Coronary Care (1)

 A quick change of pace here since the previous post. I am typing this using our laptop in the Coronary Care Ward of Sligo Hospital under the TLC of all the wonderful staff here who are trying to cure me of a savage attack of pneumonia. Just in case there are friends/rels who just want to know what's wrong with me and the latest medical stuff, I will do this a a series of 3, ever more waffly posts. This will also assure me that this "guest" broadband will allow me to type chunks in without blowing me out.

So I have pneumonia, which had been allowed to build up and get well established by mid June when it suddenly stopped me breathing for anything other than standing, sitting or very short, 20 yd walks. We went via the local GP system, got seen by Sligo Hospital back in June, back to the GP and then finally back here, referred in a bit of a hurry "You are VERY sick", on Monday evening. I am now on Day 6 of the team here trying to give me my lungs back. I am recovering but not very fast.

Meanwhile, because this was an unusual case which did not tick ALL the usual pneumonia boxes, I have also been thoroughly investigated in the heart dept and have been found to have a small prolapse in my "mitral" valve (big powerful valve between left auricle and ventricle. Discussions continue as to whether the prolapse needs fixing sooner/later and how much it had to do with the pneumonia. If it does need fixing, this will probably mean heart surgery and a replacement (mechanical) valve.

There you have it for now.

A Muck Sweat

Hi. As I write this it is half past 5 in the morning and a beautiful peachy-orange sun is rising into a(nother) cloudless sky right outside the back door. It is going to be another scorcher peaking up into the 29º to 30º area. The Woman of the House is still very much enjoying them, ambling about in her shorts determined to get "at least some colour" into her legs while batting away the mozzies. I must admit, my appetite for heat is a tad jaded at this stage but you will not see me writing a word of complaint; you only have to look at the endless cold, wet, snowy, windy blog posts from about September to April to know that we get enough of the "other stuff" and our memories are raw.

Blue skies

My current state of health has added its own seasoning to this mix. I am messed up completely and unable to do a stroke of work. Those antibiotics in the previous post ran their course and finished this Monday and although they had given me a promising explosion of 'productive' coughing, a muck sweat or two, bursts of dead-tiredness that had me snatching 2 hour naps morning and afternoon, they did not seem to free up my lungs. Shortness of breath still has me leaning, gasping on a fence after the shortest walk or easiest job.

Young ducks discover the pond.

I was back to the doctor's on Tuesday to see what was progressing but, not only was the real doc still away, but the very competent nurse who saw me was away too, and a locum was taking the calls. Obviously this means telling the story all over again and, in this case finding the locum unwilling to do anything positive as my notes were still not back from Sligo Hospital. So, take it easy Mr Patient and none of that heavy lifting / mucking out now (kinda got that one, thanks) and come back and see us next week when another new medic will be on hand to tell you whether your notes are back yet.

So, another week for me of shirking round the place doing a lot of healing sleep, while for Elizabeth, the stock tasks made a bit more interesting by the heat. All the birds and animals need extra attention to their water supplies, shade sheets for their runs (and even freezer packs for some). There are buckets and tubs everywhere. Those young 'Appleyard' ducks have outgrown their big Tupperware "bath" and the Duck-Master General has invented for them a paddly pool made from a big blue plastic fruit-juice barrel split in half and propped at a jaunty angle. Filled with a hose, this gives them a nice depth of water for some total-immersion baptism malarkey, one at once, supervised by Mumma-Duck.

St John's Eve fire heap

The perceptive among you (and those not knocked sideways by an excessive need to sleep in the shade) will have noticed that this post is 2 days late. I don't know what happened to Tuesday. I'd been a bit short on stories going into the weekend but on Saturday (23rd), Bonfire Night had happened so I was looking good for the Tuesday, business as usual.

Arsonist #1 soon has a good blaze going

Regular readers will know that the only day we can legally light bonfires in (Republic of ) Ireland is 23rd June, St. John's Eve, one of these Christian-ised festival dates presumably derived from Mid Summer's Day. The Ladies are traditionally meant to engage in lots of leppin' about, singing and dancing, while we blokes go in more for the feats of strength and athletic (cough) stuff. There was jumping through the fire and, I guess, the odd drink was taken.

