So I'm back in hospital with a line infection. They're the bane of my bloody life. It started out on Saturday night when I went to hook up to my feed. I noticed green pus coming from the exit site of my Hickman line. I had a squeeze to see how much was there (a fair bit) and then there followed a load of blood. I rang the out of hours team who said that I needed to go to A&E to get it looked at but it was 12.30am on a Saturday night and it would be full of drunks and I just couldn't face going so instead I got in bed.
I woke up Sunday morning feeling ok and there had been no more yucky stuff come out overnight so I thought it was probably a one off. If I did have a line infection then when I hooked up to my TPN my temperature would go up, I would start to feel rubbish and I would know then that I needed to go to hospital but none of that did happen and Sunday I felt fine. Big Fella was playing at a football festival at Nottingham Forests ground and I went along with Hubby, Big Girl, my Dad, my nephew and my Father in law. We had a great afternoon and I think my Dad was as excited as Big Fella about getting to actually go on the pitch!
The team played really well, the sun was out and so was the ice cream van but sadly someone dropped theirs before they could eat it!
I took Dad home and said goodbye to him and Mum who were going away on holiday to Turkey for a week early the next morning. Once home I was shattered and took to my bed leaving Hubby to sort out the kids. When I woke up on Monday morning I felt crap. It was like a ton of bricks had hit me. Now this sometimes happens after I've had a busy day or two so I wasn't sure if it was that or maybe an infection. Before taking the kids to school I disconnected my TPN and there was pus and blood again so the chances of it being an infection were creeping up but as I had no temperature I wasn't too worried. I decided that instead of going to see the GP (who would send me off to A&E) I rang my team at St Marks and left a message on their answerphone.
I hadn't really perked up and with the thought of it being a line infection at the back of my mind I decided to get the house in order. When everywhere was clean and tidy I started on the ironing and after 2 hours the basket was empty. Now at least the kids had uniform for the week and Hubby has his shirts for work. Next thing on the list was to go shopping but I was starting to flag and decided that a sit down and a coffee was in order first. I made a quick dash to the shops before going to pick the kids up from school. Big Girl had a friend coming home with her as her mum didn't have anyone else to look after her that afternoon but they entertained themselves on the trampoline and with their phones. I lay on the sofa and Big Fella used the opportunity to get straight onto his Xbox with needing to do any reading first! At 5pm I dragged myself off the sofa to cook them some dinner and when the mum came to pick her daughter up I felt like death warmed up. I managed to make small talk and then once she left I lay on the sofa again and didn't move. My temperature was normal at 5pm and by 7pm had crept up to 39 degrees. Hubby arrived home from work just after 7 and knew that I needed to go to hospital as soon as possible so got on the phone to his parents to arrange childcare. While he rushed about putting pjs, books, magazines, toiletries and medication in a bag I lay on the sofa, my muscles aching, head throbbing and shivering- I was at the point where I was so hot that I was feeling cold. I also had terrible pain around the Hickman line and up into my shoulder which was getting so bad that I could barely move my right arm.
Luckily the hospital is only a 20 minute drive from our house but by the time Hubby pulled up outside A&E I was unable to walk or get out of the car unaided and he had to go and grab a nearby paramedic to come and help us. The paramedic brought a wheelchair over to the car and helped to get me into it whilst Hubby went to register my details at reception. There was no sitting around waiting to be seen; I bypassed the triage nurse and was taken straight into a cubicle and put on a bed. The challenge of getting a cannula into me began and after a couple of attempts in my arm the nurse gave up and started looking at my feet. So I ended up with the cannula in my left foot which made getting around a bit tricky but other than going to the loo I felt way too ill to do anything but just lay on the trolley. As is typical of me I'm allergic to the antibiotics that are used to treat line infections so I had brought the st marks protocol for treating line infections with me to show the doctor what alternative medication should be used instead. But do you think they listened to me when I said I needed to be treated with Teicoplanin? No of course not. I must have dosed off because when I woke up I had a red rash spreading over my body and was itching so much that I scratched and scratched until I broke the skin and drew blood in some places. The problem was that instead of prescribing the antibiotic Teicoplanin, they had given me Vancamicin and I had experienced an allergic reaction. So did they stop giving it to me? No. They paused it for 30 minutes, gave me some antihistamines and then started running it again but more slowly. When the doctor came to see me I insisted he read the protocol (I had it saved to my phone) and after he had done he admitted that they had given me the wrong antibiotic and agreed to begin treating me with the Teicoplanin.
I was moved from A&E onto a ward that can only be described as a holding pen. Patients on this ward have been moved out of the main A&E area to free up beds for other patients and are all either waiting for a bed to become free on a ward or to be transported back to care/nursing homes. Consequently there's a lot of noise from patients being brought in and moved out at all times of the day and night. There were a lot of older patients, a lot of whom appeared to have dementia or altziemers which meant that they required a lot of care from the nurses and were noisier than other patients. As you can imagine I didn't get much sleep.
On Tuesday morning I rang the kids before they went to school and they asked me when I was coming home. It's heartbreaking having to tell them that you have no idea but hope it won't be too long. Over the course of the morning I spoke to various doctors who all asked the same questions and all asked me for the same summary of my health issues. I try not to get frustrated but sometimes I just want to scream "Can't you look in the notes?! All the answers to the questions you're asking me are in there!" But I don't. I answer the questions patiently and politely, giving as much detail as I can. The plan was to continue with IV antibiotics and fluids via the cannula in my foot. The Hickman line can't be used because if you do then the bugs causing the infection get pushed into the bloodstream and travel around the body which can cause full blown sepsis which is really not nice.
Luckily I got to leave the holding pen early afternoon as a bed had become available on the specialist gastro ward. And my luck continued as I was wheeled into a large single side room with its own en suite toilet and shower room. The view out of the window is nothing to write home about, especially after having been spoilt with views of Wembley stadium, Canary Wharf and the London Eye when I was in St Marks hospital in London, but I've got my own room so I'm not complaining.
I decided not to put anything on social media about me being in hospital because my parents had just gone on holiday. They flew out to Turkey for a week the same day I came into hospital and I didn't want them seeing anything if they checked Facebook. When they were on holiday just less than a year ago my sister had to call them to tell them to come home as Mums Dad was dying. Since then they've had to cope with his death and funeral, had to take over the care of my Grandma who suffers with dementia, we lived with them for 8 months, they helped us move house and have supported me with my poor health by doing practical things to help like doing housework, look after the kids, do shopping etc when I'm having a bad time. So I knew that they really needed this holiday. They needed a week to totally relax and not have to worry about anything or anybody and if they knew I was in hospital then they wouldn't be able to do that.
NB x
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