But I’d suggest you try something else if you just wanna skive off work!
Sunday 23rd:
Woke at 5am with another killer headache. Took aspirin and went back to bed. 8ish and woke again with no reduction in pain. Not good. I speak to Mum and Dad and they reckon I should see a doctor.
Called my GP which put me through to the after-hours service, being a Sunday. Explained my symptoms and received two options for nearby hospitals, Southall and Ealing. I decided on Ealing because it sounded closer.
By this stage I was on the floor and not really thinking too well. Suz, who was on holiday from Melbourne arrived this morning. Top timing on my part! Sorry dear!
Grant and Sheila were trying to book a taxi for me to get to the hospital. Not having any luck, Sheila walked to the Ealing Broadway and got a cab to drive back to our house.
I was summoned, walked outside and then vomited on a tree. The taxi driver did a quick U-turn and told Sheila to “call an ambulance”. I was worried that calling an ambulance would cost me a fortune without ambo insurance so Sheila and I started walking towards the station, hoping to catch a bus to the hospital. Only made it 10m down the road when another taxi arrived – obviously from the earlier phone booking. I’d finished this round of vomiting so dived in and closed my eyes.
Arrived at the hospital 15min later. Vomited and then crawled up to the A&E (Accident & Emergency) window, slurred my name and slumped into a chair to wait. Eventually I was seen by a nurse and then had to wait for a doctor to look at me. 40min later I’d swapped clothes for a smock-thing (I’d put it on backwards) and did some more vomiting. Here I lost track of time. I was sleeping, vomiting and had some injections (one in my arse – yay!) for anti-nausea and pain. Around 1pm I was moved to the Acute Assessment Ward. At 5pm I finally got my CT Scan and vomited a bit. They left us alone. I continued vomiting. At 6pm, a doctor returned, looking very panicked.
“We have some bad news. You have a tumor.”
That was pretty much how it was delivered. Like I said, he was panicked. I gave Sheila my best “It’s my time, don’t worry” look. She apologised and ran away. I felt bad that she had to be there with me but it was nice that she was.
I was given a morphine injection. Around 7.30-8pm I was transferred to Charing Cross hospital in Hammersmith in an ambulance. EEE AWW! EEE AWW!
The doctors got out their cleanest Black&Decker and drilled a hole in my scone to put in an EVD (External Ventricular Drain) which basically syphoned excess brain fluid out of my head.
The EVD would relieve the pressure in my head that was slowly going to kill me and I’d be headache free. Less Paracetamol. Bonus.
Monday 24th:
At 2.30am Monday morning, the operation was completed and I was in ’11 West’ a Recovery ward, um, recovering. Grant had come back with Sheila earlier that night and they’d seen me before the op but I was out to it. After the op I was apparently “high as a kite”.. just like most other weekends then ๐
11 West was a long, modern-looking room with perhaps five beds in it, including one in a separate room (for radiation treatments?). I was in the end bed, wired up to more equipment than I could fully appreciate in my state.
I had a tube in my left arm, two more tubes in my right arm, an oxygen mask on, three electrodes over my chest and the EVD tube draining fluid direct from my brain. Awesome!
At this stage they’d dismissed the tumor diagnosis and were putting my troubles down to aquaduct stenosis. There are four chambers in a brain that store brain fluid as it passes through. The body makes about a pint of this fluid per day. Between chambers 3 and 4 there is an aquaduct, a pipe, for the fluid. “Aquaduct Stenosis” meant the pipe was slightly to skinny for the amount of fluid that needed to pass. “Perhaps only a drop a day for 27 years”, I was told. Fluid built up and was causing the headaches. It was getting worse and would have continued until I wennt into a coma and then died. That’s why the EVD was put in – it drained the excess brain fluid. The actual drain relied on nurses using a spirit level up to my ear and the drip to make sure the flow was such that they only drained out 20ml/hour, otherwise I’d get headaches. Whenever the bed was adjusted they’d have to rejig the drain.
I was pissing into a bottle and being spoon-fed yoghurt during the day. That’s about all I did. Grant, Sheila, Mei-Ling and Leo visited me in the afternoon, bringing me a whole tonne of stuff to read and eat.. not necessarily at the same time.
I was going to be prepped for more surgery the next morning to make the drain internal, allowing me to exist without the drain attached to my head. I signed a consent form to this effect.
Sheila noted my TEDs (ugly long socks that stop blood clots in legs) and green surgery pyjamas. I’m too sexy for this hospital..
Tuesday 25th:
During the night I was woken up every half-hour to have my blood pressure checked, pupils checked with a light shone in my eyes and various other tests to prevent me getting any good sleep.
