yea the stitches.
I was super keen to get those out. Most people don't need them but because of my large well bosoms, the surgeon thought he would put some in for extra support for the wound. The nurse came to take them out and I was so relieved when she took the first lot out as they were really pulling on my skin. Don't think I would have been so keen if I had any idea what they were hiding.
A few hours after they were removed I was in agony. I had a massive amount of pain spreading across my body and down my arms. I was on fire and screaming. We had to phone 999 and get me back into hospital. The pain was so bad I would have taken anything to ease it. The ambulance men couldn't really help because of my veins. All they could do was give me entinox. Was really weird, only time I had that before was when I was in labour.
Arrived at the hospital and they managed to get a line in and gave me some Ketamin then morphine for the pain but they were all baffled by the pain. Couldn't work out what was causing it. My temperature was through the roof and I was delerious. Eventually I was transferred to the heart hospital and treated for an infection but just didn't know what it was. There was some sign of infection at the lower end of my wound so they took swabs and sent them off.
Next day a young student was cleaning my wound and as she wiped me down from the top of the wound. Next thing there was an explosion of pus pouring out of the wound at the top. Not where they thought the infection was. She called for help and her and a staff nurse were scooping swab fulls of pus off of my body. My surgeon came in at some point during the day and opened up some of the wound to let more pus out.
All of this meant I was stuck in hospital for another 10 days being pumped full of very high dosage of antibiotics. I was so ill and those med made me feel so sick and unable to eat. Nothing tasted right was a nightmare. Took me months before I could enjoy food or drink. Also took months for the wound to totally heal.
For whatever reason all of this set me back a fair bit. I had been walking and getting on fine before the infection thing (which by the way was septicemia) but it was weeks before I could walk any distance afterwards and months before I was back to walking normally.
The rest of this year has been a series of deaths and lumps of bad news.
First death was our cat Tiddles, he just gave up and passed away. Then there was a fight in the house between 2 of our dogs and the Llasso ahpso was so badly hurt in the fight that he was seriously brain damaged and his body started shutting down and we had to make the heartbreaking decision to put him to sleep. On the same day my beautiful pedigree cat Leo lay down in his bed curled up, went to sleep and then just slipped away.
Now we are more or less up to day and we get to end of July. Hubby's nephew got in touch with me to tell me that my mother in law had a bit of a fall and was in hospital. She wasn't injured but they were worried about her because she had her legs under her for a few hours and had been unable to move. The hospital assured us it was nothing to be worried about but they were keeping her in to keep an eye on her.
After some minor problems the hospital was working towards her getting home. Hubby spoke to her every day and she was happy and cheery and just like her normal self right up to and including 11th August. Hubby spoke to her in the afternoon, his nephew visited her in the evening and she was in fine fettle. Late evening she had her supper climbed into bed and just passed away. Seems she had a clot that had been floating around in her body and it hit her lungs. It was more or less instant.
Poor hubby hasn't been dealing with it very well at all. He was very close to her and it had hit him like a ton of bricks.
Now he is working towards his operation. he gets his new hip on Thursday 29th August and hopefully we will be able to move forward from there. I would say things can't get worse but every time I do then something always proves me wrong. All we can do is really hope for the best.
Tuesday 27 August 2013
Thursday 22 August 2013
what a year!! and this is only the first 3 weeks of it.
Gosh it's been such a long time since I blogged I'm not quite sure where to begin.
Probably best to start at the start really. That would be early afternoon on New Year's day when I sent my hubby off to Tesco (why it is open on that day I'll never know) to pick up some puppy food. Whilst he was there he bumped into someone with his favourite breed of dog, an Alaskan Husky, and ended up being much longer than he would normally take. What he didn't know was that in the meantime I had gone off for a lie down because I didn't really feel right. I had just eaten a bowl of cereal and thought it was that disagreeing with my little pouch tummy. How wrong can you be?
When hubby arrived home he didn't come into the room to see how I was, he presumed I was sleeping. I wish I had been.. No matter what I did this almost crushing sensation just wouldn't move. I got up off the bed and using the wall to hold me up, I thought my legs were going to cave in, I tried to get to the sitting room. A few steps up the hall and I called out to him for help. I said I don't know what is going on but something is really really wrong with me. So he helped me back to bed and phoned the out of hours doctor who, as soon as hubby mentioned chest, told him to phone 999.
