Homesick for the hospital and thanks to the nurses on ward 10!! You were ace!

Im finally out of hospital, but heres whats happened since Thursday...

PS No photos today  -maybe later in the week......

Late on Thursday night after watching telly I tried to get some sleep, but knowing that the nurses were coming round at about 1.30am to check my vitals, I couldn’t get settled. After they had been it still took me a while to sleep and I was still awake when I looked at the clock just before 3am.

Then all of a sudden it was 6am and I was being woken for my checks again! Then in the next 2 hours – my blood was taken, breakfast brought in, I ordered my meals for the day, and was asked if I wanted sheet changing as well as the cleaners coming around and the woman bringing me fresh drinking water. I don’t know why they cant do it all in one go instead of every 10 minutes over a 2 hour period. Then when I was wide awake, they all left me for 2 hours!!

Eventually about 9am the Dr came back to tell me that I had had a fever earlier this morning (I don’t remember) and that my blood tests showed that my liver stats are still high, but are dropping. This is good news but not as good as I had hoped and it was made worse by the fact that the Dr wants me to stay in again today and wait for the specialist Dr to visit this evening and then let me know if I can leave hospital or if I have to stay a few more days. In all honesty, I know I’m not 100% better, but I feel miles better than last week and want to get out there again and see something other than this hospital room.

I waited all afternoon and into the evening and the other Dr never turned up. During one of my vitals checks I asked the nurse about the Dr's visit and she said that she wouldn’t be here tonight, but may visit in the morning. I ended up getting my head down for some sleep at about 10pm and after being woken at 1.30am for the usual Blood pressure, oxygen and temperature checks, I spent the next couple of hours watching the legendary Paul Scholes in his testimonial match against the New York Cosmos. It was a great match made even better with a screamer by Scholsey in the first 10 minutes or so. I got back to sleep and after being woken the usual 5-6 times between 6 and 8 am, the usual Dr, not the specialist turned up just after 8am. He had the result of another test – this one was actually positive - for a virus called – Cytomegalovirus (CMV) which is not actually a tropical disease, but a virus that can affect the liver. The Dr tells me that I can leave hospital, finally, today, but that I must get another check on my liver stats in the next couple of weeks. We are planning on travelling to Laos and then onto Cambodia for a day or two before hitting Hanoi, in Vietnam. My plan plan is to keep taking the oral prescription that the Dr is going to give me and then try to get a liver test done when we reach Vietnam.

For now though, I am waiting in my Hospital room, - room 1008, for the nurses to come in and remove the cannula from my arm. Then I will have a shower and get changed back into my 'civvies clothes' and say a big thank you to the nurses of ward 10, before heading back to the hotel, here in Chiang Mai. I’m going to rest for the rest of the weekend, watch the Charity shield tomorrow night and then hopefully on Monday we will pack our stuff and start the adventure all over again. I have been in a Thai hospital for almost exactly a week – I was admitted at 11.56am last Saturday. It has been a long, but restful week and to be honest, apart from feeling like shite for the first 3-4 days I have enjoyed it immensely. The nurses have been a laugh and always smiling – even when they asked me for the millionth time, 'how much you pee pee' and I answered '800 times!!'.

The bed has been comfortable, the food wasn’t bad – (apart from not getting enough sometimes, but Nikki helped out there with plenty of chocolate and ice creams!) the internet worked and the air-con has kept me cool. I'm actually a little wary to be leaving as I know that my liver stats are not back to normal, but at least they are going the right way. This place has become like a little home from home. So I will miss it. I just hope that next time I am in a hospital I get good news about my liver.

I’m now sitting in a nice little Café with Nikki, having left Hospital a couple of hours ago. I have had a burger for dinner, but unfortunately, as with most food at the moment, I couldn’t really taste it. We are waiting on word from the Insurance people as to whether they will pay for my hospital stay (There shouldn’t be any problem) but until we hear we are stuck here (My passport has been left with the hospital as a deposit, until I either pay or the insurance does)

I have just had a good chat with Nikki and she has explained a lot more about what they say I have and how it works, so for all you that are interested, here is what she says:-

'Of all the tests that Rick had in hospital, the only one that came back positive was something called CMV IgM. This stands for cytomegalovirus immunoglobulin type M. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a virus which is very common and 50-80% of normal adults in the UK and the rest of the world have it. In most people, it doesn't cause any symptoms or illness when they first come into contact with it and the majority of people who have it will be none the wiser. It is in the same family of viruses as the virus which causes glandular fever. Of the few people who do get symptoms when they first come into contact with the virus, it can be an illness very much like glandular fever (otherwise known as mononucleosis). CMV can also cause inflammation of the liver (known as hepatitis) which can cause the liver function blood tests to be abnormal. Rick has had both of these things. It does not usually cause any major problems in otherwise healthy people and people who do have symptoms from it are expected to recover completely. Like glandular fever, after someone has had CMV momonucleosis, they can feel tired and under the weather for a while after, up to months. Once some one has CMV, it does not go away and will always be present in their body but is kept under control by their own immune system and unlikely to cause any problems in the future.'

Cheers Nikki.

So that’s that for now. I’m gonna wait for the insurance and then get my passport and head off to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, stopping probably in Hanoi for the required blood tests in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I will get less tired and start enjoying it all again.......