I’m hoping that “no news is good news” because I made Una promise to call me if anything Bad happened. That was 8 hours ago, and nary a call has come.
Best wishes to you both. My own mother was admitted to the hospital last night on suspicion of heart problems, but she’s fine this morning and should be released either tonight or tomorrow morning. I hope that you shall receive similar good news. Good health to you both.
Rick has told me that British hospitals don’t always have phones bedside, so that may be why she hasn’t called.
I hope you have good news soon.
Here’s hoping this is a case of mis-commnication, and Fi is off having a grand ol’ time. All my best wishes for her health, and yours as well, Una.
All my good wishes and best thoughts to the both of you.
Una,
If you talk to Fierra, please tell her I am thinking about her speedy recovery to full health. And to you my dear, please call if you need someone to talk to while waiting for information. I should be around the house most of the weekend – I still have to go out and tackle some weeds, but I am here for you if you need it.
My love to you both.
Liz
A bit late, but…
I hope Fierra is ok. I will say a little prayer for her that she makes a full and speedy recovery.
Rick
Thank you everyone for being concerned, I’m out of hospital & back at home with my dogs. I’ll update everyone more fully.
“later” that should say. My brain obviously isn’t back yet - hence the delay with the update.
Damn, 19 minutes. I think we can all agree that from now on, RickQ is in charge of praying for a speedy recovery anytime anyone here is ill. He’s got that magic touch.
<Preacher voice>I said praise the Lord. Can I get an Amen. Come on brothers and sisters, pray with me, put your hands up, I have the healing touch.</Preacher voice>
Rick
Yeah, but can you get me a job?
Fierra - glad that you are back home.
Fierra, I’m glad to hear that you are home again and hope that you are feeling well again. I hope it was nothing serious.
Rick
Too late to wish you out of the hospital (a penalty for being Downunder and not owning a computer) BUT very best wishes for a full recovery. My thoughts are with you both.
Redboss
I’m sorry for the huge delay in posting the update. This is the medium length version :Friday Night and Saturday Morning:
The reason for all the trouble is that I had flu for well over two weeks & instead of being steady or getting better, it suddenly got much worse. So, on Wednesday, I start with high fever (102[sup]o[/sup]F by Thursday), nausea, sore ribs, tight chest, breathing uncomfortable, a few other things, plus all the standard tried & tested flu symptoms too that I’ve had for a fortnight. I left work early & fell asleep when I got home. I took Thursday off sick & did a lot more sleeping.
Friday, I threw up at 5am & got up at 7am for a three hour exam, that I had decided I couldn’t skip. Contained my stomach, and just made it through the exam, but the examiner noticed I was ill, so I must have looked rough. I made it home & rang the doctor & got an appointment for 6pm.
The doc says, hmmm, sounds like flu, odd it’s getting worse, how long have you had that heart murmur? & I say “what heart murmur”? :eek: So then, he double checks my notes, dodges any questions about what are the implications of a heart murmur, and starts asking me a huge string of questions. He decided that things don’t quite add up, takes a sample, decides still don’t add up, and so he sends me down to casualty (the UK term for ER) - after disappearing to call them first, to make sure various departments are still open “since it’s Friday”. I came out of the doctor’s after 35 minutes (usual appointments are 5 minutes, so he was obviously taking it seriously) & drove down to Casualty and parked.
I checked myself in at the desk when the receptionist finally appeared, handed her my Doctor’s note, & noted only 2 people in the waiting room, but still a waiting time of two hours… :rolleyes:
So eventually, I get seen by the triage nurse, who tells me there is quite a wait (Duh!) and sends me back to the waiting room. This is another problem. It’s just before 7pm on a Friday. The doctors & nurses were very nice & professional, but I had a hell of a wait incommunicado at each stage (no mobiles in hospitals) & no watch with me, so no way of knowing it was taking 5 (7-midnight) hours in a small featureless room with no distractions (no Una, no relatives, no friends) just to decide to admit me. It was rather scary & I missed Una. I’d have settled for my mom, but I’d rather have had Una. It was made much worse by seeing other people have friends and family sit with them during the long wait. I always need her & miss her, but I missed her even more then.
