From my bed

I come to you today from my bed in cubicle 5, Ward 29 at Freeman Hospital, courtesy of my friend's mobile broadband whatsit thingummy.

After struggling on with pneumonia for six weeks at home, and with that setting up considerable inflamation in my lungs in an asthmatic way, I finally gave in at the end of last week. I emailed the ward Charge Nurse on Thursday evening, basically with a very miserable email saying that I knew he couldn't do anything through the ether, but I was fed up with things as they are and I could do with some advice as the infection just won't go away and I'm struggling. On the Friday morning I phoned my consultant and left a message on his secretary's answer machine, saying how things were and asking if the consultant could call me back. By mid-afternoon there'd been no return call so I rang again, this time getting through the secretary who took a very detailed message and said that she'd ask Dr H to phone me when he was finished with the patient he was seeing at the time. He called back about half an hour later and after a relatively brief conversation suggested that I come into hospital to get sorted out with IV antibiotics and IV aminophylline. I'm now back on the oral antibiotics, and the pneumonia at last seems to be abating, although there's still considerable inflamation in my lungs and improvement in asthmatic symptoms is slow, so I'm still on the supplemental oxygen and I'm still on the aminophylline infusion. The docs have now started to reduce the infusion a little, and I have to say that I'm not convinced by the success of this as my peak flows have dropped again (averaging 130 pre-nebuliser, and 180 post-nebuliser, which is better than it was before I came in), but we'll see how it goes.

One of the women from lung function came up yesterday to do my spirometry. She was quite shocked by very low FEV1 of 0.36 L and asked if I was waiting for a transplant! 'No,' I said, 'It's asthma.' To say she looked surprised is definitely an understatement, and I have to say that it left me feeling a bit shaken up that she should think that I was in need of a lung transplant :o/

I'm still not sleeping well and I'm incredibly tired. I know it's going to take a while to recover from this, because although I didn't reach the critical point, I did have a very long and protracted struggle at home, and not a particularly easy ride once I got to hospital. At least I seem to be on the mend now, but I could certainly do with some good quality sleep ... and perhaps a few less tubes would be good too.

I have to say that having use of my friend's dongle thingummy (why is it that the word 'dongle' cracks me up in a very childish manner? ;oP ) has made the world of difference. The Patientline TV/radio/telephone/games/internet unit above the bed is okay for everything except internet, and it all costs a small fortune. Actually, it's internet is completely useless and crashes at the first sign of being used on most occasions, rendering it almost completely useless. At least with this mobile broadband whatsit I can access the internet and keep in touch with my friends, and my OU peers ... although it has to be said that I have no brain at the moment to do any OU studies, which is a bit of a bugger seeing as my final project for my current course is due in in about three weeks time :oO !!!

Well, on that slightly panicked note I'm going to sign off for now and try to get a bit of rest.

More pills

I'm still not well. I've still got pneumonia, though I have some how managed to stay at home. Saying that, it's been a struggle to stay home, and each time I've seen the doctor they've questioned whether or not I should be home or in hospital. I went back to the GP last Wednesday and he started me on doxycyline - my third lot of antibiotics since this infection started. One of the side effects of doxycyline is photosensitivity, and I can categorically say that I have most definitely succumbed to this side effect. I was outside for a few hours on Sunday (my birthday) and now I resemble an embarrassed tomato. My face is bright red, and when I take my glasses off I look as though I have goggle shadows. It's really not a good look.

I had a phone call from my GP on Friday, and not from the doctor I saw on Wednesday. He wanted to check on how I was, and wasn't too impressed by the sound of me, pointing out that I couldn't actually speak in sentences, although I pointed out that I could still speak so I wasn't in dire straits. He checked out that I can still self-refer to the ward at the hospital and said to get in touch with them if there was any deterioration over the weekend. The GP phoned again on Monday evening to see how things were going, and again wasn't impressed so asked to see me, making an appointment for me there and then. I went yesterday afternoon. The first thing he noticed was the sunburn from the doxycyline photosensitivity and was quite shocked, even though I'd warned him when I spoke to him on the phone on Monday. He decided to stop the doxycyline straight away and instead put me back on amoxicillin (I've had two extended courses of co-amoxiclav already). The doc I saw last week had taken my sputum sample and the lab had returned the results. It turns out that I have Haemophilus influenzae pneumonia (Hib pneumonia), which isn't actually 'flu, despite it's name. Apparently it's quite unusual for people over the age of 4 to get Hib infections (you know, that one that babies are immunised against with the Hib vaccine), so yet again I defy normality. Anyway, Hib is supposed to be sensitive to both doxyclyine and amoxicillin so hopefully the bugs will finally decide that they don't like the company they're getting so upsticks and head off. I certainly hope so as it's been five and a half weeks now and it feels like they've taken up residence and settled in forever.

