Wednesday 24 March 2010

Slightly calmer

There have been no developments on the work situation. I have some people backing me, who want me to come back asap and agree with me that this is unfair so that makes me feel slightly better about it all. I'm still waiting to hear from Occupational Health. I haven't even received a letter, and this is supposed to be 'urgent'.
I've discovered who the 'traumatised' person is. She works in the next office to me, during my attack she stayed in her office, she didn't come out once, she only heard about it second hand from other people. Seriously, some people!

Anyway, not alot I can do about that. I was going to chase my manager to try to hurry along Occupational Health but I've decided not to. I didn't choose for this to happen, I've done nothing wrong, I'm going to take advantage of being paid to stay at home. So far I've done loads of sorting out and tidying! I've made some cards too, I haven't had the time to do that for a while. I do plan to get out and walk along the beautiful canal but the weather has been awful :( I've just checked and it's going to rain again tomorrow, miserable miserable weather!!!!!!

Friday 19 March 2010

Sad :(

Life can be so unfair :(

I took this week off work to 'recover' from my latest exacerbation of asthma. I didn't feel that I needed to take so much time off. Begrudingly, I'll admit it looks like it was needed as my peak flows have only just started to pick up. Now I have the evidence that my respiratory nurse was right all along, I probably have been going back to work too soon after previous hospital admissions. This in itself is ok.
One of the main reasons I've been so unwilling to take extra time off work is due to the fact that a few years ago I took some time off work, then wasn't allowed to go back! This lasted 21 months!! I'm still not back in my original nursing role, I had to compromise and move into an office based role just to be allowed back to work.

So, against my better judgement I take this week off sick and make it clear that I'll be returning to work next Monday. Today I had an appointment with my GP to get a sick note to cover the time I've been off and to say I'm fit to return to work. All fine. Today I speak to my manager on the phone who informs me that she doesn't want me to return to work on Monday as I'm a risk to her department, she has to think about her staff, there are a few members of staff who are traumatised after what happened! She was really 'off' with me too, like I've done something wrong. So I'm now on special leave until I am reviewed by Occupational Health and get cleared by them. I don't get on with my Occupational Health department, it seems all they want to do is cause me problems and stop me from working. Seriously, you wouldn't believe how hard it can be to convince people to let me go to work!

Anyway, back to what has seriously annoyed me. Traumatise people?!?!?! Yeah, let's remember who this has happened to - ME. Once again, I am lucky to be alive. Now it's hardly MY fault that the ambulance couldn't find me. It's not MY fault that people who had no reason to be in the same room as me where wandering in to watch the show of me having a respiratory arrest. It's not MY fault that this even happened!
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure seeing a colleague, and in some cases a friend, deteriorate so rapidly and go into respiratory arrest is not fun. I'm sure it upset a few people, but come on, traumatise them 2 weeks later after the incident? Don't you just love it when people play on a situation that has absolutely nothing to do with them?

Not being allowed back to work has nothing to do with my health, there is no dispute that I'm not well enough to return. It's purely about the effect that me being there has on other people. I don't rely on other people to help me. The people I did ask for help were qualified nurses who knew exactly what they had to do. If the ambulance hadn't have got lost I probably wouldn't have even gotten to the point of resp. arrest, and if I had, I would have been somewhere safe (ambulance or ED).

I sincerely hope this gets resolved soon, but thanks to this, next time I am work and start to feel poorly I'll feel unable to ask anyone for help incase I 'traumatise' them.

I'm so upset and angry. Being at home for too much time on my own has a tendancy to make me feel down anyway so I wasn't in the best of moods before this all happened. Now I keep crying, it feels like I'm constantly fighting and I've had enough :(

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Life is tiring

I'm off work sick this week and I feel so exhausted! I'm continually being told that I don't give myself enough time to 'recover' inbetween my hospital admissions; I usually throw myself back into work, and now I'm actually taking the time to relax I'm finally realising how tired and exhausted I am! How can doing nothing be so tiring?!?!