Tha Appleyards get a new pond

There is also a fair amount of the 'warding off bad spirits' stuff. I read mention of a tall, herby plant which has the Irish name "hocusfian" (though I've not manged to find out what this is in English). Bonfire attendees would run round tapping their plant off as many folk as possible to pick up the bad vibes before throwing the plant in the fire. You could also pull up examples of all your most troublesome weeds and thrown them in which would ensure they were not so troublesome next year. Look out 'creeping buttercup', I say. I can see that working...hmmm..... the actual plant you throw into the fire would not trouble you again, I suppose.

January born lamb Tigger comes back from the butcher

In the morning, you could then scatter the ashes from the fire about your land to spread the good stuff about. If there was a new built dwelling in the village it was good to light the first ever fire in that hearth from the glowing embers of the St.John fire.

Apricot flan

Especially auspicious

Sick Note

Culled out male duck. Sorry, Laura.
this was Obelix

Hi. Your blogger has been knocked sideways by the biggest illness he has ever experienced since the move to Ireland, and in long memory. A chest infection. So hard do I cling to  healthy vitality and try to avoid any contact with doctors, nurses and hospitals that one of the problems we had to overcome when we went trying to make appointments of collect prescription drugs from the local pharmacies was that nobody has any record of me or any history in their files.

The elder flower bank.

This disease struck fast and furious. On the Saturday I'd been happily helping a friend in the village muck out some bullocks for 3 hours, healthy and vital. We'd finished that job, stopped for tea and biscuits and I'd made my way home. I had a slight feeling that I might have overdone it, a slight tightness of breath, a need to sit down in my easy chair for more tea. But nothing serious. I'd agreed with the guy to come down and finish it tomorrow (Sunday).

An elder flower head.

As Saturday evening progressed, it got a whole lot less funny. Any walk of more than 30-50 yards had me needing to stop for a breather,lean on a fence or sit on a garden chair, gasping and panting hard while my body came up to a normal level of oxygen and my breathing slowed back to normal. Clearly all was not well. Time to go and sign on with the local Clinic. Time to get the big-boy pants or brave-soldier outfit on.

Home grown lettuce.

Elizabeth was off to Day 1 of her 'Hard Landscaping' module and we had a lamb to capture, load into the trailer and then haul to slaughter/butchery in town, so we had to re-hash the schedule and who'd have the car. We got up early, loaded the lamb, then I ran Elizabeth in to Balla-D, returning to hitch up the trailer, whizzed the lamb in to Gannon's and finally was able to do something about the illness.

Rambling Rector fighting back after the
recent windstorm

Mixed feelings about the rest of the day (round till 7 pm, as it happened). I hate that loss of control but on the up side, I was very pleasantly surprised by standard of care and all those hours of very professional, reassuring, warming and calm TLC as I was processed by the reception, triage and then the real doctoring and then finally spat out the other end with my treatment in my hand.

Sligo Hospital is on top of a mountain.

To cut a long story short, 'my' doctor was not at the clinic but the very competent nurse did my work up including an ECG. Because I was not showing any normal chest infection symptoms (sore throat, liquid in lungs, 'productive' coughing. She then had a chat with the doctor and referred me to Sligo Hospital, 40 minutes away. Luckily this breathlessness does not kick in if you are sitting the driving seat. Had to smile when I arrived, though. The hospital is on a mountain and the car parks are all in the foot hills. If you aren't showing symptoms by the time you arrive, you certainly are by the time you have climbed up to A+E reception.

Amoxicillin for what ails you,

To continue with this short story, the hospital team could also not find any liquid on lungs etc but they did find infection trace chemicals in my blood work, so I was sent off with a hard-core antibiotic (amoxicillin) and just made it back to my car as the 4 hours I'd bought ran out. That evening all the expected hell broke loose and my infection exploded into the normal coughing, phlegm and unpleasantness. I've had 2 nights of that but then some good day-time sleeping. I batted away the 2nd half of the mucking out and Elizabeth has stepped in to live-stock feeding and open up/lock up rounds leaving me unemployed and able to spend time getting better.

Em-J makes 20 Happy Birthday to You.

That is surely enough for one, rather miserable blog post but just now a chance to raise the tone and finish on a high note. Huge happy birthday to our oldest Irish niece, long term friend of the blog and frequent narrow-boat holidayer. Emily Jane, who made 20 years old yesterday. She was celebrated by this rather lovely photo-montage  put up on Facebook by her Mum. Mrs Silverwood.