140. Sepsis

I tried to get out of bed on Wednesday morning, January 24^th but I couldn’t stay upright.  Caroline called the doctor and he arrived four hours later.

He hardly said a word.  The first thing he did was take my blood pressure and temperature, whereupon he took out his mobile phone and called for an ambulance.

My blood pressure was 72/44 and my temperature was 39.8°C.  He told me that he thought I had sepsis and that he had never seen a blood pressure so low and he was amazed that I was conscious.  I was taken to the hospital with the blue lights and siren going. 

In hospital, I was diagnosed with sepsis caused by a kidney infection.  For six days I had a cannula in each arm and through them, I received three units of blood and a cocktail of antibiotics.   

That was my second hospital stay in England; the second time that I’ve been in a ward with random patients.  Ten years ago, I was in hospital for 105 days in Miami but apart from the last night, when I had Johnny Mathis for a roommate (click to see), I had a room to myself.

If you read the account of my previous stay in Milton Keynes University Hospital in May 2013 (click to see), you may remember that sleep was impossible because of the anti-social behaviour of one patient.  The same thing happened again. 

In my bay with five patients, of whom I was possibly the youngest, there were two men who caused constant chaos at night.  One of them, who kept losing the button used to call a nurse, just shouted, “Nurse….Nurse….Nurse….” all night at the top of his voice and then slept peacefully all day. 

The other man was quiet but he wandered about the room all night and I would find him standing motionless next to my bed several times throughout the darkness.  That was somewhat disturbing.

Is this coincidence?  Are 20 - 40% of men aged over 70 asocial, or do hostile men have a disproportionate tendency to be in hospital?  I have no idea but my admiration for the nurses who have to care for them is unbounded.

I was discharged on Thursday, February 1^st.  I feel better now than I have for a long time and I realise that I have probably been ill for months without realising it.

I hadn’t understood how ill I had been until I watched the regional news on the evening I returned home.  The lead story was about a woman who had to have three limbs amputated as a result of gangrene brought on by sepsis.

I was asked to go back for a check-up at the hospital on Thursday, February 8^th, my birthday. 

“Date of birth?” asked the receptionist at Out Patients.

“Today,” I said.

She looked up at me and she was clearly irritated.

“Yes, please.  Look, we’re in a hurry.  I’ve got 91 patients to register this afternoon.”