I spent the rest of the day chatting to the girlies. I was starting to feel better enough and my fever had gone. Me and Janet borrowed Cheryl's DVD player and I sat in the chair next to Jan's bed, we pulled the curtain and joked around about pretending to be in the cinema. The funniest thing is none of them believed how old I was. If it wasn't for the fact I had my DOB on my hospital wristband, I doubt anyone would have. An awesome nurse named Carl joined into our banter. As me and Jan were flicking through the DVDs, Carl promptly said: "Cheryl! Put THOSE DVDs away! The poor girl is only 12, don't give her ideas!!" LOL. He never shares chocolates, but as the 4 of us were around Cheryl's bed on our final day, he brought a box of chocolates over and told us to help ourselves. We had a great crowd.
I don't think I've drunk so much in my life either. In fact, I have a taste for Ribena now and it's all I'm drinking lol. I felt sorry for Jan, who for her CT Scan had to drink a pot of this nasty water stuff, only for Carl to come in and tell her the higher ups had changed their mind of what sort of scan they were doing and she didn't have to drink it after all. She had half a glass left and it made her a little poorly.
When the consultant came around and told me on Thursday that all being well I'd be going home on Friday, I was so relieved but at the same time I was really quite upset to be leaving our Bay C posse. But I just wanted to be home. That night it was another odd one. I was coughing a lot. It actually made me really disheartened because I had been doing so well and I thought that if I had my cough back they wouldn't send me home after all. I didn't get any sleep from the coughing and I started to find it hard to breathe around 1.30am. The nurse gave me a nebuliser which they had stopped the previous morning as I'd been doing so well. I was so super special I got to do my own peak flow and nebulisers and write it down on my own chart :) By 3.45am, Cheryl wandered up to my bed and asked me to keep her company as she hadn't slept a wink either and we were both coughing our heads off. It was then that the elderly woman in the bed next to me who had been put there less than 24 hours before messed herself. I couldn't go back to bed, the smell made me want to throw up. I told nurses but they were up to their eyeballs with another 3 patients who had done the same thing. By 6am I was so tired and grumpy and I just wanted to lay down I was practically in tears. It was 7.25am before I could actually get back to bed once the smell and mess had been cleaned up and gone.
That morning I had 10 minutes here and there until the consultant came around and told me I could go home. I text mum and got super happy. They had told janet she was allowed home too. And Muriel, which left poor Cheryl on her own. Only when my mum rang the ward they still had a big question mark next to my name. They do an "estimated dispatch date" for the time they think you'll be going home. When I first saw mine I was in tears... 28th September. That's how bad I was. I figured my Pneumonia was bad anyway as the tablets (to go along with the super strong antibiotics being pumped through my line) were labelled and you had one in the morning and one in the evening - it was the same ones the last Doc gave me on the Bank Holiday... Only I was taking 2 at a time.
Right before lunch, Jan was told to pack up her stuff and get ready to go. She had just 15 minutes until the next patient came up, so Jan had her lunch as Cheryl's "guest". Not long after that, I was told to get packing my own stuff up too. Only I couldnt', and Janet had to help me. Just the simplest thing of picking up a bag left me out of breath. I had to be retrained how to breath and had been given breathing exercises to do. I was so exhausted. I had my own lunch and then a porter came to collect me. I didn't get to say a proper goodbye to the girls, but we exchanged addresses and numbers with the promise of meeting up.
Mum came to the lounge and picked me and my meds up. I'm taking 2 different antibiotics, some steroids and an inhaler. The mornings are the worse for me right now though. I have 8 tablets to take in the morning, I have to set the alarm for 6am to take my first one (every 8 hours - 6am, 2pm and 10pm). Really not fun.
Nor is the fact that I was supposed to be going to Spain with G this Saturday, but I'm not allowed to fly for at least 4 months. Now we have to start the agonising task of claiming off the insurance, and even then we won't get all the money back. Insurance is such a damn con. I checked the weather report though, and it's raining today and Thursday and Friday, so maybe a little consolation.
Still, dad is off the rest of this week and he's taking me out for a drive this afternoon so I'm not stuck in the house. He's loading the old Fridge Freezer into the boot of his car and I'm just going to watch him take it to the tip. But it's out, and that's the main thing.
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