Category Archives: hospitals

my 31st sevilla anniversary!

16 Monday Sep 2024

Posted by in health, health & happiness, hospitals, sevilla

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31 anniversary

post-hospital Sevilla Anniversary cava at Las Teresas

An afternoon at the hospital wasn’t how I’d have planned to spend my 31st Sevilla Anniversary but FINALLY getting my MRI done was kind of celebratory in itself. I’d been waiting almost three months and since then I’ve gone from getting by with my trusty stick to barely being able to walk with a pair of crutches. This past month has been a long, frustrating and painful one.

The previous MRI last year (left knee) was at a state-of-the-art radiology place but this time it was at my old hospital Virgen del Rocío. I like to think I know that place like the back of my hand after having spent so much time there, but with “after hours” late afternoon tests half the entrances/exits are closed and nobody is manning the information desks… it took me half an hour to find my correct waiting room and also took some doing to find my way out again. After which I met up with Peter at Las Teresas for a glass of cava to celebrate the day.

Anyhow, I wasn’t expecting any big news today but it still came as a surprise when the technician told me the results wouldn’t be available for 15 days. What? I told him I had an appointment booked with my GP for next Monday, so he said he would leave a note on my file to help speed things up a bit. Fingers crossed. And of course after seeing the GP there will be more waiting… will I be offered physiotherapy? an operation? Meanwhile…

I haven’t worked since mid-July. Part of that was my doing, taking some extra “staycation” time in July, though in fact I stopped doing tours in August years ago. Way too hot. But when I suddenly couldn’t walk without crutches mid-August… well, that totally fucked everything up. I scrambled to find people to take the tours I had booked the first half of September, and now I clearly have to do the same for the rest of the month and possibly longer. Luckily I not only have Peter to help out with this, but two other freelance friends Fiona and Sharon have also been happy to take on the new tours being booked that I obviously cannot do myself.

This means that I know clients will be in good hands, and that’s great. But it also means no income for me and, now realistically looking at how this is likely to pan out, until something is done to fix my knee I will not able to do any tours. What I don’t know now is how long that will be. There is a little extra income out there, I’ve just finished another article for Decanter magazine and the Patreon brings in about 100 euros a month (appreciate it!) but I can’t live on that. I know I’ve been “pivoting” for ages with the tours, looking for other ways to move forward, without giving up the tours entirely, so maybe this is my wake up call. I just wish I knew how and where I am supposed to be pivoting and moving on to.

urgencias! what a day

05 Thursday Sep 2024

Posted by in health, home, hospitals, sevilla

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urgencias

Since the abdominal pain was still quite severe and clearly not letting up I headed over to Urgencias with Peter just after noon. As we got through triage almost immediately I was hopeful that it wasn’t going to be a long wait to see a doctor. This was not to be. The waiting rooms were packed with next to no one wearing a mask, not even most of the staff. WTF.

Anyhow, eventually saw the doctor who ordered blood work and unfortunately got a nurse who couldn’t find any arm veins, so the third try was IN MY HAND which I hate, especially as this thing stayed in all afternoon (just in case). While waiting for the blood/urine results they sent me to get an IV of paracetamol for the pain, which ended up doing absolutely nothing. After that MORE waiting.

There was some confusion when I was called back in as there was a different doctor saying I had to redo the blood tests because blah blah blah and then suddenly the original doc came in and said not to worry, the blood was normal and they were going to do a CT scan. Wut. Anyhow, about half an hour later I was having yet another CT scan. Finally… six long hours after arriving, the doctor said I was fine. There was some inflammatory changes in the colon stump (where it had been sealed off during surgery) but no fluid or air in the peritoneal cavity. So that was it. NOT cancer. Phew.

I was sent home and told to take paracetamol for the pain, stay on a soft diet until pain subsides and stay hydrated. Well, not taking paracetamol, and I can barely eat anyhow (bonus! have lost 2 kilos), so I guess I just have to tough it out and hope the pain stops soon. Still hurts like fuck now though which is very draining. I keep having to go lie down which I guess is another “bonus” – I think I’ve slept more this week than I usually do in a month (in 2-3 hour snatches).

Now fingers crossed I didn’t pick up Covid! 

feeling a bit hopeful again…

24 Monday Jun 2024

Posted by in health, hope, hospitals, knee saga, knees

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hoping

You may recall that after the disastrous episodes with the Traumatologist and the Endo, and the ongoing issues with Heartless GP (who just keeps telling me I’m fat), I was feeling pretty let down and not sure what to do next in terms of my health concerns. Then I remembered I still had one more blood test available, so I booked that a couple of weeks ago and afterwards made an appointment to see my GP again to go over the results and hopefully to also see if I could get some actual help with my fucked up knee. Made the appt online and was surprised to see that I would be seeing a different GP and a glimmer of hope started to break through.

And so I went off to see New GP today. We talked over the blood test results and my medication. I told her I am only taking the BP meds because I’d had three different doctors tell me three different things about the other meds and she kind of smirked knowingly at that. So we took them one by one. My blood pressure is still a bit high but she said it was fine to stay on the present meds for now (she wants me to check in again in December at which point she’ll also order another blood test). Re: statins (for cholesterol) and metformin (sugar) she agreed with my oncologist that neither of these were necessary as I am kind of “borderline” and in fact my cholesterol has gone down a bit since October. I told her I had been making some diet changes and taking some supplements, and she seemed to think I was making good progress but that we will check it again in six months.

