Monday 30 July is a day I would prefer to forget after some chest pummeling to help expel mucous I went for physio.  The infection has apparently returned and I became feverish and the session was suspended and I was returned to my bed.  My temperature rose to 39.7 deg C but my body was freezing so the staff would not let me have more than a sheet over me as they were trying to get my temperature down.  A decision was made to put me on IV antibiotics aaaaarghhhhh another needle.  After one missed attempt the line was inserted in my left elbow after a couple of hours my temperature started to drop and I was taken for a chest X-ray, which showed that the congestion in my lungs was not as bad as last week.

I drifted off to sleep on return to the ward only to be awoken by the Physio to do some more chest clearing pummeling.  My temperature went up and down with bouts of uncontrollable shivering as my body fights the infection.  The doctor decided to return me to the acute section of the unit for the night because there is better nursing coverage there.

I transferred to acute about 8:30 last night and my temperature had dropped to 38.1 still felt miserable but not as bad as earlier. Felt like shit most of the day.   Hoping that a good nights sleep will see a better day dawn.

Norm typed this for me the content was sent by telepathy.

The dreaded lurgi developed into a chest infection and laid me low for most of last week.  There was a build up of fluid in my lungs which required some vigorous chest pounding by the nurses and physios to help me expel.  Because my intercostal muscles are not working due to the injury to my spine my cough reflex is weak and needs external assistance in these circumstances.  Ron will post my X-ray showing the extent of the lung congestion.

With the help of IV :-( and oral antibiotics the infection is clearing and my strength is returning.

Darrel visited on the weekend and he has a flu type condition as well so unfortunately had to keep his distance :-( but it was so good to see him :-)  It really lifted my spirits.  Come Sunday afternoon and a good dose of vitamin D from sitting in the sun with Darrel and I was feeling much better.  Being out of the ward in the open air is really good medicine

Norm drove Darrel to the airport and returned about 4:00 PM and we went into the TV room had a couple of cups of tea, read the weekend magazine from cover to cover had my hands moisturised and fingers ranged to ease any stiffness and a 30 min electrical stimulation to my hands and feet on the circulation booster.

Back to bed in time for Masterchef, and my dinner.  The presentation may not be to Masterchef standard but fresh steamed vegetables and berries and cream sure tasted good, my first real meal in a few days.  Looking forward to some bread and butter custard and cream later this week my only alcohol since my accident, the sultanas are soaked in bourbon, yum.

Then 8:00 meds and vital signs.  I am getting pretty good at the blood pressure lotto I can guess it to within a couple of points nowadays, the nurses are surprised at how close I get.

Hoping for a good nights sleep and a return to Physio and OT tomorrow to continue the journey along the rehab road.

CYA

26/07/12

Unfortunately my sore throat morphed into a chest infection on Saturday, so I have basically slept  this week.  Hopefully I will be over it soon.  Julie

A milestone. Just a short post today. A sore throat yesterday and lethargy so went back to bed at 2:30 and slept till 5:30 woke feeling a bit better. Today I used my iPad today to type my first message since my accident. So the quick brown fox exercises have paid off. Regardless of this please do not expect a personalized response to your emails, one finger typing is too slow. But I will get better :-)

