The Week From Hell

As I sit at home on Saturday afternoon, with Sooty purring on my lap, and Snowball grooming my leg from under the table, the traumatic memories of the past week slowly start to fade.  Certain moments really have been traumatic, some even more so for my wonderful Matt, who didn't leave my side in the hospital.  

Last Sunday, I collapsed after getting out of the shower, with a nose bleed.  Our neighbours rushed to help, and call an ambulance, and one even came in the ambulance to the hospital with us.  I don't remember any of this; just getting onto my bed in my hospital room, and being told that i'd broken my nose, had a deviated septum and had a hairline fracture on my orbital bone (my eye socket),from where I hit the wall as I passed out.

I spent the next few days having all sorts of tests, and all brain and heart tests have come back clear.  so the doctors are just calling it an unexplained episode.  They see no reason why it should happen again.  Could be stress/hormone/too hot shower related/anything really.  It's great that the tests are all clear.  Unfortunately, because of my nose I had to have surgery on Wednesday.  Coming out of general anesthetic is probably the scariest thing I have ever experienced.  My brain woke up straight away, but my body took a while longer, so the doctors kept asking me questions, that I physically couldn't answer.  I couldn't seem to move either.  It was really horrible.

Then I had a day of panic attacks because I couldn't breathe properly, so I got some happy pills, which was pretty nice.  On Friday, they took out my nose 'balloons', which was very quick, but simply awful.

On the plus side, i'm pretty sure that i'm not scared of needles or blood anymore!

Our medical care here is really great.  I was on the international ward, so every nurse and doctor spoke perfect English.  The nurses were all lovely and really looked after me well.  In total, i've had nearly £13,000 worth of medical care!

I came home yesterday and Luke arrived yesterday too.  Our wonderful friends had cleaned the flat of blood, which i'd say was going above and beyond the normal conventions of friendship!  There is a dent in the wall that looks suspiciously like two teeth marks, which may explain why my two front teeth are still painful a week later.

So, I now have 6 lots of medicine to take every day, and have to go back in on Thursday to have my nose stitches removed, which I'm sure will be awful.  I'm on the mend though. I just feel like I have a really bad cold now, plus two black eyes.

Matt went to the pub last night with Luke and a few friends and Becky came over to babysit me.  Now, the cats are looking after me, while Matt and Luke have gone out for a few hours of sightseeing.  It's quite nice to be on my own for the first time in a week.

Anyway, i'm trying to slowly move on from my traumatic experience.  I'm signed off all of next week too, but have plenty of visitors lined up.  Everyone at work has been lovely; sending flowers, fruit, messages and love.  It really makes you realise how good our friends are here in China. We are very lucky indeed.

Anyway, here are some photos of me looking awful.  The bottom one was taken today, and apart from the slightly swollen nose, and very yellow eye, I look nearly back to normal!