Hospital appointment

Life is messy, right now it feels messier than it normally is. Tuesday the 17th of Nov (yesterday), I had an appointment at Aleris Hamlet in Søborg. It’s a private hospital located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The orthopedic surgeon I had an appointment with, had to examine my knee that I dislocated a little over a month ago. Denmark got this 30 day rule, to make sure the patients are seen to and helped in the health system before the 30th day. If that cannot be done, you are as a danish citizen in your right to go to a private hospital, on the country’s dime so to say. I really like that we get this sort of treatment, it’s important to have that kind of safety net to rely on. I’m very fortunate and I know that.

The appointment went as I had feared really, I got told that my kneecap is very loose, it’s so loose that I can dislocate it up to a 40 degree angle, which means that I need surgery. I honestly knew that I would need surgery deep down, but it still got to me and it still messed up all my plans for the future, which we will have to postpone until I have had my surgery and have recovered.

I don’t know which type of knee surgery I need yet, there’s a few to choose from, and they need me to get an MRI-scan / Magnetic Resonance Imaging, I got warned that there’s a waiting list, the max amount of time is two weeks though, so I’ll manage I hope..

The orthopedic surgeon told me, that it was highly possible that I would need a bone realignment – also called a Fulkerson Procedure. I’ve read up on the procedure and there’s several different types. But this procedure is by far the most complicated and the one with the longest rehabilitation period, which really scares me shitless to be honest. It’s a messy procedure and the bone needs a long time to heal. The knee can get very stiff and the tendons surrounding the knee could also tighten due to no movement in a long period of time, which will requires a lot of physiotherapy.

I know if I won’t get it fixed, it will lead to early onset arthritis, due to being dislocated again and again. It’s my second time to dislocate my kneecap, because it’s the second time, I need an operation to stabilize my kneecap in the future, but the MRI-scan will show which type I will need.

Walking out of the surgeons office, I felt like crying. I’m anxious to be honest, knees are so fragile and I don’t want to even think about the complications such a surgery have, if something were to go badly.

I’m in a lot of pain right now, I’m currently lying in bed, trying to get some rest, but I can’t seem to. At the hospital, the surgeon needed to move my kneecap whilst I had it bent, so he could determine how loose it was and in which angle it could possibly dislocate and that hurt… It still hurts. I know It’s stupid to get so worked up about an operation, but in all honesty, I’ve never had an operation before and I hate that I need one now. Especially on my knee, I can hardly stand my fiancé even trying to touch my knees due to having my right kneecap dislocate twice.. So the thought of an operation isn’t fun, to put it mildly.

The pain from dislocating the kneecap alone is.. Indescribable! The first time it happened, I ended up going into myself, in a type of shock. The only thing I really remember is being in so much pain that my lips felt numb. After that you start feeling fragile in a whole new type of way! It’s crazy..

So the news I got yesterday weren’t nice, it was what I had expected, but it still made me upset. I hope that I won’t need to wait for several months for the surgery, that would really mess me up, the anguish of waiting a long time.. But I’ll take it one day at a time, now I need the MRI and then the orthopedic surgeon will decide which type of surgery is needed.

I hope you guys are staying safe during this COVID19 pandemic and are healthy and keeping your spirits up. It gets stressful during times like these, one bad thing rarely happens without several other bad things following suit.. It’s said it always comes in threes, but I have personally long surpassed three, I’m on my second hand, and I’m still counting.. The year isn’t over yet! Yep, 2020 haven’t been the amazing year that I had hoped for, there’s been so much pain, loss and worry, but behind every cloud, there’s the sun. Hopefully we all get to feel some sunshine and happiness soon.

I’ll see you online, take care x

Life lately

I think I might have neglected my blog a bit.. Or actually quite a lot.

I guess this blog is more a diary than a famous blog, where everyone comments or likes what I write, or buy what I blog about, in the end, I don’t blog for followers, likes or comments – I blog for myself, so I can look back on all the written pages one day and say I might have grown, evolved or learned something in life, that’s worth being proud of. Us humans, we love evolving, acquiring new skill sets and setting new goals, and I guess this is what I use my blog for mostly, keeping track of my goals and how I have evolved, that’s what I love about blogging, I can always go back, and find fond memories, or lessons I learned, I love that.

Alas, I have been neglecting my blog, but it’s due to life and studies – so I guess in some way I’m excused?

The other evening, (Late Sunday evening the 5th of Nov), I got spooked, reminded of my own mortality in a way, that I guess most people would very much hate. I treat citizens every day, with severe illnesses, but to all of a sudden be in need of treatment and care myself, that was truly nerve wrecking beyond belief.