Oddities

Sometimes there are just a few too many odd occurrences for one person to keep to themselves. The first was more unusual than truly odd, but noteworthy all the same. I live not too far away from the main train line between Newcastle and Edinburgh, and although I don't hear the trains everyday, I do sometimes hear them hoot their horn. On Monday I had the back door open, and was standing at the kitchen sink doing the washing up when I heard a train hoot its horn as it passed nearby ... except that it wasn't a horn being hooted; it was a whistle being whooted - a steam train.

Later that day I went for a trundle in Taz to make the most of the sunshine. While I was out I saw a couple of people walking two very small dogs, that turned out not to be dogs at all. Nope, what I was seeing was a couple of people taking two ferrets for a walk. Of course I've heard of this before, but it's not something I've ever seen and it was a little surprising, although smilesome :o)

You may have missed this news story yesterday, but it is truly odd. It is the story of a Russian man who went to see the doctor because he had a bad cough, was coughing up blood and had chest pain. An x-ray showed a shadow on his lung and he underwent immediate surgery to remove the tumour. However, the tumour turned out not to be what anyone was expecting, but rather a 5cm fir tree growing in the man's lung! It's thought that maybe he'd breathed in a seed while walking in the woods, and had somehow found conditions good enough for germination. Ya know, this is one thing that my asthma consultant hasn't considered as the possible cause of all my problems, so maybe next time I'm at clinic I should ask to have my lungs checked for rogue fir trees.

Several years ago I had a friend, C, who I came to realise was actually detrimental to my mental health. I won't go into details, other than to say that at the time I was very depressed, C had her own mental health problems, and she was the kind of person who needed to be needy and needed to be needed. It took a lot for me to end this 'friendship', but I knew that it was what I needed to do, and after doing so I felt huge relief. For some strange reason, on Monday I found myself thinking about C about that time of my life. Even weirder was that on Tuesday I had a phone call from C. She said she was phoning to ask about a chair she'd bought off me after my business had closed, and she then went into some long and protracted explanation of how this chair had now broken and how she was 'in consultation' with Ikea, where the chair had originally come from. It was all rather boring, to be honest, and yet (and as ever) she tried to make it sound like it was the most disastrous thing to happen in all the world, and what terrible repercussions the event had ... which as far as I could tell were that she had a broken chair and a sore bum. It was a very odd phone call, but really I think it was an excuse for C to get back in touch with me. It's not going to happen. Thinking about C fills me with a depressed frustration and I know that she's still no good for me. We were both ill when we met, and the one thing that she couldn't cope with was me getting better from depression - she wanted me to be ill. During the strange call from her on Tuesday it became evident that she's still ill; apparently hasn't made any progress; and she sounded hugely disappointed when I said that although my lungs are rubbish my mental health is great. I don't need that. I don't want that. She was odd then. She's still odd. The phone call was odd. The fact that I'd found myself thinking about C the day before the call was odd.

Some odd things are good, others are just ... odd.

Doctor, doctor

For the past three to four weeks I've been struggling with pneumonia. Although not at the request of my GP, I've managed to stay at home, but it really hasn't been easy. I've been on horse pill antibiotics, which seem to start doing their thing, then the course finishes and the infection decides to make a come-back. I finished the most recent course at midnight on Wednesday, but I already feel the heaviness in my chest returning and the sweet taste of infection coming back. I've been permanently exhausted, but then you expect that with pneumonia, but I'm getting a bit fed up with it all now. Of course the whole thing has been playing havoc with my asthma, and my peak flows have been 150 at best. Okay, so they've been much worse than that before (and at times during this too), but everything is hard work when breathing is hard work. It's getting me down a bit. I'm okay ... I'm just fed up ... and I guess I'm a bit lonely too, because while I'm poorly like this then I can't go out much. I have been out a bit (only in Taz though), but not for long and it's mostly been on my own, although I did see a friend on Tuesday and one yesterday.

I went to an out patient appointment with my asthma consultant yesterday. No new break-throughs in the treatment of brittle asthma, of course, just another chat about where things are up to at the minute, but he did listen to my lungs. Despite having finished the antibiotics there are still crackles in my lungs, but he didn't give me any more antibiotics - just said to see how things go, keep a close eye on things, and go straight back to my GP at the first sign of things going downhill.

