The Thing in TJ's Brain Part 7: Sickness, Cisternograms, and Sandwiches

The surgeons were still deciding whether or not they needed to re-operate, and so I stayed on the ward for several days. However, over this time I began to feel extremely unwell. My headaches, which were mostly mild and only occurred when I’d been sitting up for too long, became severe and constant. I started feeling nauseous and dizzy, and began to run hot and cold, especially at night. This was not a good time for me. I threw up at least once a day, and I struggled to eat or drink much. As a result, I lost over a kilogram of weight in perhaps four days, and became badly dehydrated. The painful headache and fluctuating temperatures prevented me from sleeping.

Worst of all though, it was the World Cup. There was a large television at the end of the ward, and this was on constantly. Both inmates and wardens talked about it incessantly, and I had to explain several times that I don’t much care for football, and don't have any particular emotional investment in which country can Football Best. I did have a considerable emotional investment in having the TV turned down (or better yet, off) and in everyone around me shutting up, but this was mostly beyond my powers.

The doctors and nurses were sympathetic to my plight (the illness, not the World Cup), and gave me increasingly strong painkillers, which barely seemed to help. However, none of them seemed especially interested in why I was feeling so ill. They took regular blood samples, and apparently these weren’t showing up any infection markers, and that was that as far as they were concerned.

Another infuriating thing was that during this time, my leak seemed to stop. Several times doctors had come to me and asked me to lean forward to produce a drip. I’d explained that it was only a very slow leak, and they always got bored and left before I could produce even one drop, but now the drip had subsided entirely. I got the impression that they thought I was lying.

My own theory, borne up by my total lack of extensive medical training and scientific knowledge, is that I had contracted some sort of sub-meningitic infection, and the resulting inflammation had swollen my leak shut. When the infection eventually subsided, my leak returned, more enthusiastic than ever, which seems to confirm my hypothesis.

Before this happened, however, several things occurred. They were feeding me regular doses of anti-sickness drugs. To do this they fitted a canula, but the nurse chosen to do this didn’t seem very adept. She first dug around in my left wrist trying to find the vein, but in vain. She then did the same on the right wrist, leaving me with what looked rather like stigmata. Eventually she got it in.

That evening, I was feeling as bad as ever. Meningitis was on my mind (so to speak), since I seemed to be evincing at least some of the symptoms. My neck was rather stiff (although not to the degree I’m told meningitis produces), but I had no rash or aversion to light.

Then I looked down and saw that a rash had suddenly appeared on my right arm. Stoically, and without panicking even slightly, I called a nurse. He came over, examined my arm, and put his face in his hands. If this was calculated to reassure me, it did not. He called a more senior nurse, who said they’d need to monitor it, and see if it spread, or if the blotches grew. Their high-tech method of doing this was to draw around them with a ballpoint pen and come back later.

To my great relief, the rash faded over the next half-hour or so. They concluded that it was an allergic reaction to the anti-sickness drug they’d injected into me via the canula.

The doctors were still deciding whether to operate on me again, and I was subjected to another MRI. I was wheeled down in my bed, and the scan was completed. I was left in the Radiology waiting room and a nurse was called to come and collect me. However, some crossed wires meant that the nurse never arrived, and I was left there for almost an hour. The waiting room was much cooler and far quieter than the ward, and I was actually able to get some sleep before they realised their mistake and took me back.

They also decided that I needed a cisternogram. This involves stabbing a rather long needle into your spine, and injecting a dye up through your spinal column and into your brain. As ill as I was feeling, I was nonetheless curious. The room in which this was done was large and cold, and contained a lot of interesting machinery. Because it involved stabbing a long, flexible needle into my spinal column, it had to be done whilst observing me in real time using x-rays. I was lain on my side and my back painted with local anaesthetic. The surgeon and two nurses donned large, heavy-looking aprons lined with lead and proceeded.

The actual spinal impalement wasn’t too bad. It hurt a little, but no more so than many injections.

“Now, I’m injecting the dye. You may find your headache suddenly gets worse.”

“Ok.” I waited for a couple of seconds. “No, it’s not too… Oh. Yes, alright, that’s really painful. Ow. Oh. Um, also, I think I’m going to be sick.”

One of the nurses acted with superhuman speed and presented me with a bowl just in time. Once I’d finished, they withdrew the needle, cleaned off the excess anaesthetic, and I was wheeled through to another room to be given a CT scan, so they could track the progress of the dye out through my leak.

I was put inside the white doughnut when I was once again assailed by a bout of extreme nausea. Unwilling to throw up on their no-doubt very expensive machine, I alerted the nurse, who was once again able to get there in time. Once the nausea subsided, they were able to complete the scan and I was wheeled back up to my ward.

It was also during this period that the Great Ham Sandwich Fiasco of 2018 occurred. I have mentioned that my usually robust appetite had been badly affected. I struggled to eat more than a few mouthfuls of any meal, and selected the plainest possible options from the menu. One day, for lunch, I chose the ham sandwich. This simple dish seemed best.

