I'm feeling thoroughly lazy today, with no inclination to do much at all. Not that I have the energy to do much but that's besides the point :P Anyway, it seems a good time to put down events and thoughts about recent experiences, so I apologise in advance if I spam. :)

I feel like talking a little bit about the sequence of events that led me to go to hospital and what happened while I was there, plus I really want to highlight some of the fabulous nurses and doctors I had dealings with and a little about the not-so-fabulous. I may get carried away so I'll break this up into LJ cuts. There will be no gruesome medical details so no need for the filter and you can read without fear :) ETA: OK, it's gotten so long I'm going to talk about the nurses in a separate post! Spam! :D

Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a disease that affects the colon, causing it to fail at doing its job, the details of which you should look up if you really want to know. However, for the past 10 years, it really hadn't affected my life. Oh, I might get a bout of constipation now and again, but it always cleared up more or less on its own and so I'd never needed medical intervention of any kind. This was actually a pity, because if I'd been better informed, I'd have realised far earlier that I was getting sick and gone to the specialists from the get go. Sadly, I had no idea there was even clinics for folks with UC, so consequently wasn't dealing from a position of knowledge. Ah well. Live and learn.

Looking back now, with the all-seeing hindsight, I can see that I started getting sick sometime before last Christmas. I was getting more tummy upsets, more foods seemed to disagree with me, I often had a low level tummy ache for no apparent reason etc.. At the time, I chalked this up to stress and those of you on my flist then will recall why. However, somewhere around the end of July, things turned more serious. I got seriously constipated and was unable to pass anything solid at all. Finally went to the quacks and was given a massive dose of steroids. Nothing changed. This wasn't a good sign :P Other tablets were prescribed and didn't do much. In the middle of all this, I flew to NYC to see Rent. The trip home wasn't pleasant, the following week was one long steady decline in my health until Monday 8th, when I dragged my sorry carcass to the doc's and she took one look at me and made an emergency appointment for me to go to the QEII. Apparently, I now looked as ill as I actually was. I could barely walk anywhere, I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, I was a very sick kiddy indeed.

I went home on the Monday and totally failed to get to the hospital. However, it gave me time to organise food for Rob and get a lift from Foghorn to the QEII on Tuesday morning. So on the 9th, I went in to the QEII A&E. They do a little pre-check there, before sending you on, taking your blood pressure, pulse and temp. The nurse doing the check took one look at my readings and the next thing I knew, I was in A&E having an ECG o_0 Apparently, I was anaemic and my pulse rate was ridiculously high (tachycardic or some such word - perhaps my all knowing flist can advise me :)). Within an hour, I'd been seen by Dr McGuinness, who admitted me tout suite and within 3 hours, I was installed on Ayot Ward, which is a Medical Assessment ward. That was my home for the next four days and they looked after me very well.

The next day, I met a whole bunch of doctors who seem to hunt in packs. I met DrM, who wasn't my surgeon or consultant but whose service I would be under, so she got to be involved in the case. Her I didn't like - she was snooty and her bedside manner was terrible. She was the first one to mention surgery and, I'll be honest here, I resisted really hard. She didn't explain anything terribly well, seemed brisk and uninterested. I must have scared them a bit though because after that, there was a veritable barrage of information and doctors. I met my surgeon, DrM2, another guy whose bedside manner was lacking but to his credit, he did explain things way better than DrM and the three junior doctors - ducklings as I called them, after the 3 docs in House - who attended him were lovely, so that made up for a lot. My consultant, now, was a completely different kettle of fish. DrRJ (he may actually be a Mr or a Prof, I'm not sure) was wonderful from the get go. He was the guy who made the decision when to go to surgery and who oversaw the entire case with DrM2. Not only was he kind, helpful and drop dead gorgeous, but he made sure his wife, Gill, the stoma nurse, got in to see me PDQ. It was her talking me through what colitis actually was, what the operation would involve and what the processes were that gave me the courage to sign the surgery consent forms. I don't honestly think I could have done it if it wasn't for her. And that's frightening because colitis can kill and, given it's refusal to respond to the drugs, it wouldn't have looked good for me without the surgery. My buddy Troo came in to see me and talking to her helped as well. Nothing like a good dose of common sense from your friends to help you see things clearly.

Anyway, the upshot was they put me on a whole bunch of drugs and fluids, to see if they could avoid the surgical option. The balancing act, as DrRJ explained to me, was to give the drugs long enough to work without letting me deteriorate to the point where surgery would be a bad idea. The problem was that my protein levels were so low, because I hadn't been eating and what I was eating, was going right through me, and you need decent protein levels in order to heal. Doing surgery on someone with low protein is a risk. So they had to judge how long they could safely give the drugs to work before dropping the hammer and wheeling me into the theatre. While they were making up their minds, they sent me for any number of x-rays and one very horrible procedure that was a combination x-ray/roller coaster while a tube was stuffed up my arse and dye injected, to see how far round the colon the colitis had spread. Turned out it was pretty much everywhere but I'm not sure they needed to do that particular procedure to work that out :P

Turned out that five days was the magic number. Friday I was moved to a private room on Codicote ward, the ward I'd be on for the rest of my stay. Saturday morning DrRJ came around (and the fact he was there on a Saturday tells you how urgent this was) and said he thought today was going to be the day, they were just waiting for the results from my blood tests. 10am it was confirmed, they'd do the surgery today. I signed the forms, stopping my ears as Dr M2 listed all the things that could go wrong. 4pm I was in the anaesthetist's theatre being prepped for surgery. 7pm I woke up in the recovery room. Incidentally, they gave me an epidural, which was an interesting experience - they had a hell of a job getting the epidural in and I don't think it ever really worked as it should have, it didn't block the pain high enough up my torso to be 100 per cent effective. However, it did help, I'm sure :) I was also on morphine, the sort where you press a button and you get a dose. Heh. I liked that :P

I was returned to Codicote ward where I was moved to one of the bays, C Bay. Yes, they have an E Bay, yes, they've done allll the jokes :D I had a rough night, the pain was pretty bad and they spent a lot of time with me juggling dosages etc. to help. They must have done their job at some point because I slept and woke up in the morning feeling like crap but alive :) Moving hurt, so I'll skip over the memory of the bed bath :P I met Sisters Sue and O (I can't remember how to spell her name!) who didn't put up with any stuff and nonsense and got me moving about a bit, albeit in the bed. Ow. I was still pretty groggy at this stage and in a bit of pain but the morphine helped.

