I dislike disruption. I suppose that we all do. Midday Saturday and I'd just finished having coffee with a friend at The Woodlands. I'd been right as rain and twice as wet as the saying goes. I stood up and immediately felt the early signs of an onset of sepsis. I've had it so many times now that I'm pretty well attuned to the symptoms. It's just become part of normal life but it is disruptive because there is absolutely no knowing when it will strike. Anyway the Nurse Practitioner and Member of the Society of Master Bumjabbers had given me antibiotics to take should I be unable to get to an A & E (Emergency Room) in reasonable time. So I decided to try and stave it off at the pass and within half an hour of the onset I had taken my first tablet.
I had friends coming for dinner for the Final of Strictly Come Dancing (good result but I did so want Anton and Emma to win) so decided to see how it went and rely on the oral antibiotics. The meal was already in the slow cooker (Moroccan Lamb if you're interested) so I went and had a sleep. I woke feeling quite reasonable so decided against A & E.
At 1.40 am I woke with rigours which were so bad I actually had difficulty phoning for an ambulance. Hospital. The usual cocktail of intravenous antibiotics. Brilliant care and attention (thank you once again NHS) and last night I was home again. Wabbit but well.
The disruption? Ah yes. Sunday had been allocated to getting my UK cards done. Monday was the day for icing the 5 Christmas cakes I still have to ice.
So now, after a fabulous and solid sleep, I'm playing catch-up.
But first I have some Thank You notes to deliver.
Hopefully I'll get some blogs read this evening.
Good luck. I'm happy you are mended.
ReplyDeletePS. I never new sepsis was serious till a couple of years ago a chap here caught his arm on a bit of spiky fence. He was sorting a naughty sheep at the time. He went one way, the sheep went the other and the cut was a good barbed wire length deep. I washed it out with that Savlon squirty stuff and as I didn't have butterfly thingies, used a bit of gaffer tape cut up to hold it together. His wife took him to Perth A&E. They stitched it up. He now has Sepsis. Told him it was nowt to do with me it's like Yuppy Flu. An affliction to decrease the NHS liability. Bet those dirty buggers gave it him.
DeleteThanks for the original comment Adrian. I'm a tad unsure about the logic in your PS.
DeleteOh no! Yours was a disruption of the worst kind. I am so very glad that you were once again in excellent hands and have returned home soon afterwards. Still in time for Christmas! Will it be with your grandson?
ReplyDeleteMeike, I'm good now thank you. Christmas Day is likely to be with the family en masse.
DeleteOh! Dear! That is not a disruption you would relish! A despised, unwanted disruption! Thank goodness you have the antibiotics on hand at all times.
ReplyDeleteYou are a Trojan for continuing on with your dinner...with your guests. You have my admiration for doing so. Most, including me, wouldn't have done so, I'm sure.
I'm also glad you did go to the hospital...and I hope all is well once more...and that the status quo...the status quo of wellness continues.
Take care, Graham...(my saying that might be a mite redundant because you are obviously taking care of yourself...but take care, anyway)! :)
Thank you, Lee. I actually thought that I might get away with it this time ie not have to go to hospital but I was wrong. C'est la vie.
DeleteI like your sense of humour dealing with this horrid problem of sepsis, and am so glad you are on the mend again. Getting things done is not as important as caring for yourself, so please do take care and recover fully. Mxx
ReplyDeleteMargaret, I realised years ago that dealing with cancer or anything else for that matter was made easier by having positivity and a sense of humour. I'm fortunate in knowing the symptoms having had so many bouts.
DeleteSo sepsis bacteria remains dormant and flares up from time to time?
ReplyDeleteRachel, the strange thing is that no one seems to know why it keeps flaring up. Given the fact that the flare-ups are frequent and that I also have infections which give me no symptoms at all and are just discovered when I have other routine blood or urine tests, it would seem that I have the bugs lurking within me (just like the cancer cells my body and the medics have been fighting for 21 years).
DeleteConditions that come up out of the blue are not pleasant. I hope recover rapidly.
ReplyDeleteThank you Red. Okay today and hopefully for a while yet.
