The past few weeks havent been the best for me. I started getting a chest infection a few days after i finished oral antibiotics. And i noticed i was struggling to stay awake just this constant tired feeling. So on a Monday i decided i would go to hospital like i normally would and ask for IV antibiotics the one that i can into my blood stream through a small needle under my skin. So they gave me 2 weeks supply and i began them at home. Over the next few days i got worse before the drugs had time to work. I became very ill with chest pain everytime i coughed. Which was pretty much constantly. I could only manage to walk to the bathroom as i was so short of breath. Each day either my mum or dad was visiting me to tidy up and make me meals. It came to the Thursday and i had to have help with going in the shower as i couldnt breath well at all. My mum helped me and i just sat in the shower seat struggling to breathe whilst she washed my hair. These are the times when i have a little cry because it am under so much strain. I manged to wash myself and my mum lifted my mood by having a little laugh with me but trying to use so much effort to wash myself and breath so fast and heavy i couldnt manage to laugh. I realised i was breathing oddly like there was no rhythm it was fast then slow then in and out but i felt like i was gasping. I was also getting really bad headaches when i slept. So i would have to wake up to try to get rid of them,also if it wasnt them it was the coughing or pain i couldnt win. So the saturday came and i decided i wasnt getting better quick enough i had to go back to hospital. I got admitted and the done a blood gas which is blood taking from the artery in your wrist ( pretty painful ) and it showed i wasnt getting rid of the CO2 in my body and it was high.This high level was causing me to feel drowsy, confused, tired and have headaches. You breathe in oxygen and breathe out co2. Im lead to believe my body was needing oxygen so it starts to breathe quickly taking in alot of oxygen but not having enough time or strength to breathe it all out, causing the high CO2. So i also had to have more nebulisers and physio sessions to try clear all the thick sticky mucus in my chest that was making me feel like i was drowning on the inside. On the Monday my physio showed me a machine called Bipap. It is a machine that is a non invasive ventilator. Which means as you breathe in it senses your breath and it pushes air in along with you and you breath out normally. It feels kind of forceful and it manages to double the volume of the air in i breathe. The first night i had it on for a total of 4.5hrs which is good going for it being first time using it. Once that amount of time went past i had to ask nurse to take it off as it isnt the most comfortable thing. Whilst using it for the first night a nurse had to come in every 15mins for the first hour to measure my oxygen level,heart rate and blood pressure then every hour after that which isnt great neither when you are trying to sleep. However the next night i only managed 2 hours which wasnt good. So i was told the next day by the physio that if i want to have the CO2 levels brought down i needed to wear it longer :( .The 3rd night i wore it for 3.5hrs but woke up and had like a panic attack and ripped it off, i felt so claustrophobic.I then went to sleep till 7am and buzzed the nurse and asked if she could re-fit the mask and that i was ready to wear it some more. So i fell back asleep with it on until 10.30am . The physio was more happy with that amount of hours ;). So a doctor came and done another blood gas test and the results showed that the bipap had helped and brought my CO2 level down!! But then i had to not wear it the next night and have blood test in the morning again so they could see if it was the machine that helped bring it down or because the antibiotics were getting rid of the infection. The next blood results showed that it had went up ever so slightly so the machine did help. Fortunately i got home after being in hospital for 6days. Since then i have mainly been at home resting continuing with another week of IV antibiotics. I usually on have 2weeks of antibiotics but because it was a bad infection i had 3weeks. I also got started on insulin at night before my overnight feed that i get through a tube into my stomach. I had to have insulin roughly 6 years ago for a few weeks. Im hoping im not on insulin this time for much longer.These type of bad infections cause extra damage to my lungs which cant be fully fixed. Each infection deteriorates my lungs that one big further. I have to say i have never had an infection quite as bad as that before it was actually very scary and got me down a lot, especially when i felt i wasnt getting any better. As i know that it is common for people with Cystic Fibrosis to have a bad chest infection that can kill them and they cant recover from. So infection isnt taken lightly. Nor do i want people who are ill to come near me!
But i am pretty much back on my feet again making each day busy ones :)
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