Sunday, May 11, 2014

Confined spaces

Today my sister was scheduled to fly back to her workplace after 10 days of R & R.

But.

Drastic change of plans.

Because you see she was hospitalised for 5 days at St. Luke's Hospital, in their QC branch.

Flashback - She arrived early morning of Labor Day, May 1, 2014. But by that time frame, she had been battling a severe case of gastroenteritis for five days already. Painful abdominal spasms, vomiting, unable to keep her food down, and she also had nightly high grade fevers.

When she arrived at the airport, she was so pale and exhausted from the flight but was so happy to be home with us, her family.

During the weekend, she got worse with her fever reaching 40 degrees, she had chills and was in so much unbearable pain.

So on May 5, Monday morning we rushed her to the hospital. Her doctor deemed it necessary to confine her and keep her under close monitoring. 

She spent a total of 4 nights and 5 days with several antibiotics fed to her intravenously. Her fever was on and off and I spent every waking hour of those days attending to her every need as she was too weak to fend for herself.

One night, I got the scare of my life as the nurse came in to take her temperature. Her body temperature had dropped to 35 degrees!!! She experienced hypothermia and was literally freezing!

I wrapped her under two blankets, lowered the aircon unit and kept rubbing her all over as she began shivering violently. All this time, I kept talking to her and told her to stay awake!  I was fearful that she might fall asleep, lose consciousness and not wake up. I really panicked but managed to stay calm and focused on getting her body temp back to normal.

Thankfully it did ... after an hour!

Well after her confinement, the doctors found out that aside from the abdominal flu, she has several cysts in her uterus and also a few myomas had developed again despite the fact that she had them removed in 2011 in Singapore. 

She might need another major operation to address this issue which is now causing her to bleed beyond the normal days of the monthly period.

She is resting now, still very weak and has to return to the hospital on May 19 and 20 for further tests and consultations.

Although she is having all these health issues I am glad she was able to make it home and is recuperating here so we can take care of her.

I am also grateful that her boss is considerate enough to extend her leave and is giving her all the time she needs to make a full recovery here or until the time the doctors deem it is ok for her to travel.

The road for her full recovery is still a long way to go and it worries me that there is a possibility that the cysts might be malignant.

But I want to stay on the positive path and keep praying with all my might for some good news to emerge from this latest health crisis my poor sister has to endure.

4 comments:

Kayni said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. I will keep her in my thoughts and prayers. Be positive and it's a good thing her support system is there. Please give her my love and tell her to stay strong.

D@phneL@ur@ said...

Thanks Kayni.

witsandnuts said...

I'm praying for her recovery. You both take care!

D@phneL@ur@ said...

Thanks Jo!