Skip to main content

Another Infection

Another line infection!

Another bloody infection!

I can't believe it. 

Just seen Dr 7 in his clinic and he thinks it's almost certain that I have a tunnel infection. Most people get infections at the exit site (the bit where the line comes out of the skin) but he said the symptoms I'm describing sound like the infection is deeper and in the tunnel part (where the line is tunnelled under the chest from the neck). 

This is a lot rarer than an exit site infection- bloody typical that I get it then! It could be due to the fact that I had a lot if scar tissue and it needed to be pushed in more or it could just be one of those things. 

As he put it "there are four options. 
1. Do nothing. Go home to bed and pull the duvet over your head and cry. 
2. Have oral antibiotics. 
3. Have IV antibiotics. 
4. Take the line out and put another in."

We dismissed 1 and 4 as being over dramatic and discussed the merits of 2 and 3. Oral antibiotics are the easier option but will take longer to work. As I'm allergic to 3 antibiotics he is also limited as to what he can prescribe and the one he would have to give me would increase the motions of the bowel meaning that my stoma would probably end up going crazy. 

IV antibiotics would work quicker but have to be given in hospital. So I would have to make a daily trip to St. marks for 10 days or be admitted....

Unless I was willing to learn how to mix and administer the antibiotic at home myself. 

Yep, yep, I can do that I told him. So I went back up to the Intestinal Failure unit to have my first dose and be shown how to do it. Tomorrow I will do it myself on the ward under the watchful eye of the specialist nurse and if she is happy I can then do the other 8 doses myself at home. 

I've also been told on the hush hush that a doctor from my team is on call over Christmas and working Christmas Day so if I get ill I should present at Northwick Park A&E and then I will be seen by the St Marks doctors. Great stuff, but I really hope I don't need to!      

NB x
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caravan wankers

Over the last few years when I was stuck in hospital for long periods of time Hubby and I would talk about what we would do if I ever got ‘better’. During some of those times when I was so, so poorly the idea of just being at home for more than a few weeks at a time seemed like a far fetched dream. But I’m currently living that dream! And obviously I know I will never ‘get better’ but for these purposes ‘getting better’ meant being well enough to be at home, not in pain 24/7 and not in bed all day, every day. Not too much to ask now is it??  So in our talks, once I was at home and was well enough to do the real basic things like watch Big Fella play football, Big Girl play netball, go to Tesco, play with the dog, go to the cinema etc one thing kept cropping up. We would love to have a motor home and tour round the country. We talked about the places we would like to visit, how much Buddy the dog would love it and how it would give us a chance to reconnect with each other.  But...
1 comment
Read more

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train

Last week was a busy and pretty crappy week for me health wise. I had to go and have blood tests done with the nutrition nurses and I had two hospital appointments; one with the gallbladder surgeon in Nottingham and the other with colorectal surgeon at St Marks. I was hoping to have at least one surgery date to write in the diary following these appointments but I came home empty handed on both occasions. Here’s what happened.  I began noticing over the last few weeks that I’ve started feeling really crappy. I’m feel lucky to have been at home for the last 6 months and I have been the most well I have been for years but it felt like things had shifted slightly recently but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But years of being sick means I know my body and I can tell when something isn’t right. I have been feeling permanently exhausted and having way more bad days than good. I’ve gone back to spending 2, 3 or more consecutive days in bed, unable to do anything but watch tv and sl...
1 comment
Read more

Trying to get vaccinated

When I was an inpatient recently I asked about getting the Covid vaccine because I’m classed as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (ECV). Apparently other patients on the ward had gotten theirs but I was told that it wouldn’t be possible and that I would have to get in touch with my GP. Apparently staff within the hospital had been using the system to book vaccinations for friends and family by saying that they were an inpatient and as a result they were now only vaccinating staff who could show their ID badge.  I can understand that people are worried about the people that they love but to think that people abused the system in that way makes my blood boil.  So when I was discharged I rang the GP surgery and was told that they had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccination programme and that I would need to get in touch with NHS England. So I called NHS England and spoke to an adviser who told me that according to the system I wasn’t eligible for a vaccination. I explain...
Post a Comment
Read more