Oh Lordy Lungs!

Well, my first hospital stint. Bed 8. 4 days, 1 lung tube, 4 lung fluid buckets, endless painkillers, 3 procedures, numerous shit cuppas, lots of friendly faces, lots of noises I never want to hear again, lots of smells I never want to smell again, and finally hopefully a successful treatment.

If anyone didn’t know, I've still been having lots of difficulty with my lungs. I have been having them drained alternatively roughly every 2-4 weeks as the build up of fluid has been causing me to become very breathless. My nurse and I, Jen at Whythenshawe, who I have to say is legit one of my fave people, to the point I request her and refuse to let anyone else see me as my anxiety just pops off with someone else and I trust Jen with my life, decided we needed to try attempt something a little more permanent. We went with a procedure called ‘talc pleurodesis’. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of it, google it if you’re interested ha. In short it is meant to stop the fluid being able to get through the wall into my lungs.

I didn’t think it would be a walk in the park at all, but I underestimated how uncomfortable I would be with this giant tube coming out of lungs draining fluid constantly, and then have having a talcing substance flushed into my lung wall, even ‘working moms’ on netflix (if you haven’t watched, its hilarious), didn’t take my mind off it. HOWEVER, I’d like to say this was the worst part of my experience but NO, my lord, I swear my dad picked out the patients on my ward just to try give me a laugh and keep my mind busy, if this happened dad, cheers i’ll pick you a shit nursing home.

Without the risk of sounding rude, (ill be using pseudonames), my fucking god. I had Irene next to be shouting ‘NURSE’ like a bloody Derek and Clive sketch every 5 minutes throughout the day AND night. If a nurse didn’t come to her in approx 3 seconds, she would bang on the table or turn her hairdryer on and act like a football hooligan. I’d like to say every request she needed answering that minute, mostly wasn’t important. However, the poor love a lot of the time had shit herself, which one time I had the delight of seeing the shit actually dripping out of her arse, which is a vision that will never leave my mind. She asked every possible person that came in her vicinity to ring Norma, wipe her nose (which my mum got roped into doing haha), find a specific orange case she had packed, find her favourite butterfly knickers, make her a tea with a specific tea bag she had been savouring since 1879 or some other strange request she thought up. She came up with a classic when complaining to the nurse that she didn’t want to go into the scanner that looks like a polo sweet. Only Irene would call a CT scanner a polo haha. I saw and smelt more bodily fluids from that lady that I have my old child and that is not ok.

BUT, then bloody Irene had a competitor, Janice, who was vacationing opposite. Janice was slightly less demanding and more friendly which made it a little easier that she basically watched me sleep every night (yep, I could feel her eyes burning on me), without thinking she might kill me. She was slightly hard of hearing and at one point she thought the nurse told her to ‘shit’ on the chair, when she absolutely most definitely told her to ‘sit’, and they pulled her pants up asap, which was a close call.

Irene, then told the ward that a cat had come through the double doors the previous night (Whether this was true or not, i’d take with a pinch of salt with our Irene), which shit Janice up and then that’s all we all heard about, all of the ward heard her praying to Jesus about said cat. Safe to say, I dont think Irene liked cats. It got to the point of delirium on my part, that me and my dad ended up nicknaming said cat, jesus! Yes I know, we’ve finally gone mad.

The amount of faeces I've seen over my long weekend is definitely not ok and honestly i’d like to say they were mine, yet the painkillers have got me so bunged up, i’m surprised shits not coming out of my ears.. The poor nurse that wiped shit for 12 hours straight was only a student so didn’t even get paid for that shit (literally!).

Safe to say, I am absolutely not in a rush back & fingers crossed my left lung is now all snug and working right. Whilst I’m currently writing this, all I can hear outside is ‘IRENE, you can’t be walking round with no trousers!!!’.

Lets pray to Jesus the tabby that I get let home tomorrow afternoon. For everyone’s sake!

Rach x