Broken Streak...

It is a bit of a kick in the teeth I will say, but I did break my longest streak in a while for weeks out of hospital. It had been 12 weeks since the last time I was in and I thought that was brilliant, but sadly due to some kind of nasty pneumonia I was in again yesterday. It had been a while and things didn't feel like the end of the world and I didn't feel anywhere near as down as I would have normally when I was in there every other week because of my asthma and living with someone who made me feel stressed, but the way I see it, these things happen and my lungs will do as they please until it happens again no doubt.

But I suppose there are positives I can take from this. The first is of course it had been a long time since my last one, maybe I can go longer next time? I can cope with this on my own now and the prospect of a 999 call on my own is nowhere near as daunting as it seemed to be when someone else made it. In fact it was incredibly easy and I didn't have to answer a million and one questions which was something I will admit I was dreading, but right away the woman on the other end of the line knew straight away that I had breathing trouble and she talked me through the whole thing. There is also the knowledge that I have the courage to make that call and judge for myself when things just are too much to cope with and the last one, I have a boyfriend who will move heaven and earth to be there when he can. Even if that means travelling from his house in Birmingham to the Alex in Redditch.

All in all, I was very well looked after and even the nurses commented how calm and relaxed I was which made triage a lot easier and meant that I could see a doctor a lot quicker, whereas before I was usually so panicked about interrupting someone else's day and what the next few days were going to be like. Because I wasn't hyperventilating through pure terror, it was easier to get accurate readings of basic obs and I was seen within the hour of arrival.

As soon as the doctor came, he knew straight away that I was definitely having an asthma attack and it was more than likely being made worse by another pneumonia episode and decided right away that the best thing to do was give me more oxygen, more nebs (I think I ended up having 3 or 4 in the end so I was vibrating!) 40mg stat dose of Pred (oooh joy) and some IV magnesium which has become a bit of a staple for my acute episodes now. It worked and just as I was returning from having a rather mucky chest X Ray taken as Tom found me, looking a lot better than I had in days so at least this wasn't a completely wasted effort, not that all the drugs I needed pointed to that anyway.

Thanks to Tom, I was allowed to convalesce at home rather than in the hospital which helps enormously especially when I feel so groggy that all I want to do is sleep and have some peace and quiet. Today I had the enormous pleasure of meeting Tom's mother, Jean. I was happy to finally meet her and be able to put a face to a name and it was nice that we got on really well. I had been a bit nervous, but that is a normal thing when I meet new people. I tend to be a bit nervous and worry that I make a terrible first impression. I need not have worried however.

Now my next step forward is a nap, maybe a game and taking it easy until Monday when I see both Lee and Sarah from the Social Services team in order to set up my home care package and ensure that there is always someone around when I need them so I am not in that situation again. That and there are about 6 new Final Fantasy at home (3 are with me at present 2 are PSP and one is Xbox 360) so there is enough to keep me occupied and I WILL finish and add pictures to the blog I was writing about all of my collection. I am just waiting until it has all arrived and then I can set pieces up, clean what I need to clean and get the whole thing looking a thing of beauty. Although I did find a picture from 2 years ago of my collection and it was so tiny, I had to laugh!! So I will leave you with that and catch up later.

Loves
Wendy xx