Hey Tumblr, I just got back from the hospital.
Here’s my story for today, hope you all enjoy (apologies if my English ain’t so great in places):
12:15pm - So I wake up, realise I have my first lecture on Virtual Environments and Advanced Graphics which I only just make it to on time.
1:15pm - Enjoy my hour long introductory lecture in the Cohen building (which is rather nice btw, the courtyard and staircases reminds me of Hogwarts for some reason), turns out the class only consists of 11 people and we even get to have 3 lectures in the department’s H.I.V.E. facility (Hull Immersive Visualization Environment) - a huge 3D virtual reality display which is something I can’t wait for.
2:15pm - After my pretty interesting lecture, my friend asked if I wanted to come along to FreeSide to help him sort the place out and get a few Linux related jobs sorted. I agreed seeing as I had nothing better to do with my afternoon. However, we decided to not work on any software related issues and instead try to unplug, remove and store away any redundant hardware from the racking.
3:30pm - While I’m helping out my friend by unplugging certain computers and safely stacking them away, the building’s fire alarm is set off, causing the whole building to evacuate. Thanks to our laptops and the eduroam wireless service running throughout campus, we were still able to log in remotely to the room and work/chat while sat outside on the grass. We looked like the biggest geeks in the world, we had a fair few people just pointing and laughing at us, but we felt awesome for it.
3:40pm - Fire alarm over, might as well pick up some lunch while I’m outside and right next to the shop. I’m talking about a ham and turkey with lettuce sandwich with a bottle of orange juice. Swishhhh.
3:45pm - After finishing my lunch, it was back to work, though after a few minutes of working again, I start to get some really sharp chest pains on my left side. It really starts to hurt lifting computers and such so I decide to sit it out and just rest.
4:10pm - After I decided I’ve rested enough, I help tidy up and sort things out a bit more, yet the pain continues to exist in my left lung. All of a sudden, I’m struggling to breathe properly and begin coughing heavily. I headed over to the window to lean out and hopefully catch some fresh air, which I guess helped. Onc the pain had eased up slightly, I helped finish my friends with cleaning up til we were eventually done.
5:30pm - Now that the place was all cleaned up and using up nowhere near as much electricity, we all began our walk home from university. As I’m making my my home, I’m having to clutch my chest and walk slowly the whole way home. All I can think about is laying in bed and resting to let my chest ease up. My mates suggest seeing a doctor but I insist I’ll be fine.
5:50pm - When I arrive at my house, I work my way up the stairs, really straining my chest as I climb them til I finally reach my bedroom, dump my belongings and lower myself onto my bed. I leaned over to my PC and slapped some Beatles on to help relax and regulate my breathing as I lay still. As I lay in bed, my good friend Jonny gives me a call and asks if it’s alright for him to pop over and come see me. I tell him about the chest pains and inform him I’ll give him a call back within an hour to let him know how I’m feeling and if I’m up for him visiting.
7:35pm - After laying in bed for over an hour trying to find a comfortable position to rest in, I thought to myself that something wasn’t right. To be on the safe side, I called my local GP and told them about the chest pains I was experiencing. They told me to come visit their practice over on Westbourne Avenue. I let them know I’ll be making my way there and hope to arrive just after 8 o’clock. Not feeling up to the walk after making my way downstairs (albeit in agony). I give my housemate Luke a call and ask if he can come pick me up and run me down to the medical practice. He arrives back at the house within the next 5 minutes, which leaves me just enough time to grab two KitKats and hopefully get a bit of an energy boost out of them.
8:00pm - Luke finally arrives and assists me with climbing into his Land Rover (ha!). Along the way, we go over some road bumps which, in my chest, felt a lot like stabs from a sharp knife. Not a pleasant journey whatsoever, but I appreciate the car ride, so thanks Luke! So we park up, walk inside, head up to the reception, mention I’m here to see a doctor, wait a few minutes until I eventually see a doctor. Unfortunately, he was absolutely useless. He placed a stethoscope up to my chest and told me to inhale and exhale deeply as he examines my chest and my friends get a glimpse at my shirtless body, haha. The doctor tells me that my chest sounds perfectly fine but recommends that I should head to A&E at Hull Royal Infirmary if I feel that the chest pains aren’t going away. I thank the doctor for his time and head back to the car.
8:20pm - We decide that it is best that I should head down to A&E just to be safe and get myself checked out in case anything serious is wrong with my chest. I’m slightly uncertain as I feel as if my chest pains are going away, that and I really didn’t want to be waiting around like last time - the time where I waited over 4 hours to be seen. I felt seriously ill, was hallucinating and seeing all kinds of weird lights which turned out to be a meningitis scare and a week of hell for me. But anyway…
8:30pm - I arrive at Hull Royal Infirmary, advise my friends to just drop me off and head home as I did not want my friends to have to sit around and be bored out of their minds for several hours while I wait to be seen to. He agrees with me and tells me to call if I need a lift or anything. I go through the entrance and walk over to the reception to check myself in. I stand and stare at all the people waiting as the receptionist enters my details into the system. I start to total up the approximate waiting time in hours and minutes. As I sit down with the other patients waiting to be seen, I’m doubting my decision in coming to the hospital in the first place.
