When we got up at about 7:45am on Wednesday we had planned for Granddad Al to go to do some shopping after my visit to the doctor. I’m suffering from acid reflux, mainly in the middle of the night but during the day sometimes too.
Our GP asked me to come in so she could check my tummy to make sure nothing nasty was there, but she was more concerned that I was having pain in my ribs/lungs (probably rightly so as it was really bad). She asked how I had done it, that was the easy bit , I was just sat down watching TV, I’d finished my last crochet project, a little summer cotton hat for grand daughter Grace, when I felt my muscles go.
It’s happened lots of times before, doing nothing, having done nothing to cause it. I told her it had happened on numerous occasions & I usually just waited until it eased off on its own. But our GP was worried in case I had a clot, a pulmonary embolism, due to me being less mobile because of my knee & slightly (cough, cough) over weight. This really worried me as my Mother-in-Law Anne had passed away from this.
She arranged for me to go into the Emergency Admissions Unit at Southport Hospital, I got there for just after 10:30 am & was admitted straight away, then had the usual BP tests, bloods took, ECG, even had to give two swabs for an MRSA screen, that took us up to about 12 noon ish. The a junior doctor called Louise came to see me, just as they was coming around with a cup of tea! She asked me lots of questions & looked very sceptical when I told her I’d pulled this muscle just sat watching the TV, breathing normally, but I understood they had to rule out a pulmonary embolism or PE. She said that she would arrange for me to get a chest scan to see if there was anything showing, before arranging a CT & dye scan of my lungs, if needed. Naturally I assumed that I would go to X-ray fair soon as it was a busy ward & the beds were needed. No I waited until almost 4:30pm for a porter to take me down, I offered to go down earlier myself, but that wasn’t allowed for some reason. As you probably are aware X-rays take minutes if not seconds to complete & I was back on the ward by 4:45pm waiting for the senior doctor to look at my results.
He eventually came over an hour or so later, to tell me that both a blood test they had done & the X-ray both showed no clot, what a relief. I could go home & he would give me some pain killers. I mentioned to him I was on morphine & I don’t think he heard me correctly as he said “I can’t give you morphine for a muscle pain” so I repeated that I took 120 mg of Morphine every day, he grabbed the notes from the bottom of the bed to check, like I was lying or something, believe me taking morphine isn’t a laughing matter, after assuring himself he then told me just to take Paracetamol, as obviously there was nothing else he could give me.
The Ward sister was then really nice & got all my paperwork I had to do & I was on my way home by 6:15pm. But after sitting on that hospital bed for such a long time my arthritis in my spine has now flared up, so I’m fit for nothing but the knackers yard at the moment. Between the spine & the muscle pain I’m moving even less than I was before! I’m glad it really is just a muscle sprain though as having a pulmonary embolism is scary business!
It was certainly a different day than what I had planned & I hadn’t got any further with my acid reflux, I’ll ask again when i go to have my bloods took again at the end of the month.
Hope your Wednesday was less eventful than mine.