So that's where I'm up to. Breathing's a bit of a struggle; I'm a bit fed up; and the pneumonia is a bit of a bore. I'm just hoping that I can shake it off soon and also manage to stay out of hospital.

Formatting

There's a problem with formatting on here when I copy and paste from the documents on my computer. It seems to undo paragraphing and tabulations. I only noticed this (I'd forgotten about it) when I came back this morning after posting Circular Breathing yesterday, and realised how difficult it is to read without the proper paragraphing etc. I've gone through it and added lots of .s to create kind of paragraph spacing. I know it looks a bit weird, and it halts the flow a bit, but it's the only way I've been able to make things work. Sorry about that. Anyway, I just thought I ought to explain.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A is ...

... A watering can with holes punched in the bottom from when I used to grow rosemary in it.

This item was the cause of an extremely surreal day on Saturday.

After taking a sleeping tablet on Friday night I was woken at 10am on Saturday by one of my neighbours, who lives opposite the back of my house, leaving a message on my answer phone. In my sleepy state I wasn't all together sure that I'd heard her correctly at first so went through into the living room to listen to the message again. She said that earlier that morning she'd seen some scrap metal people send a young child (about 7 years old) into my back yard through the gap where there's a slat missing from the fence. The child's mission was to steal my metal watering can - Exhibit A. My neighbour had dashed out of the back of her flat, confronted the scrap merchants, retrieved the watering can, taken down the truck registration number and informed the police of what had happened. She now had Exhibit A in her possession. I went back through to the bedroom, looked out of the window, and sure enough there was a space where the watering can had been next to the wormery.

The rest of Saturday continued in a normal Saturday kind of way ... for a couple of hours ... and then the police phoned me. Could they come round and take a statement from me? Er, yes, I suppose so, but I didn't see anything or hear anything. They came - a young WPC and a student PC - and were here for at least an hour. They were ever so interested in the fact that in the past I've seen some scrap metal collectors (most likely the same ones) standing on the flatbed of their truck, looking over people's walls as they drove up the lane, and then climbing over when they saw something of interest. Unfortunately I'd never taken the truck registration number down, but the police officers said that if I see it again then I should do so and immediately phone 999.

So when the police came to my flat we spent a bit of time going through what my neighbour had said had happened, and that the police had quickly found and stopped the truck, but as yet were unable to take things further. I wondered what 'taking things further' might mean in the context of the potential theft of a holey watering can, but didn't ask at that time. After that the student went out to the car to get the statement papers and the WPC explained that she would pretty much dictate the statement to the student, as there are certain things they need to include in it, but that I should interject if anything was incorrect. Well what could I say? I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything. I was out for the count when the crime was committed. That was pretty much all I could say, although I did also have to say that I hadn't given the scrap people or the child permission to come into my yard, and that nobody has the right to go into my back yard or take anything from the yard without either my permission or that of my upstairs neighbours who share the yard. Apparently it's not classed as burglary, because that has to entail breaking into a building, but it's some other crime I can't remember the name of ... not trespassing, but something along those lines. The other issue is the use of a child under the age of responsibility to 'commit the crime'. However, despite all that it seemed a bit over the top when the WPC told me that it could go to court and I'd be called as a witness!

Can you imagine? I might have to stand up in court and say, 'Well, your honour, I saw nothing; I heard nothing; and I knew nothing about the attempted theft of my holey watering can until I was informed of it by my neighbour.' How foolish am I going to feel! I know it's the principle of the thing, the immoral use of a child (which the police are going to inform social services about), and the fact that this is probably the tip of something much bigger (in fact the police weren't even sure that the scrap metal collectors were registered merchants, so they might also be breaking the law with that too), but really, going to court over a non-functional watering can??? I was reassured that because of my disabilities then I'd be treated as 'a vulnerable witness' and if necessary could give my evidence from a seperate room by video-link. For a watering can?!

I'll keep you posted on any developments, and let you know if I'm going to have to don my best court clothes ... not that I have any clothes specifically for court seeing as I've never had to appear in court before ...

... All very surreal.

By the way, just in case you're wondering, I've got the watering can back now. I met my neighbour in the back lane yesterday afternoon for a clandestine reacquainting with Exhibit A, which is now being guarded once again by the worms ... not that they did a very good job of it last time.

Hurray!

