Brittle?
The next admission
I spent most of Friday getting gradually worse asthma wise, and after the debacle that was my last admission I really didn't want to go back to the hospital. By the evening I'd come to realise that I would be in need of more help so off we trundled to A&E. My husband parked the car whilst I went to speak to the receptionist, but I soon realised that after the short walk from the drop off point I was too out of breath to talk, I manged to get out something along the lines of "asthma" and "discharged Thursday" before I remembered I still had my ID bracelet from the last admission with my details and hospital number and handed that over. I was seen much more quickly by triage this time, but not before I had to move because a woman wearing far to much perfume sat down behind me. This time the triage nurse took me straight through to resus, where I was put on oxygen and given salbutamol and atrovent nebs and I improved pretty quickly.
Once stabilised I didn't have to wait long for a bed, and as I was being wheeled to the ward I saw one of the doctors that I spoke to before I was discharged "It didn't work then." he said. Whilst I was getting myself sorted, taking my evening meds, putting on my PJ's and sorting out all the usual admission stuff with the nurses the lady in the next bed was constantly hitting the curtain and complaining that I was making too much noise. In fact she buzzed for the nurse twice to complain about the noise I was making, I wouldn't have minded so much if I had actually been making a lot of noise but I was doing my best to be quiet and seriously how much noise can you actually make getting tablets out of a box? It turned out that this particular woman was a real nuisance, she was constantly attention seeking. Anytime the nurses attended to another patient she'd start shouting and press her buzzer, in fact she kept the entire bay awake all night and made more noise than the entire ward put together which is quite something as at one point someone elsewhere on the ward was screaming as if in terror. There were two crash calls for two different patients in the early hours of the morning and both times the attention seeking woman started yelling for attention and when told that she'd have to wait because they were dealing with an emergency she became abusive towards the staff, swearing and banging on the table. At breakfast time the nurses insisted that she got up to try to prevent her from sleeping all day and keeping everyone awake again the following night, but now tired after behaving like a petulant child all night she had other ideas. After insisting on being accompanied to the toilet all night despite not needing to use a walker or other mobility aid, she climbed over the bed rail and into her bed in the raised position that staff use when changing the bed, I'm not even sure I could do that, so it just goes to show that she really didn't need to keep pestering the staff to take her to the toilet. At least it was quiet once she was asleep!
On ward rounds on Saturday the consultant stopped my oxygen and decided to continue nebs and review the next day to see if I could go home. By the afternoon I was moved to a respiratory ward, and boy was I glad it was actually a resp ward and not the overflow one I was on last time. I was handed over as a "brittle" asthmatic, and whilst my GP has used the term a few times I've never really taken much notice as its a term that only a specialist is qualified to give. It seems that the specialists have decided that I am indeed brittle, and even though I know it's just a label I have to admit I'm finding it a bit of a struggle to get my head around, especially as no-one has actually talked to me about the implications of such a label. I was told that they wouldn't send me home until I was ready to go this time, so at least I'd have more control this admission, they also think that I may have a viral infection that's contributing to my symptoms, I'm not so sure I think its mainly down to the weather. The staff and patients were nice and friendly, although the lady in the next bed hummed the same song on an infinite loop at all hours of day and night she didn't even know she was doing it.
On Sunday I was having the usual problems with triggers as staff were spraying patients with deodorants and hairspray when bathing them and helping them dress so I did mention that I was struggling with it. The response I got was "Well we have banned flowers", frankly I think flowers would actually be less of a problem for me, but that is just my experience. I had a bit of a funny turn at one point, where I felt dizzy and a bit sickly for some unknown reason, but a nap with my fan blasting at me seemed to sort me out. That afternoon I felt much better lung wise and everyone was commenting on how much better I looked. I slept much better on Sunday night probably the combined effects of exhaustion and the codeine that I was prescribed for the rib pain induced by coughing.
On Monday I was definitely suffering with the heat, if my fan was of or not facing directly at me I'd have more sickly dizzy spells. I also noticed that the vein where my cannula had been had become hard and tender, I think it was just bruising, because I had knocked it before it was removed, but in light of the dizziness I got the nurse to check to confirm. The doctor took me off nebs with a view to going home the next day, which did concern me a little as getting washed and dressed was still making me out of breath. They also said that I'd had some borderline blood glucose results which may be due to the increased prednisolone, but will need following up when I'm back to maintenance dose or if I can actually get off it. I definitely. I didn't feel as great of the nebs, but that's to be expected. I did have to ask for a neb on Monday night as hammering my inhalers just wasn't helping enough.
Tuesday morning I wasn't sure if I was ready to go home, having needed a neb overnight and having a pretty poor nights sleep, but in the end I decided I was probably better leaving before everyone got up and sprayed their various smells and before the disinfectant came out in order to avoid needing another neb.
So I've been out since Tuesday 30th July and I'm still out, its been hard and stupid things are making me out of breath but hopefully things will continue in the right direction. I've got my Mannitol challenge test on Wednesday and I'm really nervous about it, and pretty worried it could set me back. I still don't know what this one will tell them that the last one didn't.