Lunch time came round, and my sandwich was brought to me. It was a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich. I called the nurse and explained that this wasn’t right. Normally I quite like these, but in my weakened state I didn’t feel up to the task of tackling such a complex meal. The nurse contacted the catering department, and came back to tell me that they’d said that I was a liar, a cad and a blackguard, and that I’d received the sandwich that I’d ordered. If I’d wanted a sandwich that contained only ham, they said, I should have specified that I wanted a ‘plain ham sandwich’. By merely saying ‘ham sandwich’ I’d clearly requested a ‘ham, cheese and pickle sandwich’.

Too weak to send my seconds down to demand satisfaction, I resigned myself to picking the cheese and pickle out, and jury-rigging a ham sandwich out of what I had been given. During my careful dissection however, I discovered something. Not only had I received the wrong sandwich, it didn’t even contain any pickle! I didn’t want any pickle. I hadn’t asked for any pickle. But since I was told that nonetheless there would be pickle, I thought it only fair that pickle there would be. I pointed this out to the nurse, and told them that they were being defrauded by their catering company.

The next day, the Food Lady came round again and asked what I wanted for lunch.

“A plain ham sandwich please.” I stressed the ‘plain’.

“A plain ham sandwich?”

“That’s correct. A sandwich containing nothing but ham. Ham, and nothing else. In a sandwich.”

“It does come with margarine as well.”

“That’s fine. Margarine is also good. I want a sandwich consisting of nothing but ham, bread and margarine, all in their usual positions and proportions.” I wondered if I wasn’t laying it on a little thick, but they had irked me. Behind the Food Lady, I saw the nurse snigger.

At lunchtime, they brought me the correct sandwich.

To be continued…

The Thing in TJ's Brain Part 6: Revenge of The Thing

Prior to leaving hospital, I’d had a bit of a runny nose, but I was assured that this was perfectly normal when they’ve been monkeying around in your sinuses and sampling your nasal ensheathing cells.

I was at home for perhaps two or three weeks, and was recovering slowly but steadily. I had a couple of bad days when I felt distinctly unwell, but mostly I was ok. My main problem during this period of my life was with one of the medicines they sent me home with. This was a clear, viscous liquid in a large bottle, which was supposed to be diluted with water. It was also, supposedly, orange-flavoured. I don’t know what kind of oranges the inventor based it on, but they were not like any orange I’d ever tasted. In fact, if anything I thought the mixture tasted rather more like slightly gone-off milk. As a result, this medicine shall for ever after be known in my family by its preferred (by me at any rate) pseudonym of ‘mankwater’.

Mankwater aside, as I say my recovery seemed to be going fairly smoothly. However, my nose started running again. It started dripping yellowish liquid at a slow but steady rate. I’d been warned that a possible complication of my surgery might be a leakage of cerebral-spinal fluid, and that this would be a Bad Thing. When they finished removing the Thing in My Brain, they took a fat-graft from my stomach (leaving me with an impressive scar) and used this to plug the hole they’d made. However, there was a small chance that this plug wouldn’t take and that I’d start leaking my precious brain-juice. I was given a strict set of instruction on what to do to make this as unlikely as possible. However, I’d also been told that a runny nose would also be likely. I waited for a week in the hope that it was the latter, but the drip continued.

I decided to call the specialist pituitary nurse at the hospital, who told me that the best way to see if my brain was indeed leaking out through my face was to sit in a chair and put my head between my legs. If my nose dripped at the rate of once every few seconds, it was indeed a brain leak. However, my nose was only dripping once every minute or so, so she seemed to think the odds unlikely. However, she said that if I was concerned, I could get a plastic sample pot from my GP and send her some of my nose-juice to check.

One of the potential risks of a brain-leak is that, since there’s effectively a hole straight through to your brain, you can develop infections. Infections of the brain are not a Good Thing, and can include such luminaries of the medical world as meningitis. I’d never had meningitis, but my natural scientific curiosity didn’t extend so far as to want to get it purely for the pleasure of the experience.

I got a sample pot.

I then spent a good hour or two holding it under my nose to try and collect what seemed to me to be a sufficient quantity to help benefit the advancement of Science. Having done so and screwed the lid tightly on, I popped it in an envelope along with a note explaining what it was, and put it in the post.

A few days later, I received a call from the nurse. “We’ve tested your sample.”

“Oh?”

“I’m afraid that it is CSF.”

“Ah.”

“You should go to your local A&E.”

“Right.”

“But it’s not urgent.”

“Not urgent?”

“No. It’s just that we want to keep you under observation, in case you do start to develop an infection. You can go this evening. Or even tomorrow morning if you like.”

“I see. I think I’ll probably go now, if it’s all the same to you.”

So off to A&E I went. I say ‘I went’; A friend very kindly agreed to drive us there. We arrived, and I explained my problem to the receptionist. I was then permitted to go on to a second receptionist. I explained my problem to her too. I was bade to sit down and wait. We sat and waited.

