Hey All,

I don't really have masses to report at the moment, as my days are not particularly filled to the brim with excitement! I have taken to spending a lot of time on craft projects and I am currently working on a scrapbook with holiday pictures in it for a friend, its taking a lot of time to do so its keeping me occupied! I have also taken up knitting, again. Funnily enough I am not massively inept at it, and despite the first few rows looking like Swiss cheese (full of holes) it is now looking much better and is starting to take shape. I will be sure to post a  few pictures of both projects once they are done so that anyone who wants a good laugh at it can...! 

Sadly, the vast quantities of time that I seam to be spending alone, with my cat, are turning me into even more of a batty cat lady and I have even downloaded an app on my iPad for my cat. Its hilarious, she plays it properly for a while and then just starts head butting the screen. As you can see on the picture below she does become rather engrossed in it. Strange animal!

Roll on September when my modules start and I can get going with that - hopefully it will divert my attention from knitting and iPad games for cats, making me feel somewhat less of a recluse! I have decide to start preparing for it soon though, which will mean that I have something else to focus on and make life easier for the start of the course. I realised just how terrible I have become at GCSE standard maths and that's the sort of level you need to be at to get the most out of my next module - so I brought some books and practise papers and I am going to get my maths somewhat up to scratch. How on earth I will manage that I don't know, because despite getting an A or B (My memory isn't that great) at maths I don't think I have any recollection of anything I had to learn! I am also going to be doing some work on AS/A2 human biology and anatomy and physiology. Hopefully that shouldn't be too much of a shock to the system as it wasn't that long ago I studied that and I have had to keep my knowledge up to some degree since then!

Unfortunately my health hasn't been too great as I have had a nasty virus and chest infection so my asthma has been pretty bad. Sadly I had to go into hospital on Sunday, via A&E and ended up on the RCU on N3 which is the equivalent of a respiratory high dependency unit and needed quite a bit of treatment. For those of you who know what it means, my chest was nearing on silent when I arrived, my 02 levels were decreased and my C02 levels increased, which isn't good at all. The doctors were great though and after some nebs, IV magnesium, hydrocortisone and aminophylline I was doing much better and my gasses had levelled out on 4L so I was put on RCU and given IV antibiotics (bug juice). This makes it sound like it was going swimmingly, which it was until the following morning!

I woke up at about 8am and was feeling really, really tearful - so much so that I couldn't speak to anyone without crying and ended up begging my mum to come in and see me. Well, by the time she had arrived I was sobbing constantly, I couldn't speak, couldn't stop crying and all I wanted to do was hug my mum and go home. All the nurses were really confused, as was I, about why on earth I was so upset - they all know me so well and all of the them were saying about how they had never, ever seen me like that before. things continued like that for the rest of the day, getting worse if anything, and by evening visiting I was in such a state that I wouldn't  let my mum go - and ended up self discharging. 

Removing your 02, telling them to stop your aminophylline infusion and leaving against medical advice isn't really the best thing to do. I regret it now, especially as it was a very silly and dangerous move to make - as I was still on IV anti bugs and the consultant who came around pretty much said that if I left i would be back in ICU within the day! Thankfully I proved her wrong, and once home went on a stonking dose of steroids, cocktail of bug juice and very regular nebs... so far I am just about coping so lets just hope that I carry on that way! I have also been doing a lot of chest physio in the hope that I can help shift as much gunk as possible and stop the infection from having a chance to take hold again! 

Since leaving hospital it has been discovered that the IV antibiotics they had me on were a type that I have never had before, and that a possible side effect of them, even though it is rare, are behavioural changes and emotional disturbances. Which explains why I was feeling so distressed, so it has been added to my notes that I should never be prescribed them again. I am rather annoyed that my inpatient team didn't realise that was what was going on, when my regular nurses figured it out straight away when I called them... if they had of it would have saved me a heck of a lot of upset!

Anyway - I am going to go now. I need to go find my cat who is hiding in the garden, and get some sleep!

Nighty -

Kirsty xx