Work, lungs and meds = the story of my life!

This has been quite a big week for me. After almost 4 and a half years, I went back to work on a ward! I arrived feeling a little anxious that I'd feel out of place and not really sure what to do, it was so strange, I very quickly felt right at home and it was like I haven't been away for so long!! I suppose basic patient care doesn't change over the years, there is just even more paperwork to be done. So, week 1 of being a Health Care Assistant is done, another week to go, then I start my Return to Practice course. I'm starting to feel excited about it now :) :)


Like I said, over 4 years I've been fighting my case to be allowed to work on a ward again. It hasn't been easy, so this really meant a lot to me. I was really hurt by the lack of people who bothered to wish me luck/well wishes/ask how it went/whatever. My family, I don't expect anything like that from them, that's just the way things are. But friends........ I wonder if maybe I expect too much at times :( I don't know, I like to think if I had a friend in the position I was in last week, I'd have seen how big a deal this was for them, and wished them luck and asked how it went afterwards.


In other news, the Bambuterol and/or Ciclesonide was making a slight difference to my lungs!! My morning peak flows were slightly improved, and my night time symptoms were slightly less. Unfortunately, I started to suffer really bad headaches which not a single painkiller I own would touch, and real difficulty in sleeping. I hoped that these side effects would wear off by the time I started my new job but they didn't :( Starting a new job with a banging headache, and only about 3 hours of broken sleep a night was not ideal! I tried to phone the respiratory nurses at the SBAU but I forgot it was clinic day which would explain me not being able to contact them. Instead I contacted my own respiratory nurse at my local hospital, she doesn't have any patients on these drugs so wasn't able to offer me much help but she confirmed what I thought (and basically that was all I wanted, someone to agree with my thoughts on what was best to do next). I stopped both meds, I'm pretty sure the Bambuterol was the cause of the side effects and not the Ciclesonide, but I want to start both again. Today is the first day I haven't had a headache, so I'm going to give myself a few days then slowly restart the meds. I plan to start with the Ciclesonide then after a few days, I'm going to reintroduce the Bambuterol. I was on 10mg, and was supposed to increase to 20mg. As I noticed a slight improvement on 10mg, I really do want to give this a proper go and get the dose up to 20mg. So I'm going to start again with 5mg, and hopefully the side effects will lessen and I can get my body used to the drug and slowly increase the dose. I'm going to be so disappointed if this is another drug that helps me but I can't tolerate, but I'm not prepared to accept defeat where this drug is concerned just yet! :)


Unfortunately, my fears that my lungs would react badly to returning to work on the wards, have proven to be right. I'm hoping that this is just a little blip, to go from an comfortable little office job sitting down all day to a job which is demanding and I'm on my feet all day, I suppose it's only to be expected. Also, I've had a constant headache and not as much sleep as I'd like, and tiredness always makes my lungs grumpy. I really, really hope that this is a temporary blip which will settle down. I guess I always knew there was a real chance I wouldn't be able to do this, but I'm going to be absolutely devastated if this return to ward work doesn't work out. 


Anyway, does this read as a negative update? It's really not meant to be!! Overall, this has been a great week, and I'm hopeful that the little blips I've had with grumpy lungs and the new meds will be easily overcome :)