I was woken at stupid o’clock and given a bath in my bed. Hospital sponge baths are most certainly not erotic and I asked the liars spreading these kind of rumors to please stop. The nurses were quite good at cleaning and re-dressing me in a surgical nightie-thing considering I was covered in wires, leads and tubes and lying in a bed. They even changed the sheets with me on the bed. Skillz!
Around 8.30am I was shuffled out of 11West to surgery. This second procedure was explained to me as: a small incision in on of the two chambers in the brain to drain the fluid into the body, where it is simply absorbed. Grant did some research on the ‘net and told me they use a (Dr. Evil) “laser” to make an initial incision and then inflate a small balloon to make the internal “drain” the required size. With any luck this would be successful and a “shunt” would not be required. A shunt is a similar thing but includes a plastic tube that drains all the way into the stomach tissue. The former option is the preferable one. It was first tried in the early 1900’s!!!
At 11.30 I was out of surgery and in recovery again. I remember waking up in a room full of similar beds, feeling like I was going to be sick and being quite tired. Soon after I was wheeled back to 11West. More pissing into bottles and drinking tea through straws with the help of the lovely nurses. A blue nightie had replaced the green pj’s. It didn’t do much for the hosp-fash stakes but it did make getting my knob into the urine bottle easier – and that’s what we all like to hear, isn’t it?
Later that day I was told the op was successful. Mei-Ling, Fiona, Grant and Sheila visited me this night I think, bringing even more stuff to make my life a bit more pleasant. I still couldn’t move around so my entertainment was hassling nurses, listening to all the other sick/injured and their visitors and, of course, pissing into bottles..
Wednesday 26th:
I woke up this morning with a temperature and dizziness. They were going to let me get out of bed a use a toilet today (who would’ve thought walking was such a novel concept?!) but I felt rubbish! Last night had sucked royally. Every time I was about to doze off to sleep, “the machine” would detect low oxygen saturation and set off a bunch of alarms to tell the nurses I’d stopped breathing! I hadn’t stopped breathing at all, stupid frickin’ machine, I was just breathing “stealthily” ๐
I think I actually got breakfast today, whereas Monday and Tuesday I’d eaten at 12pm and 5pm only. Once I’d eaten a piece of toast, some yoghurt and swallowed the entire mouthful of OJ on offer I felt better. Today’s highlight was to be an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan. Woot!
I’m getting blood taken each day (they love sticking me with needles!) and they are concerned I have an infection due to my temperature so they ask the nurses to take ‘cultures’. “No culture here, love!” I had oxygen tubes stuck in my nose to fend off the dizziness. I think it was afternoon before I was wheeled down to the MRI room.
The MRI machine was a Siemens Magnetom.
It looked like a giant aqua iMac! The dude said that it was quite loud and gave me some earplugs to put in. I laid on the white bed in the middle and a plastic cage with foam padding was clamped over my head so I couldn’t move it around whilst in the machine. The bed retracted into the big iMac and they fired it up. DUN-UN-UN-UN-UN WHIIIIIIIRRRRR THUD THUD THUD WHEEP WHEEP WHEEP NUN-UN-UN-UN-NUN etc.. The text doesn’t really show it but it actually sounded kinded cool.. well from a technohead’s point of view it sounded kinda cool. Definately sample-worthy. ๐
About 10-15mins of me trying hard not to flinch when the machine started it’s symphony of saw waves and vibration and the bed moved back out. I was injected with some form of dye through the valve-thing still sticking out of my right hand. It stung. I was stuck back in for another 10min or so, just like a microwave dinner – tasty. Oh, I forgot to mention the issue with metal. Working with large magnetic forces, your body has to be free of metal which would otherwise interfere with the resulting image. The metal clips they initially used in my head had to removed and replaced with nylon sutures. Other than the initial headaches this was the most painful part of my trip to hospital. A needle of local ana-how do you spell-stetic, anaesthetic was jabbed into my head and the surgeon proceeded to tear chunks out of my head. I think the paper over my face was more to shield him from my grimmacing death stares than to protect my eyes from the cleansing spray. Suffice to say, it was a very painful process and left me with even less hair. Having your head stitched is a fun sensation. I also had to remove my nipple ring. This posed some trouble as I’d never messed with it before. It took me ages to undo it (in my state) but I did manage in the end.
I think G&S, L&M and Suz visited this afternoon. Shaun also popped in. I received a large assorted-foods platter from work which was lovely. Shaun was there to help me eat some of the fruit ๐ He also brought me something different to drink which was great (no, not ale) and something to read, although my vision was still double so I wasn’t reading much yet.