Immediately following the surgery, I felt fine. I was hungry, I ate, the pain gradually got less. And then, about 3 days after the surgery, I started having problems keeping food down. After I'd thrown up 3 times during the night, they put in a stomach tube. I hated it, I remember wailing at the two nurses who put the tube in not to leave it but they had to. That was the lowest point for me, the five days I had the tube. I was now nil by mouth and starting to hallucinate about food. I was sent to get a c-line in my neck, a permanent needle in a major artery, through which they could feed me. That wasn't fun but I didn't feel much, it was just an uncomfortable process. That was the only time I found someone's hand during the procedure and clung on to it :P

So for a week I was on fluids and no food and was definitely cranky. I think I had visitors, I hope I was civil. There was one very bad day, just before I got the tube, I think, where Foghorn and thalinoviel both showed up and I begged them not to stay. I'd been sitting up in the chair for the first time and it hadn't gone well. I couldn't breathe, my asthma was kicking in and I felt bloody awful. The following day, I was pretty rough and it was a few days before I felt like having visitors again. I can't quite recall now when I got the tube and when this happened, I think I got the tube a couple of days later - Janey, can you remember?

Getting the stomach tube out was a major turning point for me. Everyone, patients, doctors, nurses alike, commented that I suddenly improved 100 per cent after that bloody tube came out. And why not? I could eat again, drink again, I wasn't gagging every time I swallowed because of the tube at the back of my throat and I felt like a real, live human bean. I could talk without croaking and needing several breaths to finish a sentence. Why on earth wouldn't I have improved? :D

Food was cautiously taken in for a couple of days and, when I was convinced all was well, taken in very enthusiastically indeed. I have to say, the food was of a pretty decent standard. I had maybe 2 ropey meals the whole time I was there, the rest of it was very edible and pretty appetising. There was a wide choice for lunch and dinner, maybe 5 main course items each time. I've saved a couple of the menus, I'll have to see if I can get Troo to scan them for me so I can show you. The only problem was you had to choose your meals the day before you had them. Hence I managed to have a salad on the coldest day of the week and a hot, stodgy meal on the hottest :P Ah well :) The only complaint I have in retrospect was about the breakfasts; for reasons passeth all understanding, they couldn't supply toast. *sulks* Oh well, rice krispies worked fine :)

Medically, the only thing holding me back was the stoma itself, which had gone into overdrive and was producing so much waste, they didn't dare take me off the fluids because I was losing more than I was taking in. However, I was told all along that this happened from time to time, it will sort itself out, don't worry. And of course, they were right, gradually, slowly, things started to fall into place. I got the hang of coping with the bag, so was changing it and dealing with it myself. They took me off the catheter because I was having problems and got me walking to the bathroom the next day, so that I finally had a bit of independence and didn't need to keep calling for a commode. The last needle in my hand was taken out, leaving only the c-line, so I was nearly tube free. That was the last thing to go, that didn't come out until 3 days before I was discharged, when they were absolutely, 100 per cent sure that the stoma was working and they wouldn't need to get any more fluids into me. (I will post a rant at some point about me and needles and the problems they had finding my veins :P)

Wednesday 1st October, that's when they decided I was close to discharge and that they'd aim for a Friday release. The stoma was working splendidly, I was mobile, if slow, and I was eating like a horse. Plus I was cheerful, alert and clearly ready to be somewhere else :) Wednesday and Thursday dragged like hell :P Friday was even slower, although much enlivened by me ending up with a cooked breakfast, as mentioned in the food poll results post. Mmm, that was lovely! Just after lunch, I was officially released and sent down with all my gear to the discharge lounge. I had to wait there for about 3 hours for Foghorn but it wasn't too bad, I dozed and read and dozed some more. Foghorn took me home and brother, was I glad to get there! Although just walking from her car to my front door turned my legs to jelly :P

Now I'm home and every day I can feel myself getting a teeny, tiny bit stronger. Gill reckons I'll need a least a month at home, maybe 3 weeks, to get more mobile and feel more human. In terms of long term recovery, it'll be nearer 2 or 3 months but this first month is when the spade work is done. Getting up and down from the sofa is getting easier, bust stitch and all :) It's still kinda strange to be home though. I'm a solitary person by nature but I spent a month in a very social, noisy, busy environment and I'm actually finding it kinda odd to be somewhere that's so quiet. I put the TV on as background noise a lot and that helps. And of course, I've got you guys back online, which is invaluable. I was telling Gill today how everyone keeps track of me online and she was impressed. She's worried about me being on my own, I think. However, I know folks from work will visit of a lunchtime, probably next week, and so will other friends, so I won't be totally isolated. And I'm sure Janey and Troo will take me out and about when I'm up to it :)

So that's my hospital story, broadly speaking. It got longer than I thought so there will be further posts about nurses and other things. Hope you found it of interest :) Now, I need to find me a medical type icon for posts like this. Oh woe, I'll have to find or make one. My life, it is so hard! *giggles*