Sunday, July 16, 2006
Please release me...
It's been nearly a fortnight since my last blog entry, and there's a
good reason for the break (I'd hate to keep my many readers on
tenterhooks for no reason, ha ha). The day after I wrote my last entry,
I phoned my hospital consultant for some advice on my worsening
condition. His response was to get me into hospital at once. Not a
moment too soon, either - I arrived with a raging temperature (39.5
degrees C, which is...let's see...103 Fahrenheit), and by the time I
was bedded down on a ward I was pretty incoherent. Turns out it was
option (b) - a roaring reaction from the colitis to being let off the
leash with neither anti-inflammatories nor immune suppressants (nor
steroids) to calm it down. Not a little scary. I spent five days on an
steroid drip, having methyl prednisolone pumped into me.
All this, I should add, on the eve of the holiday I was supposed to be
taking with my parents on their brand spanking new yacht in southern
France. Mum, bless her heart, flew up from the family seat in Devon and
has been a lifeline - it would have been truly miserable here without
her. She's been cooking and cleaning and generally tidying my flat, and
sleeping on the sofa. Dad was already on the boat, so he's been stuck
in France, bored to tears (no crew = no fun sailing), and we've had
daily text messaging and phone calls. The rest of the family have all
given their best wishes, although it's hard when we're so scattered
about the country.
But anyway.
It's funny, but there seems to be this assumption that as soon as
you're out of hospital, you're fixed and fine and ready to go again.
Well, I'm not. I'm still on humungous doses of steroids, and I will be
for weeks to come. Doctor's orders are to take another week off, and
then ease back into work slowly. And at the moment, I'm definitely
feeling the effects of over-exertion, even now. But I feel like I'm on
the mend, and my poo is wonderfully, satisfyingly solid. You have no
idea how good that feels. I can only hope that it stays that way when
the steroids drop away and the Azathioprine takes up the slack...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
You know...I was just wondering if you were okay. I'm so sorry you became so sick and had to back out of the trip with your parents! I don't think it would be bearable for me if I were in the hospital without my mom. We try to be there for each other as much as possible.
If there's anything I can do, let me know. I really hope you start feeling a lot better, with and without the steroids.
Thanks Tara! My family's spread out across the country, so although we try it's very difficult when one or other of us needs support. I had a few friends who visited me, but I was disappointed at how few they were. Guess I haven't been that sociable since I moved up here.
Anyway, thanks for the thoughts. It's enough to know there's people thinking of me! I'm well on the way to recovery now, I think, although it'll be a while before I'm fully charged again. Whatever that is. One of the strange things about chronic illness is that you forget how it is to be fully well, and full of energy. You start to naturally limit your activities, and then people think you're antisocial. I guess the way out of that little trap is to be proactive and organize things on your own terms - something I haven't really tried, to be honest, through laziness, fear of rejection, shyness, etc.
Having so much time at home has given me lots of time to think unhelpful thoughts about life, mortality, meaning, etc. which have somehow got in the way of writing the normal, frivolous stuff! Isn't that strange?
Post a Comment