Pneumonia Treatment, Ward Experience and Ear Infection (Part 3)
After spending the night in A+E, I got woken up bright and early with an ambulance crew. I hadn't been told but they were transferring me to another hospital who were apparently more specialist for respiratory care. I was still on 1L of oxygen and my chest still felt tight, but nowhere near as bad as it was. The second we got to the ward, it was a Respiratory Assessment Unit, they turned the oxygen up to 3L because my saturations had been consistently 92-93% and I still had a very high heart rate and respiration rate. I was absolutely shattered because I'd been awake all night, so just wanted to sleep but they kept doing my observations hourly throughout the day.
Towards the end of the day, I was then moved to another ward. It wasn't great as they were over capacity so I ended up sharing a bedspace with another woman, which then meant my oxygen cable didn't reach and kept coming undone, it also went over her head, there was no call buzzer and the curtains couldn't be drawn around the bed. There were a lot of elderly people needing additional care and screaming throughout, so it was quite a difficult situation, and I will be making a formal complaint going forward because I was very disappointed in the care received, especially turning my oxygen from 3L to 0L and not listening to me when I said I was struggling.
I stayed on that ward for about 24 hours before being moved to yet another ward, but this one was much nicer. It was almost a private hospital within the NHS hospital and I had my own room with a bathroom, lounge area and kitchen. I shared more about this experience in the vlog as I could then talk more openly and of course, I started to feel better. Importantly, when I arrived, they could see I was struggling to breathe again and turned my oxygen from the 1L it had been on all afternoon, to 2L and then an hour later to 3L as my saturations were still low.
I'd been started on 2 IV antibiotics overnight in A+E, with co-amoxiclav and amoxicillin given 8 hourly for 36 hours. They said because I was improving they could then switch to oral antibiotics, but they never did further bloods during that period. I was also on clarithromycin orally for the duration. Apparently the IV version is much more painful and the effectiveness of each administration is similar.
After the IVs finished, I continued on antibiotics for 7 days: amoxicillin 1g three times a day, co-amoxiclav 500mg/125mg three times a day and clarithromycin 500mg twice a day. I'd also already been on amoxicillin 500mg, three times a day, for 4 days prior. They also did a 5 day course of prednisolone, a corticosteroid. They tasted absolutely horrible and would make me gag. I literally had to have 8 tablets to total 40mg a day, and it took over a litre of water for me to try and take them.
I also had to repeatedly ask for my ear spray for my double infection. It was originally prescribed on Sunday evening in A+E and I didn't end up getting it until Thursday evening at 6pm. Once I had it, it worked wonders. I got "dexamethasone neomycin sulfate acetic acid ear spray" and within 2 days, my hearing had come back. They prescribed it for 5 days, three times a day so I still finished the course but it made such a difference to my wellbeing and mobility to be able to hear again. I felt they were fully recovered by day 4.
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