Groundhog Day in Purgatory - and a week in Dementia Central

 It's either Groundhog Day or I'm secretly like a hamster on a wheel. It's been that sort of month since I last wrote. I was thinking of what to say since last time-perhaps something different, rather than the same old thing-and then the fertilizer hit the fan.

It started with severe chest pain- and I started to worry that the ablation had failed, and that I would have to undergo a third one. Needless to say, I just kept my mouth shut and hoped that everything would start to ease. But I had severe chest pain on my right side-and unless my heart decided to take a stroll into another part of my body, it looked as if I was having a lung problem. I became very breathless; I could hardly walk ten steps before I had to stop and do some breathing. Stairs were a problem. Everything was a problem.

I had a consultation with the immunology consultant coming up, so I decided to wait and tell her what was going on. So much for Groundhog Day...and for the wheel...

I was told to go to have a chest X-ray. I did that, and I waited. And waited. And waited. I finally had the X-ray and was thrilled to get out of the hospital after a four hour wait. The next day I had my infusions. I was told just before they started that I had to return to the imaging department for a CT scan. Why? I asked. I was told that the scan had been ordered. So I went. Grudgingly. Again, a lengthy wait. And another cannula. And more bruising up my arm because my veins are difficult to cannulate. So I went through that-and another three hours later I was on my way back.

Friday arrived, and I was feeling very rough-so I struggled to do my prescribed walk, and had to rest. Talk about feeling old and frail! Then I received a phone call that changed everything. It was from one of the immunology doctors. The X-ray and the scan showed blood clots in my lungs. I was gobsmacked. Clots? Plural? I asked. Yes, he said. Lungs? Plural? Yes-again. He told me to get over to A&E as soon as I could and ask for the medical team. Apparently the medical team expected me. So I made sure that nothing was cooking, all the lights were off, and I was on my way back to the hospital.

The short version: once again I  had a cannula inserted in my arm. I've got so many huge bruises up my arm that you would think I was on drugs. I sat, and sat-I was told that the bloods had to come back before they decided what to do. From 6pm to 10pm, I sat like a lemon, watching people come in and out, watching while patients who were waiting (it was an emergency room, after all) started shouting. And then I was told that I was being admitted. You could have knocked me over, I was that shocked.

Off I went-by wheelchair (now I really felt decrepit) to the 10th floor. I was taken to a room with three other patients. I wasn't told  that all three had dementia. Did I ever find out quickly!!

The woman next to me had been there for weeks; they were unable to find a care home for her. No surprises there, she was screaming from the time I arrived to the time I left. Where she got the lung capacity-and how she didn't lose her voice-are still a mystery. She screame so loud they could probably hear her in Liverpool. And she spat. And kicked. and scratched, and swore. At top volume, all night and all day for the five days I was there. And the other two-well, across from the screamer was Jill, who shouted, cursed, swore at the nurses-and at me-and showed herself to be a racist by the things she said to-well, everyone. And the woman across from me shouted every time anyone came near her-which was often, because she was incontinent and had a habit of taking her feces and playing with them, rubbing her face with her poo. Delightful, don't you think?

All three were incontinent. All three screamed, shouted, swore, and needed constant changing. And I was stuck there for four days and nights. I had no sleep, and I was, truthfully, ready to throttle all of them. I kept complaining and asking to be moved, but I was told that there were no beds (I seriously doubt that), and that I should ignore all of them. 

That is why I started calling the room Dementia Central. I complained to my consultant when I left, but she couldn't do anything either. What moron takes a person who has no sign of dementia (a normal person), and isn't incontinent, and puts her in a room with a bunch of screaming, abusive crazies? 

At least I've still got my hearing-and my sanity. And blood clots in both lungs. I'm now injecting myself daily with anticoagulants to try to get rid of the blood clots-which are very dangerous. I get to have so many scans that it won't be cancer or blood clots that'll kill me. It'll be the radiation.

I was so shocked by the horrific experience that I told my GP that if I ever develop any form of dementia-Alzheimer's or any other, because there are several-I will fly over to Switzerland (assisted suicide is legal there) and go to Dignitas and that will be the end. I really, honestly, never want to end up like any of the three "roommates". I felt terribly sorry for all of them-but only for the first sleepless night. It got very wearing, very quickly.

If anyone is caring for someone with any form of dementia, you should get a medal.

Now I'm going to do what I started to do on Friday: laundry! Boring, but consider the alternative...

Mickey, Minnie, and the whole bloody extended family

And here I was, congratulating myself on refusing to be grumpy. Grumpy: no, pants, yes. We all need our pants. 

This positive change of heart nearly worked, too-until I nearly had a seizure when I saw a mouse run across the kitchen floor. I think that I shouted "shit!". And I figured that if there was one, there must be an entire family. So I started spraying clove oil everywhere. Clove oil, or so my neighbor (a mouse veteran) tells me, will put off mice. They don't like the smell of clove oil, or peppermint oil...

I tried to put down clove oil everywhere; all I succeeded in doing was nearly asphyxiate myself in the process. The smell of clove oil permeated the flat. To be less PC, the whole place stank of clove oil. I even smelled of cloves. Some people moved aside as I was coming up the road. Perhaps that's the secret of getting people to avoid crashing into me as they're tapping away on their phones-or are simply completely unconscious. Clove oil. Come Christmas, I will be in hiding.

Well. This is what preoccupied me since I last wrote. The weather wasn't great: rain and more rain, cooler then hotter, and we're supposed to expect very hot weather all next week. My attempts to stay upright were very so-so. When the barometric pressure changes, when it rains, when it starts to get dark-all these weather changes seriously affect my attempts at something resembling balance. But-I didn't fall over. I call that progress.

I finally had to give up trying to be kind and get the mice to go plague someone else. I used clove oil. I then used peppermint oil: nicer, but then I smelled like a candy cane. So did the flat. I felt sick from all the smells, and the mice-the last time I looked, they were line dancing. So I called in the big guns: mouse poison pellets. Will they work? I bloody hope so. Otherwise I'll have to sleep in the park.

As for Mickey and Minnie-and the rest of their family-I said this morning as I put down more poison (the little gannets scoffed everything I put down last night), they have a choice: leave or die. If necessary, I'll have to call the mouse patrol (exterminators). 

I'm not grumpy, though. I'm too busy to avoid asphyxiation from clove oil...