Bloody blood tests!

That was yesterday. I think I did too much on Monday and yesterday I just couldn’t function. I needed to pack my clothes for holiday but just couldn’t get out of bed. So I decided it was going to be a rest day. I stayed in bed and dozed on and off until about 6pm. Hubby and Big Fella were off to football training and before they went Hubby asked if I might be able to get my case packed. He wants to be organised this year and get everything in the car ready to go a day before we set off instead of our usual last minute rush. So I forced my arse out of bed and started to pack.

But I didn’t just pack, I ended up feeding the dog, loading the dishwasher and the washing machine and a few other chores around the house. When I went back upstairs to put the last few bits in my case I knew I had overdone it and didn’t feel well. I could feel that I was about to pass out but there was nobody in the house to catch me so I hit the decks. Eventually I got myself up and ended up phoning one of my friends to bring me an emergency delivery of sugary fizzy drinks. I don’t know if my blood pressure is low or if I’m not getting enough calories from my feeds but I’m getting lightheaded quite often. I’m only getting 700 calories a day from my TPN feeds which was enough for when I was just lying around in my hospital bed doing jack shit but now I’m home and doing stuff the dieticians might need to increase it.

I felt better this morning and managed to get out of bed before lunchtime. This was mainly due to the fact I had to be at the GP surgery for midday for blood tests. When I got there I told the phlebotomist that I had bad veins and that the phlebotomists in the hospital had struggled to bleed me which resulted in one of the ward doctors taking blood from my wrist (and yes, that does hurt!) As with most phlebotomists she said “I’m sure your veins aren’t that bad” so I just sat back and waited for her to realise that my veins are actually non existent. After a few attempts she eventually conceded that I was difficult to bleed and she went to see if there were any nurses available to help her. Unfortunately there weren’t and she asked what happened the last time I came for bloods at the surgery. “Nobody could bleed me so I ended up going up to the hospital to have them done” was my reply.

So she admitted defeat and went to print out the form that I would need to take to the hospital only for the system to crash. Cue a 25 minute wait with her apologising profusely before I left with said paperwork. I decided to ring the ward to check what time you could turn up at at the hospital for walk in blood tests but they told me not to bother and to just head up to the ward and they would do them for me. I’ve got an appointment with the gynaecology team tomorrow to get the results of my bone density scan and to have the injection that puts me into menopause and keeps the endometriosis symptoms at bay so I’m going to pop up to the ward before that. At least if they’re being done on the ward if they can’t find a good vein then the doctor can go in my wrist or one of the nurses can access my Hickman line and take blood from there.

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...

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...

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...

More than just a bag lady

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