DeletePrayers for your good health
ReplyDeleteDo you make your own icing?
Thank you Maywyn. No, I'm a cheat, I buy powdered Royal Icing and so just have to add water. I used to use rolled fondant icing.
DeleteYou are always so philosophical about these occasional health issues. I admire your stalwart spirit. More ordinary mortals would have surely been broken by what you have had to contend with Graham.
ReplyDeleteThank you Neil. I think that if you face something like cancer then you can either go under or be positive and Carry On Living. After all some of the very best years of my life have been after some of the worst when I was told that my cancer was 'probably beyond known medicine' at the time and after our older son had just died of cancer.
DeleteThe sepsis is just something to be dealt with. I have the benefit of knowing when I have the initial stages. In the UK someone dies of sepsis every 3.5 seconds. I really don't want to be one of them.
i hope you are ok now, lucky you got to it quickly, what seems to bring in on if you don't mind me asking?
ReplyDeleteAmy, I have no real idea what brings it on. The medics say they don't know either. I think, and I think the medics are coming to the same conclusion, that at some time whilst all the operations I've had involving my urinary system (there was a lot of collateral damage caused by radio therapy years ago after my cancer op 21 years ago) something has occurred which is allowing the infections to develop.
Delete:-( :-)
ReplyDeleteAndrea - a white cabbage.
DeleteOh Graham, how easily you brush these episodes off. I know how practical and capable you are, but please do take care. I second YP's comment, too.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Pauline. Well, I know that you are exactly the same. Perhaps I'm an Aussie Kiwi at heart.
DeleteOh dear, I am glad you are better now. I am always so impressed by your medical care. It sounds excellent.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kay. The medical care I've had is second to none.
DeleteI had no idea that sepsis was an on-going problem. I'd imagined it was treated, and you became well again. I now know better. My best wishes.
ReplyDeleteCro, generally speaking your understanding is correct. No one seems sure why mine keeps recurring. Probably indirect result of damage from cancer treatment many years ago.
DeleteI'm relieved you were able to get the care you needed and are now on the mend. Try not to do too much.
ReplyDeleteI haven't iced my cake either. X
Thank you for your concern, Jules. I've now iced all but one of my cakes.
DeleteSo happy you have returned quickly - a scary episode I am sure. Hope you have a wonderful sepsis-free family Xmas ! Best wishes from down under :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Fiona. Oddly enough I'm not sure that I find them scary initially. The one last January was full blown urosepsis and sepsis of the blood and that certainly scared the medical professionals. I wasn't really compos mentis enough to care.
DeleteWe're really glad you're home again GB. Thanks for letting us know, xx
ReplyDeleteThanks, Helen.
DeleteIt feels very strange when we lose a day or more just like that, no warning.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you were onto it. Sepsis scares me silly
Kylie, I've had so many bouts of sepsis now that, so long as I can get to a hospital quickly, I'm not concerned. With my history in my pocket I don't have to convince any A & E/Emergency Room to treat me speedily. Undiagnosed it's a horrendous condition.
DeleteJust as a postscript it would seem that the cause of the recurring bouts is the foreign body that is the stent in my kidney and to my bladder.
ReplyDeleteSo very sorry to hear you have been through this... again... if there's anyone who deserves it less, they haven't been born yet. Wish we could wrap you in bubble wrap! As you do with all treasures you want to protect...
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughts Marcheline. As you well know there are a good many people a million times worse off that I am. I'm fortunate enough to recognise the problem and have a history which means that A & E/Emergency Room always respond quickly.
DeleteThat sounds like an awful disruption. I'm glad its over and you are on the mend. You sure do take on a lot, dinner and cake icing.
ReplyDeleteDiane, like you, I am fortunate enough to lead a full and active life: just rather a different one.
DeleteIn spite of everything going on in your life and your country and the world in general, I wish you a happy Christmas, with hopes that 2020 will be better.
ReplyDeleteI am glad (reading your next post) that you did not have to spend Christmas with sepsis, and I hope they sorted you out in double quick time.
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