Day 216: Just one of those things

Even I am getting a bit fed up of hospitals now. Over the last few weeks I’ve been gradually making my way around every hospital in Leeds. I’m an actual hospital whore. Two days after my joint juice infusion I found myself in the A&E department of Leeds General Infirmary. On a hospital trolley. On all fours. AGAIN. By this point I had had enough of the pain in my stomach and had had next to no sleep the night before (as did the poor boyfriend who stayed up until 4AM keeping me company until I fell asleep).  Plus, having to look on helplessly whilst my friends ate their pizzas in Pizza Express whilst I struggled with my plate of dough balls quite frankly tipped me over the edge.

I’ll be honest, I can think of better ways to be spending my Friday night than in A&E.

I was admitted and transferred to the gastro unit at St James’ Hospital, which meant I got to ride in the back of an ambulance. This might have been fun had I not felt like vomiting so much. In fact I only just made it to the ward before I vommed my stomach contents up into a cardboard bowl. And by stomach contents I obviously mean about a ml of water.

I was convinced it was gastritis. The doctors were convinced it was gastritis. All that was needed to confirm the diagnosis was an endoscopy. As I’ve mentioned before I’ve had two of these in the past, and I swore after the last time that I would never have one done again. I would genuinely rather have a camera up my bum than ever have to have one down my throat again. Unfortunately no one has bothered to invent a kinder way of looking at the lining of one’s stomach so I had very little choice. At least I’d have a diagnosis at the end of the ordeal though, right? Wrong. There was nothing wrong with my stomach lining. On hearing this news I burst into tears. The staff all looked at me like I was an absolute nutter; “you do realise that’s a GOOD thing, right?” Well no, actually, because the thing that everyone thought was causing me so much pain is in actual fact not, and now I have no freaking idea what’s wrong with me. And what’s worse, the DOCTORS have no freaking idea what’s wrong with me. Anyway, to cut a really long story short, six days, one x-ray, one endoscopy, one ultrasound scan, countless blood tests and several syringes of liquid morphine later I was diagnosed with... “just one of those things.” I bet House could have diagnosed me. 

But on the plus side I got to go home and not so much as look at another hospital for a whole five days... until today. Yep, as I write this I’m back on ward 8 at Chapel Allerton Hospital again, because today is my second and final infusion of this joint juice cycle. And my appetite is slowly coming back, too. I even said yes to a biscuit with my cup of tea today. I’ll be having those three sides with my Nando’s burger again in no time.