she decided to send away a blood and stool (poo) sample as well as give me another anti-sickness medication. After a few days of rest, I was feeling a bit better but still not that well despite the test results coming back normal. After a week and a bit of still feeling pain, sickness, and acid reflux I decided to go back to the doctor because I was getting a bit concerned. I saw the same doctor that I did the first time around, she checked my pulse, blood pressure and temperature which were all normal. The last check that she did was of my stomach, she felt an area of fullness so Dr. E thinks my pain and sickness is due to bowel adhesions. Adhesions are sadly a side effect of having the surgery I have had. The doctor decided to put me onto a new anti-sickness medication called metoclopramide, what is different about this medication compared to the other anti-sicknesses is it makes your stomach empty quicker than normal. After being at the doctor I phoned my IBD nurse to let her know what was going on and she thought it was best for me to be seen at the IBD clinic as soon as possible so I have had managed to score myself an appointment for the 7th August, so it's not too far away.

Well, that's it for today's post, I hope you enjoyed reading and it shouldn't be too long before you see a new one, until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

previous post - Where I have been

next post - Tuesday 16th 2019

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Groups I have set up for my chronically ill family
The IBD family facebook group
Spoonie bookworms Goodreads group
Spoonie warrior gamers steam group
Chronically ill and disabled equestrian's facebook group

Where have I been

So hello there everyone, how are you all doing today?

As you may have seen there has been a serious lack of blog posts for a bit and that is due to a couple of reasons. So in June I was away from home visiting my best friend forever Lizzy in Essex, sadly though 6 days into my trip I became unwell and had to get an urgent flight home which was a whole heap of hassle but all I am going to say is thank goodness for Scottish airline Loganair and there Southend to Aberdeen flight.

Ever since I came back from my trip I have been having health problems which I am going to do more in-depth posts on, thankfully though I am now doing better and ready to get back to some sort of normal or should I say my normal as I will never be completely healthy as much as I want that so bad.


Well, that's it for today's post, after I have finished this post I will start working on some new posts so it shouldn't be too long before you see a new one, until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

previous post - Saturday 30th March

next post -                          

You can also follow me on 

twitter | facebook | instagram | google+
youtube | twitch


Groups I have set up for my chronically ill family
The IBD family facebook group
Spoonie bookworms goodreads group
Spoonie warrior gamers steam group
Chronically ill and disabled equestrian's facebook group