This month I have discovered that when it comes to pain there is something even worse than meningitis, child birth and even a 7.5 hour half ironman triathlon. I find the child birth one hard to believe as I didn't feel anything when my children were born with the exception of discovering my wife had the ability to grip my hand with the strength of a JCB and with a lot less subtlety.
You know what its like, you get used to living with discomfort and pain as a viral meningitis survivor, so when I got a persistent stomach ache I just put it down to being too old to be doing the things I do. I had suffered this pain before and it had gone away and besides pain is just nature’s way of saying ‘you are a triathlete’.
I cycled with the pain, ran with the pain, swam with the pain, drove to Loughborough for a triathlon official’s course with the pain and just generally got on with my life. Well that’s what you do isn’t it? Or maybe not…..Exactly a week after the pain first started I found myself at the emergency clinic of our local hospital still protesting that there was nothing wrong with me but with, not to put too fine a point on it, bodily expulsions which would see Usain Bolt give up his Olympic medal and sit in a corner crying like a baby. What then followed was an injections of morphine, Tramadol, trip to the loo, anti emetic, trip to the loo, ambulance to accident and emergency and then being told not to go to sleep and to ‘breathe properly’ as my oxygen sats were down to 88%. Funnily enough keeping on breathing had pretty much occurred to me as being important but morphine slows down respiration and besides isn’t morphine named after Morpheus the Roman god of sleep?
Just when you think you think you’ve had enough of serious illness life just comes up and bites you on, well the kidneys. By the time I reached A&E I was virtually out cold although I do remember lying on a trolley in a corridor with the poor ambulance crew waiting with me for what seemed like an age but was in fact an hour. I was then taken through to an assessment room where the nurse who was assigned to me had a bedside manner which would make a Dalek blush. The nurse asked my wife what medication I had been given and then asked me, apparently I said ‘fish’ hey what do you expect from me I'm pretty out of it most of the time anyway.
After another period of time, during which I swear continental drift saw Europe and the USA move another two miles apart, I was put on a drip of paracetemol and then saline. Not that any of that really mattered to me as I had already had morphine and so I thought I was Napoleon and in fact my battle strategy for the battle of Corsica was coming along nicely. I strongly suspect though that my wife wondered why I called her Josephine; I’ll have fun explaining that one to the divorce lawyers.
The doctor examined me and concluded that I had food poisoning. Having stomach pains for a week being salmonella is a new one on me, even on Corsica. More blood was taken and the results came back that I had a double kidney infection and then they discharged me. I could barely walk, didn’t know where I was and was in excruciating pain. The more observant of you will be thinking why didn’t they give you antibiotics. It didn’t occur to me as Napoleon didn’t have them but apparently this mistake could have killed me if sepsis had set in and this was a high possibilty so I'm told. That would have been a complete bitch; survive near fatal attacks of chickenpox and viral meningitis only to be killed by a double kidney infection and an incompetent doctor.
So I'm pretty much back to square one fitness wise, weak as a kitten and as tired as I ever was after I survived the viral meningitis. Am I down? Nope because I've stuck two fingers up to the Grim Reaper three times now and how many people get the chance to do that. What it has reminded me is of the challenges we all face when confronted by serious illness and viral meningitis in particular. I harp on a lot about adjusting what ‘normal’ means but you know what I'm having to do it again and I am back to struggling to regain the life I enjoy. If I needed to be reminded of what it was like to come back after being struck down by viral meningitis this was it. I wish I hadn’t been reminded but hey sometimes life is like staring at a silver back gorilla, you get crap thrown at you, you duck and you just keep on going. Incidentally don't stare at a silver back gorilla they really do throw poo if they feel threatened. I really wish I had watched those endless David Attenborough programmes when I was younger.
Finally a reminder of what our emergency services, who look after us when illness strikes, have to put up with.
999: ‘Ambulance Service What’s your emergency? ‘
Caller: It’s me kidneys…….’
999: Have you got pain in them ?
Caller: No.
999: Are they inflamed or do you have any back ache?
Caller: No
999: Any abdominal pain or discomfort?
Caller: No
999: So what is the problem with your kidneys?
Caller: They’re not cooked properly, my husband is home soon and I don’t know what gas mark to put them on.
999: get a shallow frying pan and heat some butter in it on a medium heat, fry for about 20 minutes then serve with vegetables.
Priceless.
Yes I did get antibiotics in the end, my wife phoned our surgery on the Monday morning and spoke to our GP and he did a prescription for her to pick up. Its funny I had forgotten just how much I had grieved for my old life but you're right you do turn a corner and then what's normal becomes, well, normal. I'm having an abdo scan on Wednesday and the more blood tests in 8 weeks time so I'll know then if there's any damage. I hope not but hey if there is c'est la vie or as they say in France 'that's life'. Glad you're starting to turn the corner, I know what a hard road that means you have travelled but accepting what life is like now is part of moving on and its great you've got your fight back. Glad you enjoy the blog, I really enjoy writing them.
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