I think the time off may actually be benefical though. My peak flows are still right down, and my stupid lungs are still waking me in the early hours, but during the day I am actually feeling ok :) It seems to be a slow, gradual improvement but as long as the general trend is upwards and I can continue to wean down the nasty steroids I won't complain! It's rather nice to be improving than the usual deteriorating :) :)

I had a review with my consultant on Monday. It was positive in regards to the way forward, but I'm trying hard to not get too carried away as I seem to have been here many times before. I shall definitely be giving Omalizumab a try, and we discussed the possibilty of trying anti-inflammatories if this doesn't work. I can't say I'm overly keen on taking drugs like that..... I don't know, I'm all for trying anything that could help but I'll have to give it alot of thought; weighing up the potential benefits against side effects. Anyway, it would be nice to not have to get to that stage so right now I shall just wait and see what happens!
I don't get to speak to my consultant in detail when I'm admitted to hospital, he is always so busy so it was nice to be able to see him away from the ward and be able to talk to him properly, and get some reassurance :)

I took my Mum to see Alice in Wonderland 3D at the cinema today. It was part of her Mother's Day present. It was amazing! Could easily go and see it again if the cinema wasn't so expensive!!!!

My bed is calling me, I love my bed right now!! :)

Thursday 11 March 2010

Oh the drama

I'm home! Woohooo after a week in hospital I'm so glad to be back home with my Tommy baby.

Rather a dramatic week; started with a respiratory arrest at work, I've been told numerous times this week how lucky I am that I work with people who know exactly what to do. The ambulance got lost numerous times on the way to me. It's very 'weird'. Obviously the ambulances are more than used to coming onto the hospital site to take patients to the usual spots - ED, maternity, renal unit, etc etc, but they have no idea where anything else is on the site (of course not that they'd be expected to). Because I now work on the other side of the hospital site, detached from the main hospital, I have to have an ambulance to take me around the hospital to ED, approximately a 2 minute drive!!

So yes, started off feeling unwell, rapidly deteriorated, had a respiratory arrest whilst the ambulance was driving around outside, 3 anaesthetists who are based down the corridor came to assist with their bag of delights (adrenaline, ambu bag, and God knows what else). The anaesthetics escorted me into hospital in the ambulance, I think I had the best emergency medical team wheel me into resus LOL!

Anyway, I started to pick up so it was decided I could keep away from ICU for the time being. Then spent some time doing the fun BA cycle of deteroriating and then improving for while.

Skip forward 2 nights, started to feel unwell again. Now, normally I only have to cough and I dramatically drop my sats but this time I was maintaining my sats. Because of this, no one was taking me seriously. Finally, after what seemed like hours a doctor turns up, listens to my chest, immediately called for her registrar, takes ABGs, calls ICU, one doctor from ICU turns up, gets the ICU consultant down who then starts taking about intubating me!!!!!! Normally by this point I'm well out of it, it was rather scary to be able to hear them talking about intubating me, being acidotic, having the crash trolley parked beside me bed.....

Cut a long story short, I once again escaped ICU and intubation and I'm alive and feeling much better than I was!!!

I have an appointment with my consultant on Monday. I've got so much to discuss with him, I plan to make a list over the weekend. I've become quite sure that one day I'm going to die in yet another (near) fatal asthma attack, I can't say that struggling to breathe is much fun, and I have no desire to die like that :-( I know how dramatic that sounds but that is really how I feel at this moment..

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Rant alert!

I AM SO FED UP!!

I hate my stupid lungs and heart :( My asthma is slowly but surely getting more out of control, warning signs are showing and I have no idea what to do about it. I can be sitting down feeling 'ok' and something as simple as a cough/sneeze/laugh triggers a full blown asthma attack. I'm getting increasing amounts of cardiac related chest pain - these are both some of my warning signs of an impending severe attack. But I genuinely don't know what I can do about it. My GP is completely useless, I don't see him regarding my asthma unless I feel that I need antibiotics. Last time I saw my respiratory nurse (2 weeks ago) she said there was nothing she could do for me and to wait until I saw my consultant on 15 March to discuss options, AND she hasn't sent me a follow up appointment with her. I'm not taking high dose steroids as I've started to suffer from blurry vision when on them, so I'm stuck on 20mg. Not enough to ruin my vision, but also not enough to be beneficial to my lungs.

I'm seriously not happy with the care I am receiving at the moment. I'm being left to do my own thing, to try to keep myself going, then everyone is full of questions when I end up in hospital, yet again. I feel like a complete waste of space and time. It's like; I end up in hospital, they 'treat' me, discharge me before my peak flows come back up, follow me up as an outpatient and tell me there is nothing they can do, then I try to carry on with my life feeling completely rubbish until I get admitted again and restart the cycle.

I'm so frustrated I could cry! Grrrr I'll go and find some chocolate to cheer myself up.