Mega hitch

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since I started my placement but unfortunately I have been off sick.

On the Sunday after my 2nd shift I woke up with what I thought was flu. The dry cough I'd had got worse and started to really hurt my chest. On the Thursday I went to see my GP practice nurse with my little son who also had a cough which had been diagnosed as croup a week earlier.

The practice nurse diagnosed chest infections in both of us and gave antibiotics. By Sunday I hadn't gotten any better with a temperature of 38.5 oC after taking paracetamol - though I thank god that Ryan's cough cleared up. Obviously this was dangerously high so I went to my NHS walk in clinic. In the clinic tests showed my oxygen saturation was 92% - which if you remember from a previous blog entry, is cause for concern. My blood pressure was also very high - compensating for a lack of oxygen but not good for my heart. Plus my temperature was still high. They admitted me to the medical admissions ward of my local hospital.

Tests there confirmed the test results I'd had at the clinic and I was sent for a chest x-ray. The Dr was impressed that I was still standing - 1/3 of my chest was filled with fluid caused by two separate bacterial infections - fluid in the lungs is diagnosed as pneumonia. I was immediately admitted onto a ward and given antibiotics both intravenously and orally. I was also placed on oxygen, ice cold and horrible.

I was tested for legionella - this worried me, thinking about the ward I had been working on. But the tests came back negative. Two days later my temperature had returned to normal and my coughing improved, I was sent home with antibiotics and feeling like a pin cushion from all the blood tests and the IV line I'd had in for the antibiotics.

So now I'm at home. I have a GP appointment on Monday to determine when I can return to my course. Once I can return I have been told I will have a meeting with the programme manager and my guidance tutor. I am worried I will have to leave the course as the Nursing and Midwifery council (NMC) state students can only have 15 days off sick during the whole course. I have had 15 so far. But I will just have to wait and see what happens.