The Alien Reappears

Dear reader, I am continuing to go to great lengths to survey the healthcare system of NI. Over the past week, I’ve been inside two ambulances and been treated in two different hospitals.

My recovery from surgery at the Mater had been going very smoothly. I went up to Belfast last Friday to get the staples out and the nurse told me my wound was healing well. But on the way back I began to feel unwell and went to bed when I got home. I was having difficulty breathing. In the evening I got worse. T rang the out of hours GP who asked her to check me over and said she should ring them back later. My breathing got worse and I began to have pains in my chest. Then I started vomiting. T called an ambulance.

After getting lost on the way here, they arrived about 10.30pm. Big Arthur escorted me into the ambulance, strapped me into a chair and hooked me up to a heart, pulse and breathing monitor. I was breathing fast and shallow, my chest was very sore right in the centre and I was vomiting up foamy saliva. ‘Can’t you breathe normally,’ complained Big Arthur, ‘you’re stopping the monitor reading properly.’ I panted and moaned. He spent a long time filling in my details on a form, and then we got started.

It was the worst journey I’ve ever had. Even worse than the day I spent on the back of a flat-bed truck in Laos with high fever. Every bump on the road jolted me. The pain in my chest got worse and worse. My blood pressure was through the roof. I was retching with the cold sweats. And it seemed to take forever. After half an hour or so Big Arthur said, ‘we’re in Banbridge, won’t be long now.’ Dear God no, I thought, that’s only ten bloody minutes from my house. The monitor was bleeping out its readings straight in front of me. I gritted my teeth, grasped my knees and rocked myself side to side. I just had to keep going, gasping through the pain. From time to time I glanced over at Big Arthur. He was asleep.

Eventually we drew up outside Craigavon Hospital. The journey had taken the best part of an hour (a drive I had done myself in half the time). Big Arthur helped me down the steps into a wheelchair. ‘You’ll soon feel better with a bit of fresh air,’ he said cheerily. Thankfully A&E took over. They wheeled me into a room called ‘Resuscitation’ and took an Xray of my chest with a portable machine. A young doctor with a Southern accent appeared. ‘You’ve got a 90% collapsed left lung,’ he said, and threaded a tube up my nose and down the back of my throat. ‘Swallow,’ he said. Not easy to do when you are retching. Then a huge rush of air, like a balloon deflating. He had got the tube down into my stomach and was relieving the pressure on my lung. I started to feel a lot better very quickly. ‘That was a big lung collapse,’ said the young doctor, ‘you won the prize for the Xray of the night.’ I gave him a weak smile. ‘You’ll be fine now,’ he said.  I was hooked up with a drip and moved into the main A&E room. Only then was T allowed to come and sit beside me.

We spent the rest of the night in A&E: me on a trolley, T beside me in a chair. In the morning I was admitted to the ward and given a CT scan. I was feeling much improved, my lung volume was already at 75% of normal. But the medical staff decided to transfer me to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast. They were worried that I might need emergency surgery on my diaphragm. Another ambulance journey, but a much more comfortable one this time: they knew the way and Big Arthur was now off duty.

The following day I was examined by two medical teams at RVH. The thoracic surgeons were keen to do surgery to repair my diaphragm and pencilled me in for theatre on Tuesday. I was very concerned to be going in to another big operation less than two weeks after the last. The general surgeons reckoned that the bloated stomach had been caused by either a blockage in my small intestine or late-onset ilius (when your digestive system freezes after surgery). Both of these are common after bowel surgery. They recommended that I be monitored for several days instead of being given more surgery. Thankfully this last counsel was accepted. The next day, they detected bowel sounds and I began to pass wind. The day after, they took the tube out of my stomach and I was allowed to try food. Soon my guts returned to normal and after more tests and scans I was allowed home yesterday.

I’ve spent thirteen nights in hospital out of the past sixteen. It certainly feels great to be back home. I’m very much hoping that I will be recuperating here without any dramatic interruptions for a good while.