I had a line put in & blood drawn (it hurt from my hand for some reason & hurt worse when he flushed the line - ouch!), then about 5 minutes later he drew blood from my elbow, which doesn’t hurt when the blood is withdrawn (usually). I was sent for an x-ray and had my sats & pulse & blood pressure taken. All at very, very long intervals. Then a doctor came & saw me, asked me many of the same questions, but seemed less concerned by the whole murmur thing - more reassuring & younger and enthusiastic. Anyway, he ordered an ECG for completeness (those pads are cold!) & then talked to his boss, a lady doc I never saw who was in charge of the shift & they decided to keep me in over night to put me on IV antibiotics. Plus side - I hadn’t had a sharp object stuck in a vein for the last 4 hours for nothing. Minus side - drafty hospital gowns! (& all the other obvious stuff about being in hospital).
When they made up their minds, I told them that I had dogs & needed to make calls and had the numbers in the mobile. They sent me outside to get the numbers. I then had to phone my neighbours at near midnight & ask them to let out & feed my dogs (they have a spare key) and since I’d sprung freedom for a few minutes to make that call (they let me go outside to turn my mobile on to get the number - they thought I was just looking up the number on the mobile :)), I could then try to phone Una, but I only got her voicemail. I did try to leave a more coherent message than last time (sorry love), but digital transmission seemed to be the problem this time (& I didn’t know the name of the ward I was going to yet - I think it was a Need To Know operation, nor the phone number of the hospital, nor it’s correct formal name - to me it’s just the hospital as there’s only one in my town), then I had to go back inside for a one and a half hour wait (incommunicado) before being brought up to a ward shared with 5 other ladies, so I couldn’t call then, as it would wake them up. Poor UnaLove.
I was whisked into bed, drip rehung and told to get some sleep. Then I was woken at about 6am to answer some questions (age, allergies etc), which I’m sure the casualty (ER) computers had on the already, plus some totally irrelevant to ambulatory patients. Then I dozed off till breakfast at 7am - I had cornflakes because they remind me of Una, which was the first food I’d felt like eating since Wednesday lunchtime. Then it was meds round (nurse with trolley of pills) & I got to feel another 20ml (I swear it feels like a lot, lot more) of Augmentin shoved into a tiny vein 
- it burns & prickles like cold fire. Very nasty sensation. The “flush through” stuff beforehand was shoved in even faster - I yelped & twitched my hand away & I swear, I actually looked at the back of my hand, it felt like it had shot out the other side. Then, and only then, she notices that I am small, mutters something about small veins & slows the flow rate down. Same again afterwards, but she remembered to go slower.
After that, I asked a nurse for a phone & she went to get it & never reappeared (I’d had that problem getting a glass of water the night before. Till midnight, despite asking for water, I hadn’t had anything to drink since 5pm. The nurses kept disappearing & never being seen again. Maybe there’s a monster living in the water cooler ;). Another reason I wanted Una - she wouldn’t have let them forget about me).
Then the doctors began doing rounds & they decided that the heart murmur had disappeared (good news) & that therefore, I had been “toxic & tachycardic on admittance” (words I had only heard on ER before), which means that the other nasty infection I had picked up because of being rundown with the flu had caused it, and it was responding to treatment. They decided I could switch to oral antibiotics & changed type too.
So they said they could discharge me, I just needed some pills to take home. This was at about 8.30am. At 10 to 9, I finally get a phone & call my poor, worried, frazzled, up-all-night, Una and update her & talk for an hour (if they wanted me to talk for less time, they should have got me the phone when I asked for it :p), then promise to call her when I get out, which I blithely assure her will be about an hour. So, we’re at 9.50 by now. At lunch, I can’t have my lunch meds because my chart is up at the pharmacy. It was … wait for it … turkey curry ( a very, very mild, canteen version of curry) with mashed potatoes. I had problems eating it as I kept laughing at the idea of serving mashed potatoes with curry!
Anyway, gone 12 now, I ask & am told “soon”. Not a good sign, not even estimating a timespan. So at about 3pm I’m allowed out. 6 hours & one free lunch (TANSTAAFL) later than was necessary. They all kept frowning when I said that I lived alone & wasn’t married, so it may have been manufactured just to check I really was up to going home safely.
Went back to casualty to find that my car had not been clamped or towed away, which was a relief (they have this policy of making money out of the customers, er patients, & casualy has the only bit of free parking in the entire hospital. They probably patrol it fiercely), went & picked up some juice & stuff on the way home, called Una, vegged for a bit & then caught up on the boards.
