I just can't stay away.

I'm wrote most of this post from a stretcher in the A&E department of Princess Alexandra hospital yesterday. 

Remember how my left leg went numb after the procedure of Friday? Well it started to not feel right again on Wednesday and the outside of my thigh started to go numb. 

I didn't think much of it, assuming it would go away. Well it didn't. I didn't sleep a wink Wednesday night. Literally not a minute. I think the fact that my leg was playing up coupled with the fact that my mind is in overtime with mental to do lists meant that I had insomnia. 

So by 4am I had enough of lying in bed listening to Hubby snore so got up and went down to watch some TV. Having caught up on Gogglebox it was time to get the kids up for school. 

There was a mass at the school and the parish had gotten a new priest while I've been in hospital so I was keen to go and see what he was like. I got dressed (news flash - Natalie wears real clothes instead of pjs!) and a friend picked me up. 

At the mass my leg started to feel funny. I thought it was sitting on the plastic school chairs but as the time ticked on it was feeling worse. After the mass I rang the IFU ward at St Marks and spoke to one of the doctors who in turn was going to speak to the anaesthetist and ring me back. 

I wasn't too worried but I also knew it wasn't quite right. My leg shouldn't start to feel like this days after the procedure surely?

My friend was taking me to the shops to get Big Girl a sleeping bag for Cub camp next weekend and while we were out it started getting worse and worse. The numbness increased and I was struggling to put weight on it. 

The doctor from St Marks rang back and said that she had spoken to the anaesthetist and he couldn't say either way whether my leg was ok or not just by talking to me on the telephone. He advised that I should go to A&E and get it checked out. 

There was no way I was going back to hospital. I would just wait and see how it was and if it felt worse then I might try to get an appointment with the GP. Or that's what I thought. My leg obviously had other ideas as by the end of lunch I went to stand up and my leg buckled. Shit. What if it went totally numb like it had last Friday? Now I was starting to panic so I decided to ring Hubby. 

He was sure that I should go and get it checked out so I asked my friend to drop me off at A&E. Luckiky there was one 10 minutes drive from where we were having lunch so off we went. She dropped me off then went to pick up her kids and my kids from school. 

After booking in at the reception I took a seat in the waiting room and was seen pretty quickly by a triage nurse. Trying to explain the problem (and the story of how my leg came to be numb in the first place) was interesting as I'm sure you can imagine. Mine is not a straightforward medical case. 

It went something like this:

Nurse: so what's the problem?

Me: my leg is numb

Nurse: is there a reason for it?

Me: I had a procedure last week where the anaesthetist put local and steroids into my spine

Nurse: why? What procedure?

Me: because I was in hospital and having very bad pains in my bottom so they decided to do an examination under anaesthetic. 

Nurse: why were you in hospital?

Me: because I had an infection in my Hickman line

Nurse: why do you have a Hickman line?

Me: because I had bowel surgery and now my bowel doesn't work properly 

Nurse: why did you have bowel surgery?

Me: because I had ulcerative colitis and my large bowel perforated 

Nurse: so you have a Stoma?

Me: I did. I now have a J-pouch. I didn't really want the injection into my spine and it made my leg numb after the procedure in Friday

Nurse: what did they sat at the hospital?

Me: that it was probably as a result of the scar tissue from my spinal surgery

Nurse: *heavy sigh and raised eyebrows* you've had spinal surgery too?

Me: oh yes 

You see, when you actually say it all out loud it sounds really bad. When you're living it, it creeps up gradually on you, all this crap but then when you have to explain it to someone else it almost sounds like you're making it up. Surely all of that cannot possibly have happened to one person!

Anyway, I end up having a similar discussion with the A&E doctor who had a look on his face that was a mixture of 'is this for real/she knows more about this than I do/I have no idea what to do with her' so he called his boss. His boss decided to pass my case to the orthopaedic team as they didn't have a neuro team at the hospital. 

So I was sent for an X-ray of my spine. When I got there I had to fill out the form which includes the 'is there any chance you could be pregnant' and 'what was the first date of your last period' questions. Resisting from answering no bloody way in hell to the first I just put no and then gave them my date. Only trouble is that being in hospital annd the meds and general anaesthetic plays havoc with my menstrual cycle so I was 2 weeks late. 

Now as I said there was no bloody way in hell I could be pregnant having spent the last 5 weeks in hospital. But would they believe me? No they wouldn't. So I had to do a bloody pregnancy test. The nurse came back and said to me "you're all right, it's all clear" as if I had any doubt and was worried that baby number 3 was in my belly!

So I had the X-ray and was then put in a cubicle to wait. And wait. And wait. After 6 hours of being in A&E I felt I had been patient enough so started to ask the nurses what was going on and when I would be seen. I had the kids to worry about plus my evening medication was due and the sister informed me that they didn't have my meds there so I had to make do with a shot of oramorph. 

The trouble with my medication is that while it is very good it is also very addictive. So if I'm late getting it my body starts to go 'cold turkey' and I start getting jittery like a junkie would! I'm in the process of weaning off it but its going to take some weeks before I will be 'clean'!

So after another hour and a half the orthopaedic doctors arrive, apologising profously and mumbling about the fact there's been a lot of broken hips today. He had me perform some standing, walking and bending tests to see how my leg was functioning. By this time it had started to feel better and I was able to walk although it was still very numb. 

They wanted to do some blood tests to check for infection as I had had a needle in my spine which introduces the risk of infection but other than that the doctors were satisfied there was no immediate cause for concern. Promising that I would be sent an appointment for an MRI scan within the next week or so they said I could go home. 

By this time I had been there for...

Yes- I did start a timer on my phone when I went to A&E mainly because I was interested in knowing how long I had been waiting in there and I have such a bad memory I would forget what time I went in there! (The lap time is when I was seen by the triage nurse, which is pretty impressive I thought)

So I went home with Hubby who had turned up at the hospital after about 4 hours when he could get away from work. The kids were having a sleepover at my friends house (the one who had dropped me off at A&E). She's an amazing friend. She is always there for me, never complains about looking after my kids when I can't and makes the most amazing chocolate brownies. Every girl needs a friend like her!

After being awake for nearly 40 hours, I was totally exhausted so climbed into bed as soon as we got home. I should have had TPN but I was too tired to set it all up and thought 'sod it. I will do it tomorrow!'

So that's my story of my leg and how I just can't stay away from hospitals. I hadn't even been home for 72 hours before I ended up back in one. I think that might be a new record, even for me. 

My leg today is a lot better. The numbness is still there but I can walk much better. Hopefully it was just a blip and that will be it now but I have a feeling that it won't be. That would be too simple and my life is never simple!

NB x