Monday October 2nd - I had finished a successful working weekend in the Cotswolds, staying with friends and enjoying myself thoroughly. I went for a steady 5 mile run on a familar course and was pleased at keeping up a good steady clip, despite the large time on my feet of the past 10 days. My thighs were pretty sore and at work roasting coffee later in the day, I felt a bit bereft of energy, sitting on the sacks more than I usually do. In my mind I put off my 20 miler until wednesday or thursday.
Tuesday October 3rd - I woke thinking I might be about to get a cold - lethargic, thighs still aching, but no sore throat or tight chest. After virtually a full day roasting, I decided to take a day off from anything the next day - putting off my 20 miler until thursday.
Wednesday October 4th - there'll be no 20 miler this week. I spent most of the day curled up on the sofa, even watching David Cameron's speech from the Tory conference in it's entirety. I started to feel I was running a fever, and went for the paracetomols and my duvet. I was still waiting for the inevitable cold symptoms to break through, when on a trip to the toilet I noticed some pretty unsightly deep red spots coming up on my upper thighs. I showed them to Debbie in the evening and we both agreed that I should see the Doctor in the morning if I felt no better.
Thursday October 5th - after a pretty fitful night I awoke to more spots on the legs and a few appearing on the arms. The shivers and feverishness were still there and the Doctor was called. After quite a bit of head scratching and some alarm at my low blood pressure, the Doctor despatched me to Stoke Mandeville hospital around midday for blood tests.
It as around 9.30 in the evening before I was seen by a Doctor and by 10.30 I was installed on Ward 10, a high-care assessment area behind A&E, where, unbeknown to me, I was to spend the next 8 nights, under observation as my temperature rose and fell, my rash grew and then receded and a serious case of ulcerated throat and mouth visited me for the weekend of my birthday on October 8th.
I spent the first half of this time on a re-hydrating saline drip, alternating with glucose and dextrose as I couldn't eat much. I also was being pumped 4 times a day with intravenous antibiotics as a sort of prophylactic against a bacterial infection that I might or might not have. These antibiotics included penicillin, which I had assumed I had an allergy to for the last 35 years following a reaction when I had Glandular Fever in my teens. I got the agreement to get this suspended to a milder oral antibiotic on Monday 9th, when funnily enough, I pretty quickly began to start feeling better!
During my eight days in hospital the following happened as regards my running aspirations.
- I forget to re-schedule my 20 miler. Walking to the toilet was about my limit.
- I realised I wouldn't be running a marathon on October 22nd, nor anytime soon after. Getting outside would be nice.
- When the dermatologists crowded round my bed they advised me that it would not be a good idea to try to travel to Switzerland looking like I did - they would be unlikely to let me in the country. So we cancelled my 4 nights in Leukerbad, an alpine spa, wher I had decided to spend most of the week before the marathon.
I finally got released on Friday October 13th, after a last minute biopsy on my rash, as well as Hepatitis and HIV tests to add to the 3 samples of blood and 4 samples of urine I had already given.
No Doctor was able to tell me with any degree of certainty what had been wrong with me apart from an assumption of a strong immune reaction to an unspecified viral infection. However they were all very nice, very over-worked and totally unwaware of my "case history" (never hospitalised in my life, in final stages of marathon training, compulsive "want to know why" person). The nurses were all fabulous and worked under extremely trying conditions with old people who seemed to have no-one else to care for their sufferings and dementia-like mutterings. With my balloons on my bed, my smuggled-in real food and my constant desire to know my own "obs", I at least must have been different to most of their punters. By the end of 8 days I was about to start becoming a nuisance and clearly had to go. I was in danger of getting out of my speed zone** anyway.
At the time of writing this blog entry, I have been out for 5 days. I am 3.5kg lighter without running a step; I am shedding skin like a snake and I feel like I need to know the true definition of the word convalescence. Wine for some reason tastes disgusting, but I still seem able to sleep for 10 hours.
My first cup of coffee for 9 days (some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe) tasted like it was almost worth the wait.
I have been for a run, yesterday, but it wasn't very auspicious. I am planning another one sometime soon, but all around me are are advising that it is "too soon". As my thighs are again a bit sore, I may just take their advice.
I have already re-planned my fund-raising marathon, but that will be the subject of another entry.
It's been a pretty strange couple of weeks, but as someone said -
"All experiences that don't kill you are good ones to have."
or something like that............
(** In my time in Stoke Mandeville Hospital I observed that different hospital occupants moved at wildly different speeds.
- Slowest - Patients (obvious as most stay in their beds)
- Next slowest - contracted (Sodexho) cleaning staff. I have never seen anybody work this slowly and their were several of them, apparently outside any form of command structure.
- Next, but still very relaxed - contracted catering staff (again Sodexho) with their trolleys.
- Same speed, but with "big boy" radios squarking and some chat - contracted porters (again Sodexho). As unaware of the routes around their domain as a New York cabbie.
- Approaching normal office worker speed - hospital admin staff.
- Slightly faster than normal office worker speed - hospital volunteers, chaplaincy visitors and your own friends and relatives.
- Getting faster. Doctors in groups on their rounds during daytime. When you see them they stand still around you, but they talk and think quickly and when they go they move off very sharply.
- Brisk (probably already double office worker speed and a serious step up from Doctor "firms") Doctors on call. Especially rapid with curtains around beds and getting intravenous lines in.
- Lightning - most members of the nursing staff. Usually multitasking, invariably cheerful and with eyes in the back of their heads. God bless then many times over. They spend their entire days making up for others' deficiencies and the NHS would collapse without their willingness to do hundreds of jobs per day that the others, usually contracted staff, don't do.
- Speed of Light. Coffeeman heading for the exit with his "release" letter. )
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