I was gentle till the circus life made me mean …

Hey! Hey!

I’m gonna start with the punchline. After that, I will provide the buildup. I say this because I personally am an impatient girlie who is forever saying “get to the point!”

This week end in a discharge!!

Although, before you start celebrating, let’s take it back to the beginning of week 5. Let’s enjoy (relive) the trauma together! Slight hint, I’m not talking trauma directly related to my cerebrospinal fluid leak! Although, I’m going to be honest. When I was writing this, the events had sort of blurred into one. There is a chance that some of the explosive points of week 5 actually happened in week 4.

We started the week with some high levels of sympathy for our lovely nurses. I say us rather than I on the grounds I had a new friend in Ally (who was next to me) so we were absolutely in this together.

Before we get to the topic at hand, allow me to bless you with another insight into patient life on a long term admission …

Side quest patient insight …

There was a patient admitted to my bay (who was around the same age as me) due to her epilepsy and I swear Greys Anatomy couldn’t write the series of events that played out in front of us. She was really lovely to us. The staff however were less fortunate.

After being admitted in the (very) early hours of the morning, she was telling us some personal belongings had been stolen presumably whilst she was having a seizure. At a more reasonable point in the day, she told us she was going to pop home to collect some stuff because there was nobody to bring it up for her.

Despite us recommending that probably wasn’t a sensible life choice, she still maintained she could manage it without being caught by staff. What we didn’t expect was her to return with a suitcase big enough for a family of 4 completely full!

I’ll take the entertainment at this point …

Having already played a game riskier than anything my nervous system could cope with, she apparently wasn’t done. There as a hoo-hah commotion around her medication and the form it was given in, so she announced that she had self-administered a dose in what was now late afternoon.

When it came to the night-time meds round, it was explained to her that she could not have her evening dose yet because they have to be spaced 12 hours apart and this would not be the case with late self-administration earlier on. Instead of accepting this, there was instead an eruption of screaming, shouting and throwing things on the grounds this was a lie on her chart (it wasn’t).

Actively wishing for silence again …

The saga continued the next day when she proceded to have the loudest conversation blatently slagging everybody off on the grounds she wasn’t the staff’s primary focus. This however was the build up to the main event of which a suggestion of a change of meds was the beaking point. The next few moments had us again making side-eyes because there were not appropriate words for the scene playing in front of us …

The family-sized suitcase was launched around. First across the floor, and then onto the bed. Once it was on the bed she proceeded to climb on top of both (it was a real can’t watch, but also can’t not watch situation). We will leave the events that followed out for the sake of keeping it both anonymous and PC, but believe me when I say her revelation was outrageous enough to silence the entire ward let alone our bay!

Thankfully for my headache, she discharged herself later that afternoon.

You really couldn’t make it up …

I’m writing this 12 months since this insight traumatised me, and I still now look back with utter bewilderment!

At this stage, we were only in the first half of the week, and as of yet there was still report for the CT scans. It’s almost as if I wasn’t their favourite patient and sole focus! All my consultant could tell me was that if they haven’t pinpointed a CSF leak, then I would have to be passed on to another hospital.

Evidently believing I wasn’t suffering enough, the universe decided to throw me a curveball in the form of a new elderly patient in the bed diagonal from me.

Another insight from a now emotionally unstable girlie …

Before I delve into this insight, I would like to emphasise that I understood the reasons behind her behaviours, but just consider it from my perspective …

The bed from the girl who self-discharged didn’t take long to be filled. Our newest room mate, who I would be correct to assume had some issues with her memory, was another elderly lady. Unfortunately, all too quickly it started to become a bit much like an episode of House when she became convinced my dad was a patient.

Having come to visit me on the evening, dad was the only visitor within our bay on top of being the only male voice in the room. The bed to my right was empty, so when my dad did leave she didn’t believe he had gone.

Thankfully nothing phases the night shift …

I instantly knew it was time to pull out the noise cancelling headphones the minute she collared a member of staff to tell her there was a man in the female bay. It was explained, gently but clearly to her that the male voice she had heard was my dad, and she didn’t have to worry because he had now gone.

However, such an explanation was not sufficient, and instead she proceeded to insist he was lying in the bed opposite her (the empty one next to me) whilst he drank his bottle of whiskey (the only person needing whiskey in this moment was me, and possibly the poor HCA trying to reason with her!). This continued into the early hours of the morning and I can catagorically say it has put me off wanting to even surpass the age of 50!!

I do think about this elderly lady often and wonder if she got the support she needed, but I also cannot help but laugh at the repetition of the belief my dad had smuggled a bottle of whiskey into the bay and had set up camp in the empty bed!

CSF Leak more mysterious than the Bermuda Triangle …

As far as the psychological trauma went, I had apparently fulfilled my quota for the week (month). On the Thursday of week 5, my consultant came down to break the news that my many CT scans had in fact identified no specific CSF leak.

Of course it didn’t …

I mean why would my body co-operate with the predicted medical norm?

A sigh. A light puff of air. That was the sum total of my reaction. Mostly because I have very much grown to expect to be the awkward patient that is the exception to the rule. Unfortunately, this lack of cooperation from my body meant that there was no medical intervention they could offer presently to seal my leak and free me of my headache.

Even a 3rd blind blood patch was off the cards on the grounds the benefits had been so limited. Therefore, they would seek a second opinion from a fellow CSF leak and intracranial hypotension specialist in Newcastle. Until then, it was a case of I could go home and try to manage the symptoms until a response is received.

It could only happen to me!

X O X O,

Your favourite headache!

I was tame, I was gentle till the circus life made me mean ~ Who’s afraid of little old me, Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department