reversal of roles, and being the patient

You won’t believe this, but I got admitted into hospital on Thursday night!! LOL! My knees had slowly over the week, gotten swollen for whatever reason, I had put myself on high dose antibiotics but they, by Thursday were getting worse. I guess looking back, I wasn’t feeling so good- though didn’t really bother me. I had no appetite and couldn’t get warm, but was like, ok, it’s a cold night and can’t be arsed cooking for myself anyways. Typical Doctor being the worst patient, refusing to believe I was sick until I absolutely couldn’t walk. So I went along to my GPs appointment I had booked day before with angry receptionist (tried to get an earlier time, and she continued to lecture me about people having appointments months in advance...uhm...so when do you, like, see real sick people??)

GP couldn’t figure it out either, it was now looking more like cellulitis, but bilateral and on exact same spots on both knees...she took my temp and I was febrile (woops) 38.0 and my heart was racing (120bpm...! had absolutely no idea) I sorta laughed when she told me...so she rung the hospital, discussed me with the medreg, and he thought I had reached the point now where I would need admission and IVABS to knock whatever it was on the head....ahhhhh

I guess this is my sorta worst nightmare, being admitted into my own hospital. I was very anxious about being boarded on my own ward-that would suck!! But also over knowing all the docs who would see me!!LOL! To be honest everyone was very nice, the one perk of the job is that everyone knows you know the system so they try their best to please you. The second worst thing was that my husband was in Auckland on work training thing, and local cousins just so happened to all be out of town, so no one could go with me.Not exactly your typical samoan patient who brings their troops in with them to hospital!

I came home...packed my little bag of PJs toiletries chocolates and taxi-d myself to A&E. I handed my GP letter in and told the receptionist medreg was expecting me, they all knew I was Staff, and within 5 minutes the medreg actually came out to the waiting area in A&E to chat, he hummed and haaad over my knees and said I would need to come in, and a junior doc was coming to clark me in!!LOL!

The house surgeon clarking me in, was a 1st year that I know very well, poor guy. I basically dictated his admission form for him, told him I had listened to my own heart and lungs and they were fine!LOL! All he had to do were my bloods and IVline. The poor guy didn’t even bother looking round my hands as we normally do, to find a spot for the IV Line, I think he was so nervous he went straight for the juicy antecubital fossa (elbow)!!

Then I begged him not to plonk me in the middle of the demented stroked out crazy patients on the medical ward that I am-oh-so familiar with, (not to come across as being picky but the average age of patients in the med ward is probably 60, at least one person in every 6 bedded cubicle has come from a nursing home and continues to yell out "SUCILLE! SUCILLE COME HERE!" all night long, it ALWAYS smells like poo- reflection of the average patient up there- just not my cup of tea!) but if I could stay in the short stay unit (flash new part of ED just like ward but only short term stayers) and he managed to get me a bed there (yay). He made a mess putting my line in though- blood everywhere!!LOL! And I told him that was 'unacceptable' then gave him a pat on the back to indicate I was just kidding, cos he had broken out into a sweat by then!LOL!

One of my senior work colleagues overheard in ED that I was there and came and found me, ( Of course!) and accompanied me to SSU and even stayed a little while which was embarrassing, but nice. Another was doing nights so she came at 2.30am and visited me! Much to the dislike of my roomie (who shouldn’t have complained anyways cos she was freaken snoring like a horse!!) The Medical team came round in the morning- luckily no one I had worked for, and theorized about what could be causing the swelling, who knows...trying to explain the bilateral thing, which is unusual for an infection type process, main thing was that they were starting to get better!!

By the morning some improvement of the knees, my work team decided to visit me as part of their ward round, with flowers! I was so embarrassed!! The med consultant decided I needed another 48hours of IVABs at least ( AAAAAHHHH- this meant I was going up to the medical ward) but after liaison with me i.e. I am a doc can look after myself, can do my own temps, didnt need to occupy a much needed bed bla bla, they decided I could go home with Home IV antibiotic therapy with the district nurses!!!(YAY) I have to go back tomorrow for the ward round and expose myself to them again.

But should be ok to go onto oral antibiotics by then. I checked out my own bloods and was surprised to see my inflammatory markers all raised!! ( sign of body fighting serious infection/inflammation!) My poor body had been struggling to fight whatever was going on in my knees, and I was too stubborn to notice- the numbers confirmed things!!But good to see my Haemaglobin was normal at 120- reassured myself I am eating enough red meat and my creatinine was normal, so kidneys ticking along nicely!.

I did the docs a favor the next day and typed my own discharge, charted up my own home IV drug chart, consented myself to home IVABs (LOL- I got them to cosign it when they came down-bet they were thinking ka'i fiapotorings!)Just to speed the process of me getting out of there along, all the doc had to do was resite my IV cos having it in my left arm was a butthole- every time I moved the arm it hurt, so I had to keep it rigid straight-ALL NIGHT, can you imagine sleeping like that?? So they put it in my right hand, I asked for local anaesthetic this time cos I am a baby, and it hurt the first time without- since having it with local I don’t know which is worse- I have always known local stings, but guys it stung like a b@*%$!!!!Now I regret all the times I have offered people local with IVs and thought I was doing them a favor!!LOL!

I almost cried- just from the local!!! Luckily my husband had flown down from auckland by then so he held my hand and distracted me!!anyways, now I am at home, trying awkwardly to be normal with this annoying lure sticking out my right arm, which never fails to remind me its there, when I absent mindedly swing round and knock it on something.My husband is treating me very preciously cos I am three limbs out- he has knocked both my painful knees and my right IVlured arm at least once so far, and for that he went and bought me a cappuccino from a cafe of my choice, and brought breakfast back with him!HEHE!! the District nurses have come twice and they are all very nice and I think a bit nervous re; me being a doc, I think they sterilized everything to death in prep of just giving me antibiotic push!LOL!

all in all guys, a very weird experience being not just a patient, but a patient to people I know- did I tell you the docs asked ME what Antibiotics they should put me on and asked ME if I wanted IVFluids in light of my racing heart and febrile-ness (i.e maybe I was dehydrated!- I politley declined and agreed to down a litre of water, some ice-pops and coke!!)LOL!!! I think I was a good patient and only rung my bell once overnight for panadol cos I woke with a splitting headache-which I swear was from the IVABs LOL!!

Feeling a bit embarrassed still cos you know, I am not that sick!( she keeps telling herself) !! Feeling great about getting 2 days off work!!(yay)anyways, I am sure I will be onto oral tablets tomorrow- and above is a photo of my IV line !!Yay! The only person that made a mistake in this whole experience was the medical receptionist who decided to hyphen my two last names together - despite me telling them I had changed it completely to my married name, not only that but she made me a Mr. instead of a Mrs!!! Just my luck with medical receptionists huh!! Anyways, that’s what I was up to last few days...very excoooooiiiting aye!!LOL! Hope none of yous ever have to go thru anything similar!LOL! gonna go veg out and watch a movie now..Take care guys and have a great weekend!!