Whilst waiting, I looked around at the other unfortunates who’d been dragged or carried here for treatment. An unusual proportion of them seemed to be school-aged children with broken limbs. This puzzled us for a while, until it occurred to us that it was probably Sports Day season, and that these were no doubt its hapless victims. As a child Sports Day always struck me as a needlessly brutal and barbaric spectacle, but at least I always managed to escape serious injury. Largely by dint of barely participating, blessed as I was with a weedy and unimpressive physique, of which no-one thought to make any sportive demands. Looking at these poor young victims though, I was shocked and saddened. There’s an annual uproar over the number of horses injured and/or put down every Grand National, but no-one ever thinks of the children. Will no-one think of the children!?

Eventually, I was called through, and explained my problem to a nurse. She took notes, and then expelled me back into the waiting room.

We waited.

Some time later, I was called back through, and seen by an enthusiastic young doctor, no doubt tired of having to put down so many injured children and eager for a change.

“You’re an extremely interesting person Mr. Jones!”

“Oh. Um, thank you?”

“Could you explain how this all happened?”

I did so, giving all the facts hitherto related in the pages of this blog. I suppose I could have just told him to Google it, but that would have seemed rude.

He listened with interest, read the hospital discharge letter that I’d brought with me, and told me that he’d need to consult with his colleagues, once they’d finished euthanising the runner-up of the egg-and-spoon race.

Back into the waiting room to do some more of it.

Eventually I was summoned again, and the doctor said that he’d contacted the hospital down in London, and that they would have a bed available tomorrow. Until then, they would keep me here and transport me down themselves.

I was transferred to a holding area while they prepared a bed for me. Here a very smiley nurse offered me a sandwich. Having not eaten for quite a while, this sounded like a wonderful idea, so off she went.

I waited. Although since this was a holding area, not a waiting room, I suppose I held on. I continued holding. Neither Smiley Nurse nor my sandwich appeared. Eventually she re-emerged with both a sandwich and an apology. It seemed that in retrieving my sandwich from the fridge, she’d managed to pour boiling water over her hand. I’m not quite clear on the sequence of events that allowed this, but I was sympathetic and understanding.

Some more time passed, and I was informed that a bed was now free in one of the wards. A small nurse brought out a wheelchair to transport me there. I should point out that I didn’t feel especially ill or feeble; I just had a runny nose, and by this point a headache from sitting up for too long. I pointed out that I could walk, and she riposted by telling me that the ward was on the far side of the hospital. Thus defeated, I consented to sit in the chair.

The nurse, who was perhaps a good foot or so shorter than myself then had to wheel me down corridors, up ramps and into a lift while I sat there feeling increasingly awkward and embarrassed.

By the time we reached the ward it was pushing midnight. I was wheeled over to my bed and proceeded to change into my pyjamas and prepare for a night’s sleep. Initially at least, this plan was to be thwarted.

Most of the other inmates were older gentlemen. Two of them were currently engaged in a ferocious and strongly contested snoring competition, with neither side showing any signs of conceding defeat. Two other men, on opposite sides of the ward, were having a loud conversation on the many ways in which Jack Russells are better than women.

Eventually they tired of this topic, and seemed to go to sleep. The Competitive Snorers had also drawn their match to a close. Sadly, distracted by the Jack Russell Men, I hadn’t seen which one emerged victorious. After a while I too managed to drowse off.

The next day, two paramedics arrived to take me back down to London. This seemed like something of an overreaction, since I was still feeling fairly well. However, we had to wait quite a long time for the ward to sort out my honourable discharge, and while we waited, I told them about the Jack Russell Men. Both paramedics were women, and they found this rather amusing.

My papers were produced, and I was loaded onto a trolley and strapped in, in case I tried to escape. I was trundled through the hospital and found myself being loaded into an ambulance. I’d been expecting one of those minibus-style things that you see around occasionally, but this was a proper, fully-equipped emergency ambulance. I couldn’t help but feel immensely guilty. I’m sure I could have taken myself down to London. I was by no means fully recovered, but I was far better than when I’d endured the hellish journey home, and I was sure I could have managed the train journey. It seemed to me that I was fraudulently taking up an ambulance that would have been far better off being used to respond to actual medical emergencies.

Nonetheless, they proceeded to drive me all the way down to London, and then into London. A fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. On top of this, the ambulance’s satnav was neither the best nor the most up-to-date. As a result, the paramedic doing the driving was forced to use a certain amount of language. However, we eventually got there. I was unloaded and trundled through to my new ward where I began to prepare myself for another lengthy stay.

The next morning, the Food Lady (a different one to my previous incarceration) came around asking what we wanted for breakfast. Several of us jokingly requested a Full English.

“I’m sorry,” she replied seriously, “but that’s not available. The dietician has to specifically prescribe a fried breakfast.”

“And how much would it cost to bribe the dietician?” I asked.

“Oh no,” she responded earnestly. “You can’t bribe him.”

“So we’re not allowed a fried breakfast without a prescription?”

“No.”

“I see. I’ll just have toast then please.”

“And what would you like for lunch?”

“I’ll have the all-day breakfast please.”

“Ok.”

To be continued...