I spent most of Friday getting gradually worse asthma wise, and after the debacle that was my last admission I really didn't want to go back to the hospital. By the evening I'd come to realise that I would be in need of more help so off we trundled to A&E. My husband parked the car whilst I went to speak to the receptionist, but I soon realised that after the short walk from the drop off point I was too out of breath to talk, I manged to get out something along the lines of "asthma" and "discharged Thursday" before I remembered I still had my ID bracelet from the last admission with my details and hospital number and handed that over. I was seen much more quickly by triage this time, but not before I had to move because a woman wearing far to much perfume sat down behind me. This time the triage nurse took me straight through to resus, where I was put on oxygen and given salbutamol and atrovent nebs and I improved pretty quickly.
Once stabilised I didn't have to wait long for a bed, and as I was being wheeled to the ward I saw one of the doctors that I spoke to before I was discharged "It didn't work then." he said. Whilst I was getting myself sorted, taking my evening meds, putting on my PJ's and sorting out all the usual admission stuff with the nurses the lady in the next bed was constantly hitting the curtain and complaining that I was making too much noise. In fact she buzzed for the nurse twice to complain about the noise I was making, I wouldn't have minded so much if I had actually been making a lot of noise but I was doing my best to be quiet and seriously how much noise can you actually make getting tablets out of a box? It turned out that this particular woman was a real nuisance, she was constantly attention seeking. Anytime the nurses attended to another patient she'd start shouting and press her buzzer, in fact she kept the entire bay awake all night and made more noise than the entire ward put together which is quite something as at one point someone elsewhere on the ward was screaming as if in terror. There were two crash calls for two different patients in the early hours of the morning and both times the attention seeking woman started yelling for attention and when told that she'd have to wait because they were dealing with an emergency she became abusive towards the staff, swearing and banging on the table. At breakfast time the nurses insisted that she got up to try to prevent her from sleeping all day and keeping everyone awake again the following night, but now tired after behaving like a petulant child all night she had other ideas. After insisting on being accompanied to the toilet all night despite not needing to use a walker or other mobility aid, she climbed over the bed rail and into her bed in the raised position that staff use when changing the bed, I'm not even sure I could do that, so it just goes to show that she really didn't need to keep pestering the staff to take her to the toilet. At least it was quiet once she was asleep!
On ward rounds on Saturday the consultant stopped my oxygen and decided to continue nebs and review the next day to see if I could go home. By the afternoon I was moved to a respiratory ward, and boy was I glad it was actually a resp ward and not the overflow one I was on last time. I was handed over as a "brittle" asthmatic, and whilst my GP has used the term a few times I've never really taken much notice as its a term that only a specialist is qualified to give. It seems that the specialists have decided that I am indeed brittle, and even though I know it's just a label I have to admit I'm finding it a bit of a struggle to get my head around, especially as no-one has actually talked to me about the implications of such a label. I was told that they wouldn't send me home until I was ready to go this time, so at least I'd have more control this admission, they also think that I may have a viral infection that's contributing to my symptoms, I'm not so sure I think its mainly down to the weather. The staff and patients were nice and friendly, although the lady in the next bed hummed the same song on an infinite loop at all hours of day and night she didn't even know she was doing it.
On Sunday I was having the usual problems with triggers as staff were spraying patients with deodorants and hairspray when bathing them and helping them dress so I did mention that I was struggling with it. The response I got was "Well we have banned flowers", frankly I think flowers would actually be less of a problem for me, but that is just my experience. I had a bit of a funny turn at one point, where I felt dizzy and a bit sickly for some unknown reason, but a nap with my fan blasting at me seemed to sort me out. That afternoon I felt much better lung wise and everyone was commenting on how much better I looked. I slept much better on Sunday night probably the combined effects of exhaustion and the codeine that I was prescribed for the rib pain induced by coughing.
On Monday I was definitely suffering with the heat, if my fan was of or not facing directly at me I'd have more sickly dizzy spells. I also noticed that the vein where my cannula had been had become hard and tender, I think it was just bruising, because I had knocked it before it was removed, but in light of the dizziness I got the nurse to check to confirm. The doctor took me off nebs with a view to going home the next day, which did concern me a little as getting washed and dressed was still making me out of breath. They also said that I'd had some borderline blood glucose results which may be due to the increased prednisolone, but will need following up when I'm back to maintenance dose or if I can actually get off it. I definitely. I didn't feel as great of the nebs, but that's to be expected. I did have to ask for a neb on Monday night as hammering my inhalers just wasn't helping enough.
Tuesday morning I wasn't sure if I was ready to go home, having needed a neb overnight and having a pretty poor nights sleep, but in the end I decided I was probably better leaving before everyone got up and sprayed their various smells and before the disinfectant came out in order to avoid needing another neb.
So I've been out since Tuesday 30th July and I'm still out, its been hard and stupid things are making me out of breath but hopefully things will continue in the right direction. I've got my Mannitol challenge test on Wednesday and I'm really nervous about it, and pretty worried it could set me back. I still don't know what this one will tell them that the last one didn't.
posted by Stephie at 5:53 PM
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