Thanks for superglue friendship and caring

It happened at last – I cracked!  All the fear, all the unanswered questions, all the stress, all these holidays, and to top it off today was my 7th wedding anniversary.  It all came crashing down.  Not a pretty sight I promise.  A good thing came out of my melt-down though, I got to tell the doctors exactly how I feel about everything and boy did they listen.  I think they were too scared to even take a single step towards the door that they had no choice but to actually listen to what I was saying to them – I think that even those bodies down there in the morgue could hear every word I was saying.

I have now spent 7 full weeks in the hospital.  The salmonella infection did indeed spread around my body – I have to be on Cipro for 6 weeks to be sure that it does no more harm, especially if my pacemaker leads are infected.  This I can handle.  The thing I cannot tolerate is the after-effect of salmonella poisoning – it is called Reactive Arthritis (Reiters Syndrome) and it is horrible.  Never before have I felt such pain in my entire existence.  I am not able to describe this agony, suffice to say it leaves me sweating, shaking, a dodgy gray color, and so weak I cannot get up.  So this is the reason I’m still here in hospital.  I will see my rheumatologist asap as well as be going to a pain management specialist as soon as I can get an appointment.  Until then, I’ll carry on as I am.

Shame I got a frantic call from my husband today asking me to find his mom at the x-ray department here at the hospital.  My heart must have skipped so many beats that my pacemaker nearly jumped out of its pocket.  Turns out, his mom had taken my little boy to see a movie.  Then they went to the arcade.  He stepped away from her and she got a fright and fell down a step.  Needless to say there was no way she could get up so she asked my little to find help.  He’s well trained in this sort of thing cause if you live in South Africa you must always be prepared for anything.  He first looked for a policeman or policewoman – none, then he looked for a security guard – he found one, explained that his Bobba had fallen and could he please come help lift her up.  In the end it took a few people to get her to her feet.  

The arcade people didn’t even care, did not so much as offer her a glass of water or to call someone for her (she is 77 years old for goodness sakes, is it so difficult to be nice).  With hindsight, she should have phoned Hatzollah cause they would have taken my son straight to his dad and brought my mother-in-law straight here to the hospital.  To cut a long story short, she is also now in this very same hospital!  Her foot is broken, her wrist is cracked, and she has the most awful looking black swollen eye you can imagine.  

Thankfully she’s ok as her injuries are not serious and so is my son, although the incident has shaken him.  I’ve put such a positive spin on his HUGE role in getting Bobba helped by finding the right people and saying the right things and being calm and helping Bobba to get up, that his chest literally puffs up with pride every time I tell someone.  I only tell if he’s there, because I want him to know it was not his fault and that he did really well with finding the right people in the right order (police first, security guard second, mom with kiddies third, dad with kiddies fourth).  At least I know he listens when I teach him stuff.

So the end result of the day is this….. I lost it totally with the doctor who ended up super-gluing me back together with professionalism and compassion and mostly TALKING to me about what we can do to get through this.  I’m feeling much more positive about everything, thanks muchly to many of you on this forum who have kept me going.

Ok its bed time for me now – I am totally done, really over did it today rushing off to x-rays, docs rooms with MIL, back to my room for meds and obs at the right times, on and on.
Tomorrow the family are bringing Family Day here to me.  We are going to eat yummy food, open our presents and have some fun!

[sugarpea013]

Holy COW I swear there could be a soap opera involving your life events. Well I don't know what to say besides I hope you completely kick this salmonella thing and escape the infected leads. Hope your Family Day is wonderful!!! You so deserve a fun day. :) Big hugs to you.