Then it was on to my knee. I told her the whole story and finally said that I really didn’t want to be living on painkillers, the only treatment so far offered to me, and I wondered if it would be possible to get an MRI for my right knee. I said to her maybe then they could figure out if there is any kind of physio or other treatment I could get because so far I felt like nobody has been helping me and the pain is so bad now that I can’t even climb stairs anymore. She immediately put in a request for an MRI and said I’d get a call telling me when the appointment would be. As for treatment she said that my best bet was probably going to be surgery but first things first.

And omg I almost cried. It’s been so long since a doctor has actually listened to me that I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. And she didn’t once mention my weight. I actually brought it up when we were talking about diet and cholesterol saying that of course I know I need to lose weight and she said I could try walking a bit more and cutting down on fats when cooking (this led to a chat about my air fryer) but she said the drop in cholesterol was a positive. In contrast Heartless GP, the Endo and Trauma Doc all made it seem like being fat was the reason EVERYTHING was happening to me. Not helpful.

And so there is a plan now. And I feel so very relieved. All I needed was a little support and now that I have it I feel like I can move forward with this. Getting my knees back would certainly help with getting back to my 10,000 step walks, meanwhile will keep on with my chair yoga/pilates and yeah, am also going to start tweaking the diet a bit more. Amazing what a little hope will do.

all-clear cava!

21 Thursday Dec 2023

Posted by in cancer, health, hospitals

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all clear cava

After getting booted out of the “cancer club” last week I still had one more hurdle, which was a backup ultrasound after last spring’s mammogram. Which was this afternoon. And the very good news is that I am ALL CLEAR. Phew! So there was a glass of bubbly on the way home and now… well, I just hope that I will be hospital-free at least for a while. There will be the usual GP maintenance check up in a couple of months with a blood test, review of my blood pressure status and – maybe! – some info about my FUCKING KNEES. It’s a bit alarming how they went from being a bit painful to needing a stick in just 3-4 months. But that’s for another day. Today I feel so relieved about this good news that I may even sleep tonight!

cut loose

13 Wednesday Dec 2023

Posted by in cancer, hope, hospitals, sevilla

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cut loose

After 15 1/2 years I have been cut loose, set free, given the old heave ho… and I have such mixed feelings. After my last colonoscopy I also had a blood test done for cancer markers (and other things) and today I finally had my appointment with the oncologist to find out what’s what. And basically… nuthin’. The colonoscopy was normal, blood test relatively normal, cholesterol still a bit high, but lower than last year’s test, sugar also down… and so I asked my onc “what now?”. And so he took another look over my history and said… I think you’re done! In fact it’s been 15 years to the month since my last (third) cancer op, which is how they measure these things, in spite of me going back on chemo for six months the following year. And I was like… done? What? That’s it? Not even like a cancer marker test next year??

You’re probably wondering why I wasn’t immediately delighted. Well the thing is, once you have had cancer, and especially stage 4 colon cancer you weren’t meant to recover from, you always live under its shadow. It might be gone FOR NOW but it never feels like it’s well and truly gone. And my guy totally got this, saying that he understood that it might feel like I was losing a kind of health care “safety net”, but he laid out a couple of ways to still feel taken care of.

In his report to my GP he recommends a colonoscopy every three years (normally it’s 5) and he said if I was ever in serious doubt or experiencing any severe abdominal pain that, given my history, I could ask my GP to set up an oncology appointment. Even though I said that in my experience once you’re in serious pain with cancer it’s already almost too late. He didn’t disagree but, in his opinion, it didn’t make sense to keep testing for cancer 15 years later. In fact, he said they usually stop doing regular follow up scans and testing after five years but, again, given my history, they extended it to ten. Then it all got muddled with covid, etc… but now that’s it. I’ve been booted out of the Oncology Club.

FOR NOW.  I also finally managed to arrange the follow up ultrasound on my “dodgy boob” from the last mammogram in April. It’s next week. Given that my mother died of breast cancer and my sister has it now, you know, it’s not totally unreasonable that I’m (more than) a bit concerned. Why a follow up test? What about this sudden scary blocked nipple? My onc today had a look at said nipple and said it’s probably nothing important, not unusual, he couldn’t feel a mass, etc and that follow up ecos were almost routine.

Gotta say that after all this time and with a long history of inept and/or uncaring oncologists (I only got through my cancer ordeal thanks to my fab nuclear medicine team) it’s a bit ironic that the first time I meet a genuinely nice onc it’s also time to say goodbye. Well, this was actually our second appointment. First time a year or so ago and he was all… what the heck? why are you still getting all these scans? you’re going to die from radiation before you get cancer again!… which made sense. And he actually talked to me. Just like he did today. So I mostly feel okay about being cut loose because I know there are a few clear avenues I can pursue if I need to, but it’s going to take a few days to actually process. And of course there’s still next week’s boob ultrasound… 🤞