Friday, July 01, 2005

Trouble with the waters.

If you are here for knitting, miss this post out.
This post is made up of emails I sent to myself during the week, and is the product of a fevered brain,so please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.
While not getting into intimate detail I felt I should share the intricacies of my week with you all.
We were up to the point where I had seen the gp and was looking down the barrel of a week end in bed… if only I was so lucky.
Friday was one of horror, take 2 panadol (now I know why they use the term "wracked with fever" I felt wretched) and then wait an hour for it to work, an hour of constant shivering as I was torn apart with pain, then 40 minutes of peace, before the panadol wore off, then 2 more hours of agony before I could take more panadol.
First thing Saturday morning we were at A&E , I think they design these places to ensure only the very ill even try to stick around, the signage was confusing, one said see reception first, the other said see triage first, I bit the bullet and went for reception, good guess! I was given a form and told to wait on the grey seats, then the Triage nurse saw me, I understand they are overworked and understaffed, but he could have listened to me. Then I was sent to sit on the cream seats with a "we’ll get to you" we arranged ourselves as far as we could from the majority of those waiting, well and unwell who it seemed only washed when accidentally caught in a rainshower, the place smelled like whiskey distilled in an opshop.
So we waited. and we waited Flash and Blaise had to go to Blaise’s drama class, so I said I would be fine, clasped my back pack to my chest,for fear of having it stolen as much as support, and continued rocking gently as it helped the pain, the shaking continued unabated. An elderly woman sat down opposite me, her husband joined and stage whispered to her "we can't sit near that druggy" " she’s not a druggy" said the wife " look at her clothes" (apparently there's a dresscode...no the irony of my own prejudices are not lost on me) " I know what I see" replied the husband I fixed him with my best child scaring look and said "I have kidney infection, now sshh"

2 minutes later I was invited into the inner sanctum, given a bed and a drip in the elbow crease of my left arm, so it wouldn’t bend… this is of great importance later in the story(despite what the old man thought, I do not have the veins of a druggy)
I then told my story for the 3rd time…it would end up being told about 20x more, along with the “no I cannot possibly be pregnant” which I will just get tattooed on my forehead for future visits, either that or “speyed”
Basically A&E was a comedy of errors, the “NO I can’t tolerate MORPHINE” while a dose was going into my arm, "Nurofen triggers my asthma...(wheeze) please give me ventolin...(wheeeeze)" we started with a diagnosis of “kidney infection” (get her an x-ray)…went to “UTI” (you can go home now)…to “constipation” (huh??)…to “infected gall bladder” (get her to CT scan)…and back to kidney infection. After a day and a half in Emergency they finally put me into a nice quiet room, safely hidden off a cardiac ward, the nurses were pleasant, I never got my meds on time, but they were nice, the food was plain but nourishing ( I expect) I only ate the salads and deserts. I was so tired I mostly slept, and then on the Tuesday I started to feel a lot better, and sat up, and thought…”I’ll knit…where’s that sock?” big mistake, can’t knit with a non-bending left arm…one pissed knitter, sitting there, all that time on my hands, can’t knit. So I bugged and I pestered, and finally at 11pm, after the last intra-venous antibiotics were administered, they took the canula out, I knitted 2 rounds, and lay back exhausted!

Wednesday was better, I managed 20 rounds during the day, and had lots of nurses coming in to see the sock, and delight in his Opal gorgeousness, look out Champion Yarns…a number of them wrote the name of the yarn down.
Thursday dawned, another day with no fever, the Renal dr came around and I was ready for action! Send me home…you have no excuses…send me home I pleaded, and she relented, Flash came and rescued me (and the ½ a florists shop…the “when you care but can’t be there” gift of choice from NZ friends and rellies, thanks guys) popped me back into bed at home, where I slept for 2 hours. I am sitting here now, propped up in bed, still exhausted, but much better, and raring to get started on all of the ideas I had lying in that bed hour after hour.

The Karangahake wrap was ripped back again, I was knitting on it on Thursday night when this all started, and stuffed the pattern up, I’ll go back to it when I have all my wits about me…or some.

Now, I want you all to make sure you drink lots of water, and never pass up an opportunity to use the restroom.