By the time ambulance arrived the crushing feeling had passed but they had to take me to hospital anyway. There was a tiny electrical blip on my heart trace and anyway all calls for chest pain have to go to hospital. I joked on Facebook that I was off to hospital with a suspected heart attack. Well how was I to know that was exactly what was wrong.
All the tests in the A and E department showed nothing of note but they said they had to keep me till they got the result of the blood test which had to be taken a set number of hours after the pain subsided. So hubby was sent off home and I was admitted for observation.
Following morning a nurse came to speak to me, hubby was there already. She explained what the blood test was for, what they were looking for and how it all worked. In my head she was saying that what they were looking at wasn't there and I could go home. Instead she said that in my case what they were looking for was there and I couldn't go home. They needed to do more tests. I just sat there looking at her as if she was stupid and saying to her "are you saying I've had a heart attack?" over and over then saying to hubby "she's saying I've had a heart attack isn't she?" I was in a state of shock. As was hubby.
Fast forward 3 days and I've had various tests and am in the cardiac care unit. I'm now to go for an angiogram. Apparently this means opening my femur artery and inserting something which sends dye through my heart whilst they watch it on a screen. I ended up having to be sedated as I got so upset getting it done. Hours later the heart consultant came to see me and informed me that my heart was basically a mess and I needed 4 arteries repaired or bypassed. It was so bad that they would not advise me going home and I had to stay in hospital until a slot was found for me at Liverpool Heart and Chest. I just couldn't get my head round it all and the fact I needed a quadruple bypass was a major shock. I had not previous symptoms, no blood pressure problems, no high cholesterol none of the things associated with this. Absolute bolt from the blue and one that scared the shit out of me.
All in I spent 19 days at Whiston before being transferred over to Liverpool. It felt like an age. Poor hubby trailing in and out to visit me, whilst coping with a young pup at home and trying to get things done that needed doing. Thankfully he managed to get off work at this point. The biggest surprise was a couple of days before I was going to Liverpool my son turned up at the hospital. He had been so concerned that he had been given time off work and flown home from Gran Canaria. Sort of made me realise the seriousness of it all.
Anyway transferred on 19th and surgery on 21st. I don't remember much of the next 48 hours but apparently I was in theatre for longer than anticipated and when hubby got to see me post op he was in pieces as I looked like death. I was very grey and hooked up to all sorts of machinery. I spent the next day flitting in and out of hallucinations and unconsciousness brought on by morphine. I was convinced I was on a set for some documentary and demanded to see where they had my permission to film me. I also tried to climb out of bed at one point but not in the normal manner, I tried to climb up and over the back rest of the bed.
After being moved from ICU over to the cardiac ward it was a flurry of nurses rounds, Physiotherapy, doctors rounds, blood tests, tubes being removed (OMG those drain tubes coming out were awful felt like they were pulling my insides out with them), blood transfusion, vistors and etc. A few days of this and noises were being made about being sent home. In fact my consultant (after telling me I had the worst vessels he's ever seen in a woman my age) said I could go home on the weekend. However that wasn't to be because one of the junior doctors decided on the weekend that because my blood sugars weren't settled then I couldn't go home. This really annoyed me and also really pissed of my consultant when he came in on the Monday and I was still there. There was also confusion about how I was getting home because the person that was to give me a lift had made herself available 3 days in a row and I had to tell her they had changed their mind, 3 days in a row. In the end after me causeing a proper stink the hospital provided me with a taxi to take me to Whiston for the warfarin clinic then another one to take me home from there.
Home at last and recovery well on it's way. I was doing so well in that first week home that by the beginning of the second week I was able to walk the half mile from here to St Helens Hospital. I felt brilliant well maybe not brilliant but was doing well, or so I thought. That was before the deep sutures came out but I think I will stop here and save that for the next part.
Probably best to start at the start really. That would be early afternoon on New Year's day when I sent my hubby off to Tesco (why it is open on that day I'll never know) to pick up some puppy food. Whilst he was there he bumped into someone with his favourite breed of dog, an Alaskan Husky, and ended up being much longer than he would normally take. What he didn't know was that in the meantime I had gone off for a lie down because I didn't really feel right. I had just eaten a bowl of cereal and thought it was that disagreeing with my little pouch tummy. How wrong can you be?