Hurray! I managed to get through the chest infection without becoming a resident of my friendly neighbourhood hospital :oD It was a very close thing at time, and I suspect that if I hadn't had the spur of the christenings at the weekend to help me then I would have given in and gone in. Sometimes my stubbornness pays off though, and this time I got lucky :oD I was pretty ill for several days, but was thankfully just well enough to make the drive to Combermere Abbey in Shropshire, where we were staying, on Friday, and by the time Sunday came around I was feeling a lot better. I've still got some of that post-infection fatigue, which probably isn't helped by having gone gallivanting off round the country at the weekend, but the weekend was soul-reviving, and it was wonderful to see Oliver and Daniel again (and the rest of the family of course!).

I had what you might call an 'interesting' journey down to Shropshire. The traffic was heavy from the outset and it got a heck of a lot worse very quickly, taking me almost three hours to get from just Newcastle to York - a journey that should take under two hours! However, I should have guessed that it wasn't going to be straight forward when I got as far as Washington and saw a man standing on the wrong side of the railings on a bridge over the motorway. He was perched precariously, and was in such a position that if he'd jumped off the bridge the driver of the vehicle that would hit him wouldn't see him until he was in mid-fall. There wasn't anywhere I could stop immediately as it was a motorway, but I knew I wasn't far from a service station, and I knew that I couldn't risk doing nothing, so I drove the short distance to the services and thought for a second what to do. Although Washington isn't far from Newcastle I really don't know my way around and I had no idea at all how to get up to the bridge where this man was. I decided that the only thing I could do was call the police and explain the situation, so I did, and they seemed a little perplexed at first as to why I wasn't with the man or hadn't spoken to him, but once they understood that I was just a passing motorist on a busy motorway who'd seen someone looking actively suicidal they quickly got into gear, and before long I was in the company of a couple of nice policemen. The told me that other officers were on scene and thanked me for contacting them ... and then I felt a bit useless because I couldn't do anything else, and I don't know the outcome, but I'm guessing that he was stopped from killing himself and possibly others on the motorway as I didn't hear anything on the news ... not that I would've done while away in Shropshire ... It was all a bit surreal, and completely unexpected. It also brought back a lot of bad memories of times in my past when I was actively suicidal, but it was probably because of those times that I knew I had to do something, even if I couldn't get to the man myself. Being so depressed that you can see no way through other than self-destruction and suicide is one of the worst chronic experiences I think there is (though I'm sure some will disagree and suggest other things). I sincerely hope that whoever the young man was he is getting the help he needs.

After all that it didn't seem to matter so much that I was stuck in traffic for hours on end - there were worse situations I could've been in - though it was tedious. The journey as a whole should've taken a little over three and a half hours, but it took almost six and it was pitch black when I stumbled across Combermere, and I'd have missed the turning if it hadn't been for my sat nav. Anyway, I eventually made it and met up with various aspects of my family :o)

The whole weekend was lovely, the children are wonderful, and the baptism was delightful, even if the vicar was a little odd. Regardless of his sexuality, he was incredibly camp, and I wasn't too sure about some of his theology. When we were gathered around the font at the back of the small, country church, he said, 'The font is like a big washing up bowl. God is the Fairy Liquid.' Er ... riiiiiight. He took hold of Daniel (6 months old) at arms length, failing to support his head in any way at all so Daniel looked most uncomfortable and was straining to keep his head up, and the priest then proceeded to pour the water not just over Daniel's head, but into his eyes ... twice. I can confirm that this combination of circumstances is recipe for a screaming child. Oliver (2 years old) was next, except the priest reached out not for Oliver, but for Ollie's cousin, Gemma (18 months old). My brother and sister-in-law steered him towards the right child and Oliver was almost dropped into the font head-first. This didn't bother Oliver though, and he spent the whole time giggling and thoroughly enjoying the experience of baptism :o) In fact he seemed to have an altogether lovely time ... except for when the priest accidentally kicked him over on his way back up the aisle at the end of the service.

On Monday morning, when Mum, J and I had packed and vacated the cottage we'd been staying in, we went over to where my brother and his family were staying so that we could help them pack and/or distract the children. Daniel was fast asleep and looking ever so scrumptious when we arrived so no job to be done there except keep an ear out for him waking. Oliver, on the other hand, needed a bit more occupying so we took it in turns to play games with him, or help pack things up. Ollie had clearly loved 'his party' the day before, and summed up his weekend when he ran between Mum and J on one sofa and me on an opposite sofa, throwing himself at us with his face covered in smiles, and calling out, 'Happy people! Happy people! Happy people!' Utterly delightful!