Friday, June 19, 2009

Decisions & another hospital stay

Things were going swimmingly earlier this week, was feeling quite a bit better and knew that things were in the pipeline for me to finally get sorted and then I developed a new pain on wednesday not long after lunch.......it was this stabbing pain under my right ribs if I breathed in too deeply or laughed to hard or sneezed. I have had something similar before after eating and I thought nothing of it to much - usually I sleep it off. However this was alot more painful and although the panedeine worked after I took it at 8pm, when it wore off at 1am and I was in excruitating pain it was time to head to ED.

So off to hospital and I was so lucky that some of the team that I had seen the week before were on, and actually throughout the whole day on every shirt on of my either nursing staff or doctors was one of the ones that had seen me the week before, so I didn't need to explain it all 10 milion times. Anyway, so go there and they had heaps of trouble putting in a line, but eventually did. I sent Si home at 3:30 to get some sleep - I mean I was in safe hands there. I saw a heap of people and the upshot was I had an xray, and MRI and a VScan where they do a 360 degree scan of your lungs as after the Xray adn MRI were clear they started to worry that I might have a blood clot on my lungs, but that too was clear. So what does all of that mean. Well it means that it is not Gallstones, and there is nothing surgically wrong........so it must be medical, so now they are going to most likely arrange a liver biopsy - I have an appointment late this afternoon with the Gastronenterology dept at the hospital to discuss the plan of attack At the moment they are leaning towards an auto immune disorder and most like auto immune liver disease.....which if treated properly with steroids should be very manageable. So now I am home and on pain killers to manage the pain, which seems to be working out okay.

One of the things that has stoodout over this last couple of weeks is just how amazing my surgeon and his team are. I have had many discussions with David and Carol regarding where I am at and the treatment options, as David said he wanted to be kept in the loop, especially as they wanted to go past my puch to do a ERCP - which he did not recommend - they changed there mind and did the MRI instead. David also encouraged me to use the counceller that they provide to help me get through some of this, as he knows how much stress I am under with the job situation as well.

On that front, we are kind of putting the job hunt on hold, although we have some major decisions to make this weekend, and some of it will depend on what answers I get today. I am going to WINZ today to see if I am eliglbe for the restart package - for people made redundant but I actually think more importanly to see if I am eligible for the sickness benefit as for the moment I cannot even look for work.......also going to talk to the gastroenterologist about it. I am then along going to budgeting advise to see if they can see a way forward.

However the reality is that on Simon's part time income only we will have to move as after the debts that we need to pay and the rent it will leave $54 for everything from petrol, food, power, phone etc........So the most likely decision this weekend will be to pretty much either sell or put everything we can into storage and go and live with Simon's parents for a little bit, untill I am either well and working again, or I find a job that I can actualy handle. The reality is even if we manage to talk to all of our creditors and get payment holidays we cannot afford to stay in this house. It also means that I will need to find a new home for the cat and the dog, although I am looking at the cost of homing them at a kennel/cattery for say 3 months, which although not really that fair on them, I can still go and visit them daily if I need to. I am pretty sure that there is no one I know locally who will be willing to take them on temporarily.

GOD I WISH I HAD WON BIG WEDNESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am feeling really shit about all of the above as I kind of feel like if I hadn't dragged Simon and I up here from Wellington then maybe things would be different, but honestly, I don't know if that would have been the case, but it plays on my mind at 3 in the morning, and I am feeling really useless that I can't contribute anything at the moment. I know that I am not meant to be stressing about the other stuff but the reality is I can't hide my head under the sand either, I have to deal with it and that means facing up to some failures.

So I think friday if going to be very hard, and I think that is part of the rason I am awake at almost 4am. I have to try and go back to bed, as alot happening tomorrow, including more blood tests!!!

6 comments:

  1. Good luck for this arvo Janine - I really hope you get get some answers soon and it's great that you have a good team at the hospital. Melissa

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  2. Hang in there and it is amazing how everything seems 10 times worse at 3am.... I hope you get some answers soon. Take care and am thinking of you xx

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  3. Gosh Janine...I am praying for you and Si and an answer that is workable...

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  4. Hope it all goes well today. {{{HUGS}}}

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  5. Everything will turn out fine, you have obviously put a lot of thought into how you are going to cope until you are well. It is better than putting your head in the sand. If staying with Si's parens for a while until you can get back on your feet is what you have to do then so be it.

    It must ve a very scary & worrying time but you two will get thru it, and don't waste time & energy on feeling guilty, focus on getting better so you can get on with your lives again.

    Good luck this afternoon :-)

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  6. Oh - heaps of stress and worry for you. First of all you have to get better and find out what's going on before you are even able to think about job hunting.

    Hope WINZ can help you, take care and best of luck:-)

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