It started with my better half, wanting to get our home in tip top shape, so we decided to throw old stuff away, and I guess I should have been more careful, since I’ve now been tested and I know I’m allergic to dust and dust mites, but I wasn’t. How young and naive, but very true, I’m 29, not 89 for gods sakes, I’m invincible – untouchable, or so I thought.. After several days of throwing old dusty stuff away, I fell ill with a throat infection, that I then got antibiotics for, but I kept on going – typical me really.

I loved the whole idea of throwing things out we didn’t need and sorting things out and finding new ways to place furniture, but then my nose started acting up, it was itching, I was sneezing all the time and it would run constantly, it was living hell! Everyone with allergies, that sneeze when allergic, they know what I say by “it tires you out”, cause sneezing every five to ten minutes, believe it or not, it makes you worn.. But again, I thought I was just fine, that it was a side effect to my throat infection – which I was on antibiotics for.

As the Sunday passed, my better half had dusted and cleaned out the entire bedroom, how great is he?! I had retired and found myself a bit poorly, more than I should have been when I was a few days in to my antibiotics treatment.

We decided at about 23:30 to go to bed, when I went to lie down, my breathing became very troubled, at first I just shrugged it off, until my better half told me to ring a doctor (the simple number 1813 in Denmark), it’s basically lifesavers in scrubs! Awake at all times and there to take your call, no matter how dumb your question about your health is. Thank god for them!

I waited about 5 min, then talked to a nurse, who decided that I needed to be patched through to a doctor, and he found that it would be worth a trip to the emergency room – so I went, but not totally convinced that I had to.. I still thought it might just be nothing! But my fiancé – bless him, kept saying I should go, so I went, and told them the entire thing.

I got seen to quite fast, which is rare, cause an emergency room is always busy, always someone who has it worse than you, but I guess not this time..

They took my peak flow (my exhaling breath capacity basically), it was 150 at tops, its normally 300 – 400 ish – still I thought it was nothing. My breathing (kinda since I had tried to lie down and sleep) was so bad and I sounded like an old kettle trying to boil, they took my blood pressure, and they saw i was clearly hyperventilating to catch my breath.

In the end they decided to commit me to the emergency room – and I just kept saying I was fine, I think more to myself than to them, cause I couldn’t be ill, it just won’t do!

It finally dawned on me, how bad it was, when I was lying in a hospital bed, getting treatment through an IV. Antihistamine straight into my bloodstream. And to make matters worse, I got a mask to help me breathe, with a drug to dilate my lungs and make room for the air, and make the kettle sounds stop.

Everything went so fast, I remember telling the nurse – like a numpty – that I didn’t need anything IV, I was fine, but she didn’t listen, bless her! I could have gone home from there, still feeling horrible, not having had the treatment my body needed.

I got the IV done, that was scary thing in itself, cause I’m always the one holding the needle, not the one getting the pointy end of it… I must say, she did an awesome job, no bruises, swelling or blood, and in no time, she was back with vials of antihistamine and adrenal cortex hormone, (I had to look that up, hope it’s spelled right? It’s the word in Danish for “binyrebarkhormon”) I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t listened to my fiancé or stayed at the hospital that night, but they said that they wanted to keep me for minimum 6 hours for observation, which I decided was necessary, since I obviously didn’t know my allergies that well to evaluate on them myself. I stayed that night, on my own, in a hospital room with two other patients (We did have privacy though!)

The side effects of the mask, the adrenal cortex hormone and the antihistamines made me feel loopy, in a constant haze and I had quite a bit of heart throbbing, so due to that, I got almost no sleep, and the sleep I got, was with me waking up, not knowing where I was, due to drugs and just me being tired.

When I got released from the hospital, I was so worn and still very loopy, like I’d been out drinking all night. I decided that morning to pay my doctor a visit, so I got an hour of sleep, which was constantly interrupted by me waking up, not knowing where I was – awesome..

My doctor decided that I needed to rule out asthma, as my sister has asthma, and it could very well be that I had that too, which would make my allergies more severe and hard to get through. Wednesday I will go through an asthma test, and I need to make an appointment with a specialist in lungs, allergies and asthma, my doctor said that he was the best of the best, so I’m expecting good results. He also took a look at my current antihistamines, and said to throw them out, they wouldn’t work what so ever, and then he prescribed me 180 mg ones instead, it sounds like an awful lot.. But if it works, then I’m happy!

All in all, my health has been dropping severely this past week(s), and I have learned to listen more to my body and what it’s trying to tell me. Being young(ish) doesn’t mean that your immortal. I just need rest now, cause on day three (Tuesday), I just feel worn out, a feeling I never had before.

Thanks for reading along, those of you who got through this wall of text.

Now it’s just a waiting game, a game I’m quite bad at to be honest!

One single advice from me, that I’ve learned the hard way, would be, if you feel off, it’s probably because something’s wrong! Listen to your body for gods sakes! Don’t listen to people who says it’s probably nothing, they aren’t you, they can’t feel what you feel. Be persistent, in the end that gets results.

See you online x