From the living room

Today I am spending my evening as I have most evenings since my last post : sitting in the visitor's waiting room aka the living room hooked up to the circulation booster and watching TV on the big screen. It is more comfortable and friendly than my room due to the totally unnecessary wall in the middle of the room and much more comfortable for my scribe. Ky Ron and Cali visited the weekend before last when Val was here. We took my power chair on its longtime drive yet - to the Norman of course for lunch! It was lovely to see everyone I can't believe how tall Cali has grown. I need to write a blog more often as the days tend to run together. I had a visit last week from Ange, who brought a supply of her sisters famous brownies. They are so good we could use them as currency in here like they use cigarettes in jail. Sam also stopped by as did Sonia and Anton with their wedding footage from Lombok. It was lovely to watch including the bonus footage of the bucks night :-) Sam and Jane also visited from SA bringing more chocolate gifts, their son Dylan made friends with some of the other children and was fas asleep by the time I emerged from Physio. Wednesday afternoon we held the second scrabble tournament. I won the last game by one point which gave me the tournament and moved my ranking from 13 to 12 in Queensland! I am I charge of approaching the Norman to see if we can hold the next tournament there, I am sure they will be delighted. The problems in getting to appointments on time continue but I believe they are finally solved. I had Darrel all to myself over the weekend we spent part of Saturday with Shaun and Ron at Southbank. The crowds for Bastille day were harder to navigate through than I expected but I managed to stop myself from charging through at high speed. I now how it feels to be short. On Sunday Darrel BBQd the largest prawns I have ever seen eight were more than enough for the two of us. After Darel left to catch his plane I convinced one of the nurses to set my Kindle up for me on text to voice with zero volume. I read for four hours straight and finally finished my first book since the accident. We have had some breakthroughs today and last week. The first being a flicker of movement in my right thumb and the second movement in the toes of my left foot. I am ecstatic about both of these developments. In OT we have been practicing typing on the notepad computer, my record for "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is 2 mins 7 seconds not bad for one finger typing. Since my last blog I developed a pressure spot on my right heel which meant no compression stockings and also marks from the binder (large and uncomfortable elastic belt) which meant no binder. I also declined to give blood for routine blood testing. I am delighted to report that the doctors have reluctantly agreed that discontinuing the stockings, binder and routine blood tests is unlikely to have an adverse effect. Yay! No to get them to agree to discontinue the panadol and movicol....

We will fight them on the beaches

Apologies for the long gap between posts, the are enough frustrations but not enough hours in a day. Since my last post we have fallen foul of the safety nazis. They deemed my storage units were a safety hazard no amount of reasoning would convince them otherwise. They deemed they had to go. As someone familiar with OHS I asked to see the risk analysis but none was available. A compromise was reached if they could find a bed with adequate storage I would move to room 1 bed 1 where there was a storage cupboard. Moving on short notice was a pain in the butt particularly with little assistance from the nurses. Val worked tirelessly repositioning photos and organizing cupboards and drawers not finishing until after 9:30pm. Darrell drove my car down arriving on Friday night and was able to visit before I went to sleep. We went to Riverside markets and had a wonderful lunch at Il Centro I could have killed for a cold glass of sav blanc. Reversing the power chair out of the taxi onto the elevating platform is a frightening experience, not so much a leap of faith but blind trust. Note must check out reversing cameras. Today is the first day I made it to physio since moving to the new room. They are not organized to get people up and shower them in time for treatment. Had a discussion with the nurse unit manager about this and other issues yesterday. Hopefully matters will continue to improve. Two nice events today a visit from Robin Hamblyn for a cup of coffee and a chat and when I returned to my bed there was a lovely gift from Myles Thresher all the way from Bristol in the UK?. OT have made a typing splint for me get more practice on soon. Today in physio I was upright for 40 minutes until I became dizzy at the smell of an alcohol wipe, funny that. We tried the neuro electrical muscle stimulator or NEMS on my right forearm to cause the wrist extender muscles to work. The idea is to try to help connect with your neural pathways. It causes a limp wrist and fingers to extend. Also physio related was another AASIA assessment last week basically the poke you with sharp and blunt instruments and you are to identify sharp or blunt. This is not much fun and seems to have made my right leg hypersensitive. On the plus side in the muscle tests they recorded a flicker of movement in my left leg. I have been hiding out in the visitors lounge most afternoons this week, this gives me extra practice navigating a regular size door with the power chair. The door frame has stood up to this quite well :-) I have tested the power chair on quite a few occasions and clocked it at 9.8km/hr just unr the maximum regulated sped of 10km/hr. I was disappointed that they cannot be souped up further see http://www.farmshow.com/view_articles.php?a_id=268p