Heya,

So it seems that my latest blog post jinxed me and I’ve now ended up being admitted into hospital.

I figured rather than venturing off CF this week, I would highlight the details behind my admission.

At 5 am on sunday morning I woke up with severe pain on my right side, at first I assumed that it could be the way I was sleeping or a pulled muscle but as the pain was stopping me from going back to sleep I got up and took codeine and paracetamol. After getting back into bed I messaged my house mate Becky just to let her know because at this time the pain was getting worse every time I took a breath in. Becky was luckily already awake and came into my room. Neither of us knew what to do, we were considering calling 111 or going to A&E as I could only take shallow breaths and couldn’t move.

 I decided to call my dad who was back at home and wake him up. He rememberd that as a CF patient I have open access to the CF ward so Becky called them for me. After explaining what was happening to the ward staff I then waited for them to speak to the doctor. A call back told us that I needed to come straight to the CF ward as they luckily had a bed for me.

Once getting to hospital I was seen by doctors and nurses pretty fast. The CF nurse informd me that I would have a chest x ray to make sure the pain wasn’t due to airway collapse in my lungs but she suspected the cause was due to a bad infection causing mucus to fill up my airways and pull them when I was breathing. Luckily after having the x ray and speaking to the physios the latter was the case.  I had picked up a cold the previous week which caused me to become unwell for my annual review and with CF its never just a cold, it ALWAYS goes to my chest anyway and gives me an infection. I think the thing that scared me most was that this infection had pretty much overnight caused my lung function to reduce by 30%.

The CF nurse said that because I’ve avoided an admission for iv’s for just over a year now, it was definitely time for me to come back to hospital and stay for a course of antibiotics to help my chest.

This did upset me as I get very worried about missing uni but ultimately being in hospital is the best thing for me in the long run. 

I had a mid line put into my arm to start the medication. The iv antibiotics have sadly  had very bad side effects on me so I’ve been very run down and tired. They have caused me to feel very sick meaning I was unable to eat and drink at the start, causing problems for my kidneys. They have been closely monitoring my fluid intake and I have been on a saline drip a few times during my stay.

Due to the amount of medication I’ve now been put on and all the tests and people I see each day I’m too exhausted to do much.

A typical day in hosp:

6:30am- morning observations (blood pressure, sats and temperature)

7.00am- iv antibiotics

8.00am- morning pills (a&D, calcium, paracetamol, anti sickness), three inhaled nebs (promixin, Dnase and hypertonic saline) and my inhalers (fostair and ventolin)

8.30am- blood sugars and then breakfast

9.00-1.00- In this time I will see the doctors, physios and dietician to check on how I’ve been since the day before and to discuss any results for tests I may have had.

1.00-3.00- Lunch my mid day iv antibiotics, afternoon pills and inhaled nebs again. Airway clearance with the physios.

The rest of the afternoon I usually feel really sick and tired from ivs so I try to rest.

6.00- Dinner.

8.00- Evening pills and observation.

10.30- Evening ivs.

A lot of the pills I usually take stop while I’m admitted but all the nebs and inhalers are the same.

I’m still not sure how long this admission will be but I’ve agreed with my doctor a number for my lung function to be for Monday, however I think both of us are doubtful I will have it that high by then.

I’ve been very lucky again this admission with my lovely uni fam and my boyfriend coming to see me aswell as my dad staying for two days to be there for the start when I was most unwell and weak.

I generally find it ok to manage admissions and CF because I don’t take the severity of the illness too seriously, its better to be more laid back. I think that in the future I may have ivs more than once a year and thats something I need to be more accepting of.

I’m sorry for another intense and CF related blog post but this admission just gave me some great content lol.

Hopefully as christmas draws nearer I will manage to write some more light hearted posts.

Thanks for reading,

Isabelle x