I wasnt going to blog about this but I changed my mind!
I went to see Scouting For Girls in Bristol. I was sitting there with my sis and about 45 minutes in My airways clamped shut, a wave of coughing came over me and I got up and almost crawled out of the main hall coughing and wheezing. All I had was my inhaler. Within a few minutes someone I dont know who had got the St Johnies over to me all they could do was watch me take my inhaler but within a few minutes it was apparent I wasn’t going to get better, they never asked me though they rang an ambulance. I was given a neb and I was better the coughing had stopped but still had a bad wheeze. It was only 5 minutes to hospital and as soon as I got there the triage nurse looked at me and said resus, they didnt even want me to slid over to the bed myself. I was scared do I actually look that bad (my sister said I looked like Caspar and I looked fed up of breathing!). Doctor came pretty quickly and read my admission plan, listened to my chest and barked all these orders, I had a silent chest. But despite these orders they only could get a blue in so could only get steroids and magnesium. Out comes the scanner and nice grey line went in. ICU came took a ABG which was terrible, an x-ray showing hyperinflation and a nasty chest infection. Med Reg came when ICU were still there. He remembered me from Bath when I was very sick (he was in ICU when I was tubed almost as soon as I arrived and ended up tubed for a week). He mentioned how fast I go down and said he didn’t want me on a ward and not with the numbers I was showing. He listened to my chest and took another ABG and was getting worse despite Mag. Up goes Amino and on comes BiPap. I was given an hour if Im no better then I needed tubing either way I was going to ICU.
I was in agony from the muscles in my chest so was given oramorph, I am weird and find being on bipap relaxing this is combination with oramorph allowed my breathing to get easier so no tube at the moment needed. I was moved up to iCU within 3 hours of arriving (my sister had been picked up by this point). But then The wave of tightness came back but not just in my chest it was in my throat, I could hear stridor, I couldn’t stop itching and I couldn’t breath in or out easily I started to panic I knew I was having an allergic reaction but I didn’t want to be tubed and I haven’t had an allergic reaction for so long. Anyway the ICU doctor was so calm and reassuring that just get drugs into me it will be fine so was given narcan, adrenaline and some pirtion. I was better after that point but the pain was back all they could do was give me IV Paracetamol.
After that point it was uneventful, I was in ICU for 4 days on IV antibiotics, Fluids, IV Paracetamol, Amino and steroids. My mum came to visit me once with my bag and ipad so I could watch some films and I slowly got better I thought but apparently my blood tests were still showing high infection markers ( a new record for me 141 after 4 days of Iv’s) so was a weekend still on IV steroids, amino (as they didn’t want the infection to make the asthma worse) and IV antibiotics. I was so fed up. Monday came and managed to convince them to try me on oral antibiotic etc because I am sensible (apparently). I needed to stay in another 24 hours off IV’s as I do have a habit of re-bounding. Home on Tuesday a total of 9 days in.
This admission was hard, I hadn’t got in the mindset for admission as it came out the blue. I wasn’t prepared and going into another hospital, one that didnt know me was harder I thought at times I was telling every nurse my history and badgering them to change bags of amino in a timely manner. The food was different. I couldn’t have many visitors as it was center of bristol. I did like having free wi-fi though. It did also scare me I haven’t had a quick severe attack like that for a while. The allergic reaction was scary too as now there is very limited options for severe pain
