The return of the many Wills
I have had quite a rollercoaster with illness this week. Not entirely sure where to begin. I guess there is the migraine I was having for a few days. And the ear pain and the Co-Codamol. On Sunday things ramped up a bit, my ear bruised up and I started going loopy from a fever. I spent the day in bed and at night time, I started having some bizarre dreams and thoughts.
When Will came to bed I, for some reason, sincerely believed that there were two of him. I had this notion that he had left the other half of himself downstairs, watching something on his computer, and that I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep until the other Will came upstairs and they combined themselves. This made perfect sense at the time. I also had 5 or 6 nightmares that I woke up shouting from. It was basically disorienting as all hell. (You can read about the last time I had a bad fever, here.)
So, it’s probably obvious that my piercing had become infected. I was in denial about it though. I don’t think I wanted to admit that I had done anything badly because, obviously, bacteria had made its way inside of a piercing that was already painful enough to heal anyway. I had tried hard cleaning it, despite how much cleaning it hurt and stung, but still, I let some bacteria fester.
On Monday I finally had my CAT scan (or CT scan as it now seems to be written everywhere). Will’s boss (who is also Mike’s dad) did us an awesome huge favour by driving us to Winchester, where the scanner is actually located. We all know that I’m quite car sick, but I was not expecting it to go as badly as it did.
I wore a cardigan and the skull scarf because my phone said it was 0 motherfucking °C outside. But once the car started moving, I massively overheated and took everything off. Even having my purse strap against my body made me feel nauseous. Seatbelts do too, but the driver of the car could get a lil bit in trouble if I didn’t put it on. I do go without them sometimes when it’s super horrendous and we’re in the middle of nowhere. I’d apply for a medical exemption if it wasn’t such an ordeal, and I feel like “it touching me makes me puke” is not really gonna cut it with anybody anyway.
I brought two of the vomit bags I could find in the house, and didn’t expect to use both in the same journey. But I did. I was surprised that I had so much to vomit since I’d only had toast that day, and I thought it was better than an empty stomach. But the vomit sure kept coming, and so, disturbingly, did some fairly undigested painkillers which must have been from the previous couple of days. So, I’m not sure if I’m having stomach issues again.
We had to pull over when I was vomming as well because I couldn’t get the feeling to stop. It was all pretty grim.
The Foldachair D09 has been amazing though, folded into the car smaller than any of my prior chairs would have done.
The nausea never quite left me and I was migrainey and horrible in the waiting room. Will wasn’t allowed to come into the scanning room with me, and I only had one hearing aid in because of my ear, but I did OK. I don’t remember the scanner spinning around quite so much the last time I was scanned, and it was a bit intimidating. It’s a bit hard to believe that it’s not going to fall on me or eat me. But it didn’t do either of those things obviously because I am at home writing a blog now.
I have to hope that they spot something obviously wrong in my head because if they don’t, then I don’t know why I’m having these symptoms and they could continue indefinitely. I miss times when my brain used to work kind of good.
We were barely up the road on the way home when, you guessed it, I went vomity again. Thankfully the radiographer had given me some sick bowls to take with me. I was so glad to get home but I unfortunately spent the rest of the night feeling like I could vomit at any second, it was a strange kind of hell.
Will stayed home with me on Tuesday because I was doing really badly. He came upstairs to wake me up every now and then and make sure I drank something. My nose kept bleeding when I knocked it accidentally, I seemed to have torn my nostrils and throat a bit while vomiting. So I’m kind of back to feeling like I have tonsillitis again, but it’s just from vomit.
I came down in the evening to have dinner and just honestly felt awful. Had to get down into my bra and pants. Will phoned 111 and an out-of-hours doctor from HDOCS got to us about 3 hours later, which I am incredibly thankful for. I sort of froze in embarrassment when the doctor was actually here, as I was just sitting there like a blob almost naked. I’m sure she’s seen worse in her time, but still.
Obviously my ear was looked at, and I also had a pulse reader put on my finger (I’m pretty sure it said 97 beats per minute?! Which I didn’t think to ask about at the time but on reflection that is not normal for me), had my blood sugars read (9mmol), my blood pressure taken (though it’s very hard to get a reading from me RE: Dysautonomia) and then I had to pee in a disused mug.
Apparently the little stick that she put in it, showed that I had “+1 blood and +1 white cells” in my urine, but not an actual infection. She basically had to rule out that my fever could be coming from anything else in the body. Not sure what the blood in my urine is about if there is no infection, I guess my kidneys might be playing up again. It’s all happening at once.
The doctor gave me Erythromycin, which was apparently the only option for this sort of thing as I’m allergic to penicillin. I felt a lot better this morning after just one tablet, and I feel reasonably cognisant although still not 100%. I can’t take my Atorvastatin for the next 10 days though.
The doctor did advise us to drop some pee at the GP to figure out why there is blood and stuff, but we haven’t done that yet as I’m not sure how Will can really walk down there with a mug of urine.
My glasses are now resting on my very tender ear because my eyes are not cooperating with contact lenses today. Wish me luck with that.