The Marathon!!

What a day yesterday turned out to be.  It started off quite good breathing wise and over the rest of the day got worse and worse AND WORSE!!!!

They have changed the Coloymycin as I have said to Tobramycin and yesterday was the first dose.  Up till this time my breathing was fine but no sooner had I taken the required 300mg my chest became very wheezy.  Later when the doctor came around I mentioned it to her and we agreed that I should give it another try later and see if it is the cause and not something else.  If it proves to be this causing the wheeziness then I will go back on the Colomycin.  She also recommended that I try and take a salbutamol nebuliser too, to maybe try and shift some of the muck she could hear in the bottom of my lungs.  I have as I explained to her, taken these a number of times in the past especially when under Dr Gelder the Lung guy as they seem to be mandatory for every single patient in his care and mainly without no success at all apart from a lot of annoying coughing.  So by now I think you have the picture I am coughing a fair bit.  

To top it all along come my favourite favourite physio’s to take me on this long promised walk up the corridor.  I did have the choice as to whether I wanted to do it or just a few gentle leg exercises, but by now my coughing had seemed to ease a bit and besides that I wanted to know really how far I am able to walk now I have been in here 2 weeks and had all this expert attention and treatments.

If I said it was pretty dismal that would be the understatement of the century.  The stage was set for my grand marathon dash.  The corridor was lined with hundreds of people waving flags and banners mostly saying,”What are you doing you idiot”?  The route was planned in advance to avoid any wrong turns on the way.  It was out through the door past the nurse station, which indecently looks nothing like a station!!  Sharp right turn trying to avoid the many obstacles that always seem to congregate in the corridors here and then a straight run into the finish line in front of the official time keeper Cath whom had kindly accepted a healthy bribe from me earlier to ensure a good result.  There was a Zimmer frame in front of me with one physio standing next to me and another physio behind me with a perfect view of my athletic bum, pushing a commode in case I need to sit down or use it for its intended purpose.  Well ????? Could have done with one at the Olympics!!!!

Okay tension building now, butterflies in my stomach, dinner trying its best to pay my mouth another flying visit, here we go.  On your marks……… Get set……..  Go…. And we’re off out through the door at lightning (Snail) speed, probably not even registering as movement at all on the speed camera aimed at me.   Oh yes didn’t I tell you they have installed Speed Cameras on the ward now???  I think it’s more to see whether the dirt shifters and slop stirrers do actually move and are not rooted to the spot as it appears.  Right back to the marathon.  I was starting to build up a rhythm now, slow and steady, my heart was beginning to race, sweat was escaping from any available pore it could find, and my breathing was beginning to get weaker.  All this and I had just passed the first marker at 1.5 metres from the bed, not bad I thought!!  After mopping my brow the physio continued to shout encouragement, I couldn’t quite work out at the time what she meant by continually shouting “Encouragement, Encouragement”??  Right I was rapidly reaching the only turn in the course some 3 metres from the bedroom.  A sharp right turn not unlike Beaches Brook in the Grand National, but not on grass and there’s no hurdle to go over and it turns left and I’m turning right,  in fact it’s nothing like Beaches Brook forget I ever mentioned it.  Well the corner was upon me and I managed to cut it slightly so as to save a bit of energy, narrowly missing an abandoned little Malawi boy probably around 18 mths or so old who says his mother had sent him down the shop for a packet of fags and pick up a brother or sister while your at it..  I was beginning to really struggle by now and decided that I really did have to stop if I fancied living a little longer so the Commode was placed and I pretty much collapsed in a heap on top of it.  I was struggling to get any breath in at all and my pulse rate must have been through the roof which was just making matters worse.  As I rarely get out of the room when I am in here lots of people were coming up to me asking if I’m fine and can they do anything for me.  Well do I look fine and please please please don’t wait for a response top your questions as I am finding it hard enough to just breathe so you will excuse me if I use up my available oxygen levels to stay alive and not answer you Ha Ha Ha!!!  I was thinking to myself at the time that maybe I had pushed it a bit too far this time but thankfully after around 5 or 10 mins I managed to get back to a decent state.  With that I was up and off again hurtling towards the finish line.  The only thing I could see was a vision in my head of Cath standing there with a wad a cash in her hand laughing at me as she didn’t need to lie after all as I never make it to the finish line.  Not on your life I made it just before collapsing in a heap again in the commode puffing and panting like there was no tomorrow.  The crowd were all cheering, for the streaker that had run past not me.  Again after 5 or 10 minutes my breathing was back to normal and my heart had slowed dramatically too and they pushed me back the 15 metres or so to my bed.  By the time I got there my coughing had started again not that I was surprised with this.

After a quick check to see if I was okay the physio’s were off quite pleased with how far I had made it.  I wasn’t as impressed I’m sad to say.  Up till a couple of weeks ago I would have easily made it the whole way through without stopping although I would have been in the same mess at the end as I was today, so it just proved to me that I am far from going home at this rate.

The coughing seemed to gradually get worse almost immediately after doing this marathon. It started with the usual rattle in the throat then slowly progressed to being a rattle deeper down in my lung until eventually it was pretty constant uncontrollable heavy cough.  I had a feeling of a constant tickle in my throat making things worse.  I haven’t coughed like this for a long long time and it was making breathing very difficult at times.  At this rate I would not be surprised if I was to break a rib or something and was also expecting to have a couple of blood shot eyes.  It was actually quite scary as when you are struggling to take a breath and can’t do it you start to panic which just makes things worse.  Unfortunately this carried on all night pretty much so by this morning I am absolutely knackered.  My whole chest and back are quite painful and tender due to the muscles having a right old work out.  The only position I found after about 7 hours of trying that the rattling eased a little is to sit up bolt upright which I find to do let alone try and sleep in this position.

Thankfully for the minute the rattling has eased although it hasn’t gone as such.  It was probably down to all of the above as to what has caused this change although pushing a bit too hard is my idea as to what was the real cause.

I am feeling a little sickly today too which I’m not surprised at all due to the effect of constantly coughing on my stomach etc.  I managed to keep things down all night although it was touch and go at times let me tell you!!

I think I will give physio a miss for today maybe wise.  I’m waiting for Merlin to come around to break the news to him gently that he is going to be stuck with me for a little while yet, but in saying that I think he is off next week anyway so he will not have the pleasure of my company for a whole week.   LUCKY BUGGER!!!!!


See Ya!!