It many months since I have added anything to my health blog but as I sit here in the medical assessment ward of St. Peters hospital, I thought I would add something to bring it up to date.

On Thursday (11/12/08) evening I started a chest infection and saw the GP on Friday lunchtime. I was given some antibiotics and told to go to A&E if it got any worse. I called the ambulance on Saturday afternoon and taken straight there. It was causing me serious breathing problems. As usual things did not show anything, listening to the chest showed that it was clear, as did the X-Ray. But I was put on IV and oral antibiotics, a nebuliser and oxygen. I think the tests (mainly blood) showed that there was an infection, these seem to have gone well, I shall be out later on today.

Earlier in the year I had a follow up (from my operation) CT scan of my heart. Every subsequent appointment I went too did not refer to this but a previous abdominal one. Eventually in August, I got a letter saying that my heart consultant had emigrated that day to Australia and they would be appointing someone else. A couple of days later I got another letter saying that there had been a 'technical fault' on the CT scan and none of the heart veins could be seen. Eventually I saw a new consultant and told him that the CT scan must be repeated as soon as possible. This was done on a Tuesday evening and by Thursday I went to the GP with serious bruising, off to St. Peters A&E and another overnight stay in hospital. They were worried that femoral artery had been nicked but an ultrasound scan showed that it was OK and it was just serious bruising. This scan did show that the veins were all OK and that there had been no narrowing due to scaring.

I have also had appointments with the lung clinic, again follow ups from the heart OP due to the breathing problems I had had after it. They put me on a drug called Tiotropium. All this managed to do was to make my breathing worse. Finally they diagnosed COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) and been signed off by them. I have also found that another drug Flecainide may have been causing some bad symptoms, so I stopped taking those.

I later discussed this with the GP, who said I must talk to heart people about this drug. Two days later I got a letter from the heart people, saying as my breathing had improved they were signing me off.

So here I now sit in the discharge lounge waiting for drugs then I can go home. My breathing is still bad but slightly better. I am going out with two different types of antibiotics a liquid form of Amoxicillian and Clarithromycin also some steroids Prednisolone. The pharmacist has been very good checking on the types of drug I have been given. Spotting that I should have not had the coated type of Prednisolone but the plain sort so I will be starting a new course from the beginning. The Amoxicillian I had on the ward was intravenous so I am just continuing with the liquid type (not the usual capsules)