When hubby arrived home he didn't come into the room to see how I was, he presumed I was sleeping. I wish I had been.. No matter what I did this almost crushing sensation just wouldn't move. I got up off the bed and using the wall to hold me up, I thought my legs were going to cave in, I tried to get to the sitting room. A few steps up the hall and I called out to him for help. I said I don't know what is going on but something is really really wrong with me. So he helped me back to bed and phoned the out of hours doctor who, as soon as hubby mentioned chest, told him to phone 999.
By the time ambulance arrived the crushing feeling had passed but they had to take me to hospital anyway. There was a tiny electrical blip on my heart trace and anyway all calls for chest pain have to go to hospital. I joked on Facebook that I was off to hospital with a suspected heart attack. Well how was I to know that was exactly what was wrong.
All the tests in the A and E department showed nothing of note but they said they had to keep me till they got the result of the blood test which had to be taken a set number of hours after the pain subsided. So hubby was sent off home and I was admitted for observation.
Following morning a nurse came to speak to me, hubby was there already. She explained what the blood test was for, what they were looking for and how it all worked. In my head she was saying that what they were looking at wasn't there and I could go home. Instead she said that in my case what they were looking for was there and I couldn't go home. They needed to do more tests. I just sat there looking at her as if she was stupid and saying to her "are you saying I've had a heart attack?" over and over then saying to hubby "she's saying I've had a heart attack isn't she?" I was in a state of shock. As was hubby.
Fast forward 3 days and I've had various tests and am in the cardiac care unit. I'm now to go for an angiogram. Apparently this means opening my femur artery and inserting something which sends dye through my heart whilst they watch it on a screen. I ended up having to be sedated as I got so upset getting it done. Hours later the heart consultant came to see me and informed me that my heart was basically a mess and I needed 4 arteries repaired or bypassed. It was so bad that they would not advise me going home and I had to stay in hospital until a slot was found for me at Liverpool Heart and Chest. I just couldn't get my head round it all and the fact I needed a quadruple bypass was a major shock. I had not previous symptoms, no blood pressure problems, no high cholesterol none of the things associated with this. Absolute bolt from the blue and one that scared the shit out of me.
All in I spent 19 days at Whiston before being transferred over to Liverpool. It felt like an age. Poor hubby trailing in and out to visit me, whilst coping with a young pup at home and trying to get things done that needed doing. Thankfully he managed to get off work at this point. The biggest surprise was a couple of days before I was going to Liverpool my son turned up at the hospital. He had been so concerned that he had been given time off work and flown home from Gran Canaria. Sort of made me realise the seriousness of it all.
Anyway transferred on 19th and surgery on 21st. I don't remember much of the next 48 hours but apparently I was in theatre for longer than anticipated and when hubby got to see me post op he was in pieces as I looked like death. I was very grey and hooked up to all sorts of machinery. I spent the next day flitting in and out of hallucinations and unconsciousness brought on by morphine. I was convinced I was on a set for some documentary and demanded to see where they had my permission to film me. I also tried to climb out of bed at one point but not in the normal manner, I tried to climb up and over the back rest of the bed.
After being moved from ICU over to the cardiac ward it was a flurry of nurses rounds, Physiotherapy, doctors rounds, blood tests, tubes being removed (OMG those drain tubes coming out were awful felt like they were pulling my insides out with them), blood transfusion, vistors and etc. A few days of this and noises were being made about being sent home. In fact my consultant (after telling me I had the worst vessels he's ever seen in a woman my age) said I could go home on the weekend. However that wasn't to be because one of the junior doctors decided on the weekend that because my blood sugars weren't settled then I couldn't go home. This really annoyed me and also really pissed of my consultant when he came in on the Monday and I was still there. There was also confusion about how I was getting home because the person that was to give me a lift had made herself available 3 days in a row and I had to tell her they had changed their mind, 3 days in a row. In the end after me causeing a proper stink the hospital provided me with a taxi to take me to Whiston for the warfarin clinic then another one to take me home from there.
Home at last and recovery well on it's way. I was doing so well in that first week home that by the beginning of the second week I was able to walk the half mile from here to St Helens Hospital. I felt brilliant well maybe not brilliant but was doing well, or so I thought. That was before the deep sutures came out but I think I will stop here and save that for the next part.
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