So I have a 10 day supply of antibiotics (serious horse tablet size) & a hole in my hand from an IV drip. I also have lesser holes from the blood lettings (they say it’s for tests, but I’m sure they only just sneaked out of the dark ages ;)), but the fever is gone, and some of the symptoms and we know what caused the heart murmur, so that’s good. They want me to take a few days off work to recover.
I phoned Una to say I was home, then went to thank my neighbours. They were out, so I just vegged & watched tv & did nothing strenuous at all. I phoned them yesterday to thank them & she brought some spare watercress soup round a little while ago, in case I wasn’t up to cooking much (I almost couldn’t be bothered to make a pot of tea earlier, which is a serious sign for me ;)), so that was really nice of her (especially since it was raining a cold, hard, wintery rain).
So, I’m much better & happier now, thank you everyone.
Glad to hear it wasn’t anything really serious, fierra!
Get well soon, and don’t scare us like that again, dammit. That’s an order. 
Coldfire and Spiny Norman, checking in from CA, USA
Fierra…
I’m so glad that you are alright. I swear, a person can’t leave town without people falling to pieces.
Euty - thanks for your best wishes.
Odie - thanks, what else could keep me off the net for so long?
rocking chair - thank you
Thanks, punha & Arden too.
Thanks Airman Doors, USAF. Things did get better, but involved lots of sharp objects first…
Thanks, Persephone & LaurAnge too - although, I somehow don’t think you stopped her from worrying ;).
Thanks ultrafilter & Zyada - the distance makes everything much, much worse too.
Thank you Baker & bouv. Thanks, reprise, officially hung in ;).
Thanks, Serendipity.
racinchikki :
: back.
Thanks donne u. worrie - the problem was I didn’t know the number or proper name of the hospital & even if I did, they don’t seem to keep central records, you usually have to know which ward someone is on to be able to find them. They didn’t see fit to tell me the ward name till I was on the way to it :rolleyes:.
Thanks, AHunter & vix.
Thanks for the soup, MsRobyn, although my neighbour beat you to it ;).
Cougarfang - what am I supposed to do with all these good vibes? Have a yard sale? :o Thanks for the wishes.
dlgirl - ok, not going to rerun that joke, so just a thank you for you ;).
Thanks, kellibelli & astro, it was something new - and I’m sure I did have a racing heart when the doctor said “so, how long have you had that heart murmur” - of all the ways to tell someone!
Thanks, hardygrrl and celestina. That was a nice offer edwino - thanks for trying to help my poor, worried Una.
Thanks Cajun Man & heresiarch. Thanks, ** ultress**, wring & callie. Spiderhugs to you too Spider Woman, although cautious ones, as I’m phobic!
{{{TruePisces}}} & poohpah, you nailed it perfectly about the phones. Thank you.
Thanks, anya marie and pepperlandgirl. SanibelMan - thank you. I’m glad your mother is ok & hope she got out without too much hassle & had a good stay in the hospital.
Brynda - very, very true & thank you. My UnaLove tells me that US hospitals have rooms with just 2 beds in & usually single occupancy, so it sounds like a very different set up. I was with 5 other ladies, 2 about my age, & 3 in their 70s plus. It was disturbing in some aspects, but made it less lonely & boring.
Thanks, Rasa, I wish I had been - I was meant to go out for a meal that night to celebrate the end of my exams :(.
Thanks, jazzmine & techie. Hope the weeds fared worse than I did!
Thanks RickQ - I don’t know if waterj2 has the roght of it, but thanks anyway ;)!
Redboss - don’t worry about being late, I was late with my own update…that recovery is going to be worked on. I’m staying home, doing very little work (even doing less web browsing than usual… :eek: )
Fierra, I’m so very glad that you’re doing better. (I feel like a dummy for not seeing this thread earlier.) Now, don’t make us send Una over there in a nurse’s uniform, mmmkay?
Er… okay, not so much of a deterrant. Just live and be well, then.
Fierra -
IIRC, I have a heart murmer. Or maybe it’s a murmer in my neck. It came up when I was having a bad round of dizzy spells several years back. But the doc said it was fairly common (esp. in women, again, IIRC) and rarely dangerous.
Hope you are feeling peachy soon!