![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, that was interesting.
Dec. 14th, 2005 11:33 amStory began when I stupidly let my Ventolin inhaler run out without having a spare. I used to do this all the time, because I am all about the stupid, but of late my preventative inhalers have been working so well that it didn't matter. This time they let me down. I got chestier and chestier, and not in a good way. Somehow I made it through the night, and rang the surgery on Tuesday morning. They not only took a repeat prescription request over the phone, which they never do, but had it ready for me by five p.m. the same day, which they never do.
So at five I went and got my new inhaler, used it, it didn't work. Used it again, it didn't work. Tried the other (they gave me two), it didn't work. By ten o' clock I was completely seized up and starting to panic. So I called the local out-of-hours medical hotline, and after answering the same ten questions five or six times in three-word batches, they sent a very nice ambulance crew who put me on a nebuliser and took me to Trowbridge Hospital. The nebuliser helped a lot. I was still chesty, but able to walk upright and finish sentences, and my peak flow reading went from 270 to 340. (Normal for me is 500-600). So the duty doctor there gave me some steroid tablets and a prescription for a short course, and sent me home (taxi as it was after midnight by now: ££ *ouch*).
I took my preventatives and went to bed. Two hours later I woke up in the same state as before, total lockdown. Tried the inhaler without success, somehow got downstairs clinging to the banisters and called the number again. Jan by this time was really worried, and there wasn't really anything I could say to reassure her. So the same ambulance crew turned up again, put me back on the nebuliser and took me this time to the Royal United Hospital at Bath, which is bigger and more like a real hospital. Nobody was saying "stat", though, which I found quite reassuring. The journey was enlivened by an attempt to cannulate me (=stick a general purpose needle into a vein for input and output) in the left hand: it hurt like seven kinds of hell and apparently my vein exploded or something, because they abandoned the attempt.
All this time I was aware that there were real emergencies going on and feeling acutely bad that I was taking up their time with something I was sure was going to turn out to be trivial. They were very nice about it, though.
So we got to the RUH and I got wheeled into an observation room and observed by several people in succession. I got nebulised with something stronger, I got some more of the tablets, I got cannulated in the other hand and about half a pint of my vital fluid extracted (why do they always say venous blood is blue? It patently isn't...). I had my chest X-rayed (clear, I gather, which is good news) and I got put on oxygen and left for a while, and little by little things began seriously to clear up. I was aching like fury from the effort of pushing and pulling air into and out of lungs that really didn't wanna, but the air was flowing again, which always helps. I think I may have got some sleep at some point.
So now I'm home again, with some antibiotics for the low-grade infection they think caused it, some more steroids, a stronger preventative inhaler and my very own peak flow meter. So now I can have fun every morning and evening going "HHHUHHHHH!!!" into a tube and looking at a very small number, three times in a row. I'm feeling more human than I've felt in the past three days, and even if it was an infection I'm never never never going to let my Ventolin run out without having a spare on hand again. No sir. And I'm leaving the little sticky terminal patchy things with which I'm still festooned in place for the rest of the day just in case.
And finally, this is what I believe the young people of today call a "big shout out" to Gerald and Howard on the ambulance team, Dr Thomas, Dr Duckworth, Dr Lichfield, Dr Broome and Dr Foley, and all the others whose names I know I looked at but can't remember, probably due to lack of oxygen to the brain. Sometimes, in spite of everything, the NHS works, and people like this (who probably won't read this, but someone who knows them might) are why. Thank you all.
So at five I went and got my new inhaler, used it, it didn't work. Used it again, it didn't work. Tried the other (they gave me two), it didn't work. By ten o' clock I was completely seized up and starting to panic. So I called the local out-of-hours medical hotline, and after answering the same ten questions five or six times in three-word batches, they sent a very nice ambulance crew who put me on a nebuliser and took me to Trowbridge Hospital. The nebuliser helped a lot. I was still chesty, but able to walk upright and finish sentences, and my peak flow reading went from 270 to 340. (Normal for me is 500-600). So the duty doctor there gave me some steroid tablets and a prescription for a short course, and sent me home (taxi as it was after midnight by now: ££ *ouch*).
I took my preventatives and went to bed. Two hours later I woke up in the same state as before, total lockdown. Tried the inhaler without success, somehow got downstairs clinging to the banisters and called the number again. Jan by this time was really worried, and there wasn't really anything I could say to reassure her. So the same ambulance crew turned up again, put me back on the nebuliser and took me this time to the Royal United Hospital at Bath, which is bigger and more like a real hospital. Nobody was saying "stat", though, which I found quite reassuring. The journey was enlivened by an attempt to cannulate me (=stick a general purpose needle into a vein for input and output) in the left hand: it hurt like seven kinds of hell and apparently my vein exploded or something, because they abandoned the attempt.
All this time I was aware that there were real emergencies going on and feeling acutely bad that I was taking up their time with something I was sure was going to turn out to be trivial. They were very nice about it, though.
So we got to the RUH and I got wheeled into an observation room and observed by several people in succession. I got nebulised with something stronger, I got some more of the tablets, I got cannulated in the other hand and about half a pint of my vital fluid extracted (why do they always say venous blood is blue? It patently isn't...). I had my chest X-rayed (clear, I gather, which is good news) and I got put on oxygen and left for a while, and little by little things began seriously to clear up. I was aching like fury from the effort of pushing and pulling air into and out of lungs that really didn't wanna, but the air was flowing again, which always helps. I think I may have got some sleep at some point.
So now I'm home again, with some antibiotics for the low-grade infection they think caused it, some more steroids, a stronger preventative inhaler and my very own peak flow meter. So now I can have fun every morning and evening going "HHHUHHHHH!!!" into a tube and looking at a very small number, three times in a row. I'm feeling more human than I've felt in the past three days, and even if it was an infection I'm never never never going to let my Ventolin run out without having a spare on hand again. No sir. And I'm leaving the little sticky terminal patchy things with which I'm still festooned in place for the rest of the day just in case.
And finally, this is what I believe the young people of today call a "big shout out" to Gerald and Howard on the ambulance team, Dr Thomas, Dr Duckworth, Dr Lichfield, Dr Broome and Dr Foley, and all the others whose names I know I looked at but can't remember, probably due to lack of oxygen to the brain. Sometimes, in spite of everything, the NHS works, and people like this (who probably won't read this, but someone who knows them might) are why. Thank you all.