In what seems to be my monthly hospital admittances.

In what seems to be a revolving door of sickness and health, I'm back at St. Mikes admitted for IV therapy. My goal to stay out of the hospital for the month of Nov lasted 9 days.

At physio on Thurs and Fri, I felt more short of breath than usual but my oxygen levels were still okay despite being down slightly. I passed it off as the cold weather or something. Until on Sat I felt short of breath walking around the apartment and then got super nauseous. When I threw up my '13 month celebration' meal, I decided it was time to call the doctor.

The doctor on call Sat night informed me that the respirology beds were full so I had to be admitted through emerg. I went in Sunday morning and spent the day hanging out in emerg waiting for a bed to open up. It actually wasn't as bad as I had been anticipating. They immediately whisked me off to a stretcher on the ward so I didn't have to wait in the waiting room with random people coughing and sneezing everywhere. I spent the afternoon knitting and listening to podcasts while peering through my curtain at everyone trying to diagnose the other patients.

That entertained me until they gave me my first dose of a IV antibiotic to which I had a minor allergic reaction. It wasn't super serious but my head was super itchy and my face got super flushed. The doctor informed me that the medication often causes the body to release histamines initially. They stopped the med for an hour and gave me a dose of IV Benadryl. Of course the respirologist showed up 20 minutes after the Benadryl admitted. I was much less itchy and very much feeling the effects of the Benadryl. I spent the entire conversation trying not to pass out and I'm pretty sure I said nonsensical things as I couldn't focus on anything. My conversation was basically "yes, everything good, IV itchy, wow this stuff super strong, all blurry, I sleep now."

By the time I made it out of my drug-induced nap, they had a bed on the gastrology/post-op floor.
I'm hoping desperately to get transferred to respirology tomorrow as while everyone is nice, they are not use to having people with CF. They tried to give me enough blood thinners for a "200lb 80 year old man who would be unable to get out of bed" (That was the quote from the horrified resident who read my chart today). Thankfully I refused to let them give it to me even though the nurse gave me a lecture on how I'll get blood clots from laying in bed all day (I promised her I would not spend all day laying in bed).

Also, because it's a post-op floor, they are super intense about monitoring fluid intake and output. So much so, that a man woke me up at 6am to ask me how much I peed in the night. I was so confused what he was asking me. I responded with a "what? ummm none, I was sleeping." He kept repeating "but how much did you pee?" "Ummm nothing. I went to sleep and woke up with you yelling at me about pee." I was not pleased. The PSW kept coming in all day to ask me exactly how much I had drank and how much and how often I peed. They are quite obsessed with it. Sigh. The respirology floor has increased my expectations of hospital stays. I need to somehow convince someone from there to leave. 

But other than the urine obsession and blood thinners, the floor isn't that bad. I still get my CF menu and junk food and it's relatively quiet. The treatment plan is to continue the strong IV antibiotic (the itching did not continue with the subsequent doses) that should get rid of everything in my body. The CF doctor said today that they can't test my lung function tomorrow as it's considered a holiday for non-essential hospital staff (even though the rest of the province refuses), so they'll check it on Wed to see if I've had a sudden drop in lung function and to give them a better idea why I'm so short of breath when I do anything.

My lovely view!