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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Thursday 21st March 2019

I got a surprise today, not one of those awesome surprises sadly but I could really use one of them right now. Okay I got sidetracked sorry about that but what happened was the receptionist from my doctor's surgery called me saying that the hospital wanted me to go and have blood tests done today. Now if you are someone who uses the health care system a lot you know that things like that very rarely happen so I made an appointment for later that afternoon. At the moment I still need to get my mum to drive me places because I haven't yet overcome my anxiety enough to start driving again yet but I am determined to overcome my anxiety and be able to drive myself places whenever I want.

I went in and got my bloods done by the phlebotomist today which was good because normally getting blood out of me with the first poke is hard to do because my veins are so bad but she managed with no bother at all. I expected them to do all the normal bloods that I get done but they didn't which I found strange. When I mean normal bloods for me I get my kidneys checked because my potassium can be low at some times, I get a liver function test to keep an eye on my struggling liver, I get a CRP to check my inflammation levels as I have an chronic illness that causes inflammation in my body and the final thing that gets checked is a full blood count which checks a number of things in my body but all the surgeon wanted is a kidney function and full blood count for some reason.

There was something that I forgot to include in my last entry and that was I can't go down to Essex and visit my friend for her birthday which has really upset me because I promised her that I would go down and stay for a week. I feel so terrible letting my best friend down who is like a sister to me but because she is so awesome she understood why I couldn't come. Deep down I know myself that travelling down is not a good idea, it took me 4 hours to get ready for my hospital appointment. I had a massive 5 day bleed from the Thursday to the Monday and it took a major toll on my body. the blood lost caused me to feel dizzy, I was feeling cold, my normal heart rate is around the 60's but when I was getting ready for the hospital yesterday it was up at a 120, I was having a hard time breathing and was feeling more fatigued then normal. As much as I really want to go it's just not safe for me to do so, I just wish my heart and head would agree but my heart says I should go and my head doesn't. I know I will get to visit her one day I just have to be patient.

Well that's it for today's post, I hope you enjoyed reading the post. I am already working on a draft for my next post so everything being well you should be able to read it by the end of this week but until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

previous post - Wednesday 20th March

next post - Tuesday 26th March 

You can also follow me on 

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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

Wednesday 20th March 2019

So today was the important surgical appointment. I don't know what happened but the anxiety that I have been having about this appointment completely disappeared, I don't know how it happened but it did which was amazing. It was a good thing my anxiety was gone because the doctor was running over an hour late and I think if my anxiety had been as bad as it normally had been I would have walked out of that clinic.

So after an hour of waiting I finally got seen by the consultant. I have met most of the surgical consultants at my hospital but not this one, she seems really nice though and reminds me of the surgeon that did my previous operations so that's good. The one thing that sucked about this appointment is I had to wait over an hour for 5 minutes with her. To be honest there really isn't much she can do apart from look at it as there is so much over granulation tissue now that it's covered the actually wound opening, even if she could see the opening she can't see what's going on in the inside and the number 1 suspect in what caused this  wound thing is an abscess so she really needs to see whats going on in the inside.

Due to not being not being able to see what's going on the surgeon who I am going to name Miss S has decided the 1st thing that needs to be done is a pelvic MRI and once they get the results they will decide if a small bowel study MRI is required. I really hope that I don't need one of those because the Klean prep that they give you makes me really, really, really unwell and by that I mean violently sick and poop for Scotland because the prep is actually a laxative. After the MRI is done Miss S will be doing surgery to clean up the wound so the healing process will begin again. I honestly don't know how they can take away anymore skin and tissue because they took so much away the first time round, I actually did wonder if it reopened due to the skin being too tight but no one has ever mentioned that could have been the cause.

Another thing I got told today was if I start bleeding again I have to go to A and E and get seen because the last thing Miss S wants is for me to pass out but the problem is I really don't want to have to go. The issue with going to A and E is it will be a waste of their time and mine because there really isn't much they can do and surgeons won't do surgery because what I have really isn't an urgent thing. I suppose right now all I can do is wait and I hate waiting.

Well that's it for today's post, I hope you enjoyed reading the post. I am already working on a draft for my next post so everything being well you should be able to read it by the end of this week but until next time................

Keep strong

and 

Keep fighting

💓💙💚💛💜 

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