I was in a chair rather than wired up and in bed which was nice. I was fscking tired though and didn’t really get stuck into the psuedo-roast chicken I’d picked for dinner. I was feeling kinda knackered after the little MRI journey.
Thursday 27th:
11West’s longest termer was stronger today and managed to walk too the loo. How exciting?! I also managed to talk over to the phone so finally got to speak to my folks. They’ve been most concerned with the hippy’s well-being since being told he was tumorous. Not good. I’m sure they were glad to hear me. The MRI results showed that the aquaduct stenosis wasn’t a genetic flaw as first suspected (Me, flawed? Please!) but was in fact caused by some kind of infection. Undercooked pork, unwashed strawberries or bad sushi were proposed. They were surprised when I told them I’d not been travelling anywhere like Africa, India, Vietnam, etc. More investigation is needed to find out ‘exactly’ what the nature of infection is..
In the afternoon I was moved out of 11West and given my own room with a TV and even a computer!! I was stoked. Off the drips and machines and no other patient’s moaning to listen to. Blokes twice my age sooking about having to piss into a bottle.. FFS! Get some perspective!
The room filled up with Grant, Sheila, Leo, Mei-Ling, Fiona and Harvey (from work) who brought more goodies and well-wishes for me. Up until now, Mal had been kept out of the sickie’s loop but she was visiting today too. Then the nurse came in and said I had to move.. DOH!!!!
I was heading down-stairs to a shared ward with no TV. Damn it! It was a bit of a laugh – my bed was so loaded up with gifts and food there wasn’t much room left for me! ๐
Ward 10 wasn’t as cool as 11 but it’d do I guess. The patients looked normal here – no shaved heads, no caged heads, no monitoring beeps. More highlights of today include the laxatives finally kicking in. Awesome!
Friday 28th:
Finally, a shower! No more stupid TED leggings either. I was worried that the docs would forget about me during their rounds because I’d been moved but they all showed up eventually and James (the cool doctor that we all like) made the familiar comment about me always eating or being surrounded by women when he arrived. There was talk of thigh x-rays to analyse the infection. Speaking of thighs, I noticed they shaved the top of my left thigh for some reason – probably one of those drug patches. Later that day I was wheeled down the hall and watched the mass of bed-swapping confusion take place. In the end I had a room to myself. Tam called (cheers girl! :)) and I told her what I knew (not much). My bro also called and I gave him the rundown too. While talking to him, the neurosurgeon who was supposed to be an expert on these infections came in and asked me a bunch of questions about where I’ve travelled and where I’d grown up. He’d not looked at my MRI scan though so I was still in the dark in terms of answers. Suz called in again today and we had a nice chat. Sheila skipped out of work to arrive a bit later with some clothes for my planned release. In the afternoon, after about as much GQ and FHM as I could bear, the nurse finally said I was allowed out! Woo! I was bored out of my head in that place! Home for the long weekend. Sweet!
Mei-Ling found out about my release and she organised a taxi home for me! You rock girl! So, quick as I could, I was outta’ there!!
Weekend:
Mal volunteered her services to watch over me during the weekend – a (tough :P) condition of my release. We spent most of it watching TV. My eyes are hanging out of my head but that’s nothing new. It’s a real challenge sitting on my butt for two days straight but I managed.. ๐
In other news.. my Mum has flown to London to see me! A surprise visit organised by my folks and the cheeky bunch over here! Fiona arranged a taxi for her from the airport. Yet another favour in the massive list of favours from my great mates.
As for a medical summary: I can see better now but the vision hasn’t returned to 100% yet. I’m a little unbalanced still but I managed to walk down the street and have Thai with Mum, Grant, Sheila and Suz last night and I walked to the video store with Mal on Saturday. My right calf is somewhat dodgy – dunno why – but I’m getting stronger in general. I’ve got to go back to the hospital tomorrow (Tuesday 2nd) for some more tests.
Massive, massive thanks to everyone who’s helped out this last week. Grant & Sheila had to deal with some very nasty stuff yet remained tough cookies doing anything they could to help all week. Leo, Mei-Ling and Fiona also went above and beyond to help me out – champs! Suz (sorry about the salmon ;)), Mal (Elliot says G’Day), Mum & Dad, Shaun and Harvey (no more water!! :)). Thanks to all the doctors and nurses that prodded around in my head and stuck me with sharp things. Thanks to everyone who commented on here with well-wishes, thanks to all my mates who passed on lovely messages and everyone else who’s wished me well. It was appreciated very much by me and also my folks.
news.bbc.co.uk – london looks to count its carbon