8:45pm - Amazingly, my name is called and I’m seen to by a nurse who wants to give me a quick examination. I describe to her my symptoms and she instantly, based on my build, decides to have me taken in for an x-ray of my chest immediately. The next few minutes are rather tense as I take off my clothes and hand over any belongings I had with me at the time. Finally, the x-ray is taken and a copy is produced and handed over to the doctor for her to analyse.
8:55pm - The doctor then describes the problem to me. My left lung has collapsed. I’m all of a sudden shocked and amazed that I’ve been walking around for the last 5 hours with a collapsed lung and was actually planning on just “sleeping it off”. I laugh and clutch my chest as I’m wheeled off on a bed to a ward.
9:00pm - The nurses on the ward introduce themselves to me and what they’ll be doing to fix my lung. They hook me up to several monitors and let me rest for a while as they gather and prepare the equipment required to sort out my lung. Over the next two hours, I’m provided with morphine, which happens to be the first time I’ve ever had the stuff. I’ve gotta say, it’s pretty awesome, after a couple of minutes of being given four doses, I try crossing my legs over one another and back, yet my legs feel so heavy, as if I didn’t have the energy to do so. Very weird feeling.Anyway, they swab my chest as they prepare to operate so to speak. The procedure involved inserting a syringe into my chest by my fifth rib and into my pleura (that’s the cavity that surrounds the lungs) to apply a local anaesthetic. After which, they inserted a syringe connected to a pump which was then inserted at the same location and pierced through to my lung. From there, my lung was deflated, removing any excess and trapped pockets of air. Once my lung had been deflated, it was then pumped back up and the syringe was removed. Afterwards, I rested for the next 30 minutes while I waited to have my chest x-rayed once again to see if everything was successful.
11:00pm - My chest is re-examined and unfortunately my chest is not 100% sorted. My lung is practically perfect although I now have a punctured lung from where the syringe was inserted. While the doctor’s and nurses head off to make their decision, one nurse comes over and asks how I am keeping and if I’m okay. I tell her that the pain has certainly eased up compared to what it was before, but was mainly hungry and thirsty seeing as I had not really eaten or drank anything since lunch and jokingly mentioned I could kill for a cup of tea, milk and two sugars. Five minutes later, she comes back with a tasty pickle sandwich and a cup of tea, milk and two sugars. I smile at her as she hands over the food tray. I thank her and begin to tuck in. I sat in bed and think to myself of all the great work the hospital has done so far: seeing to me quickly, providing me with two x-rays, having my chest examined multiple times, having regular check-ups by nurses and also having my lung pierced, deflated and pumped back up again, all within the space of two hours, all free health care provided by the NHS. To top it all off, I even got a free cup of tea and a sandwich out of the government too, and it was nice. I sat there and thought of all teh other people in the world who aren’t lucky enough to be blessed with the health care service we have here in the UK. I sat there and thought of my American friends who would be missing out on fine English tea as they rest in hospital. I sat there and thought to myself what a wonderful country I live in.
11:20pm - The head nurse comes back over to my bed and let me know the situation. The ward decided they think it is best I head home tonight and get some rest in the comfort of my own bed. The nurse asked me how I felt and I replied that I was feeling much better. They remove all the cables hooked up to me, give me my clothes and my belongings back and release me from the hospital. They were legally supposed to keep me in for longer as I was still supposedly under the effects of morphine but they decided to let me go anyway as I appeared to be fine. I then personally thanked all of the staff who helped me tonight before giving my friend Jonny a call to let him know he can come pick me up, if he fancied.
11:45pm - Before I knew it, Jonny arrived in his car and gave me a lift home as I explained to him the story you are reading now. As I came through my house door all good as new, I greeted my housemates who were happy to see me right as rain again. At that moment, I sat down, explained my story before munching away on the extra Domino’s Pizza they had ordered in a few hours ago. Jonny and I were also able to do some filming for his next vlog, something I’m glad we were able to get out of the way and I’m looking forward to seeing the final version of.
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You know what? Tonight made me realise something. Life is great and sometimes I feel I just don’t appreciate that enough. I’d like to thank all you folks out there who just read this long-winded post about my sob story in hospital. I hope you enjoyed and I appreciate the fact you guys care for me in a weird way, it means a lot, even if you don’t realise it. So thank you, all of you :-)
I think I’m off to bed now. Tomorrow is another day!
