I have been awake since 0430 today. Lying flat is making me short of breath so there was only one more thing left to do. I trotted downstairs and started to inhale steam/Vicks. I hate being short of breath, it reminds me of a number of patients who become short of breath - you sit there hour after hour trying to improve them. One of the tricks with pneumonia in hospital is to use warm saline nebulisers. At home, this technique has to be mimicked by a bowl of hot water and Vicks. Loosening phlegm is vital in the management of any chest infection. The other issue is to nurse the patient sitting up - using a number of pillows. In hospital, this is easy because hospital beds have a pillow support.
Lying flat more often then not causes further shortness of breath in people with heart failure and or infections. In NHS hospitals, you will often find that the demise of patients is related to the fact that nurses have not nursed them with their pillows raised/and or sitting up. At home, people can purchase the bed wedge pillow which is immensely useful. The last issue to loosen phlegm in chest infections/pneumonia is to keep up the good fluid intake. Dehydration causes further sticky phlegm and prolongs infection.
And so matters improved for me - but for only 2 hours At 0800, I was back under the towel and bowl of hot water, this time things improved even more. The tissue mountain grew and was flushed down the toilet. The good news is that the wheezing has now gone down to brief crackles through the chest. Exhaustion though is setting in gradually. I need to sleep more than 8 hours and it hasn't happened for a while.
This was my predicament, I didn't want swine flu to be left on surfaces etc for the rest of the relatives to catch. Finally, I found some anti bacterial wipes - not that they will do any good but I have to do what I can as a responsible person with a infectious virus. The Swine flu has now made by cells its host. It has made itself comfortable and has put its spindle feet up. If anyone has done virology they will know that all viruses are wicked selfish creatures. Anyone who wants to read about bugs should consider buying a book called Medical Microbiology by Playfair. I was taught by Playfair at medical school and he is an immensely entertaining writer and lecturer. He makes bacteria and viruses fascinating.
Today, I had to get some air from the outside world so I sat in the garden while dawn broke. The sun and the morning is a beautiful thing to observe when you are feeling so darned ill. It is the kind of thing you appreciate when you come out of a court room filled with vipers and you have to hang onto the fact that actually the world is beautiful and everything else that society creates is largely irrelevant.
My greatest pleasure in life these days is my daily Activa pot of yoghurt. Activa and antibiotics go together because according to a GP friend of mine, it prevents diarrhoea. I prefer strawberry of course and am quite happy to wolf down a number of tubs. I haven't had any side-effects to antibiotics. One thing is for sure, I really do not like being a semi detached home for the Swine Flu virus. It is now becoming an uninvited guest and I would like it to leave. In retrospect, perhaps Tamiflu would have been a good idea. At least I would have felt I had done everything to protect myself. Then again, knowing me I probably would have had some severe reaction to it. Yesterday, I hear a man attended hospital because it caused jaundice.
And would I have had the Swine Flu vaccine? Given the severity of this illness, yes. I will probably recover from this chest infection/pneumonia but some elderly folk/vulnerable people would have died. I think you have to have quite high level stamina to deal with this virus. The virus as advertised is crippling.
My next project is to study Aloe Vera - some tell me that it is good for the immune system. See video below. I haven't made my mind up yet whether I should add it to my regime this week. I have given up on mastering the duvet issue because I neither have the strength or the mental power to concentrate on this.
Lying flat more often then not causes further shortness of breath in people with heart failure and or infections. In NHS hospitals, you will often find that the demise of patients is related to the fact that nurses have not nursed them with their pillows raised/and or sitting up. At home, people can purchase the bed wedge pillow which is immensely useful. The last issue to loosen phlegm in chest infections/pneumonia is to keep up the good fluid intake. Dehydration causes further sticky phlegm and prolongs infection.
And so matters improved for me - but for only 2 hours At 0800, I was back under the towel and bowl of hot water, this time things improved even more. The tissue mountain grew and was flushed down the toilet. The good news is that the wheezing has now gone down to brief crackles through the chest. Exhaustion though is setting in gradually. I need to sleep more than 8 hours and it hasn't happened for a while.
This was my predicament, I didn't want swine flu to be left on surfaces etc for the rest of the relatives to catch. Finally, I found some anti bacterial wipes - not that they will do any good but I have to do what I can as a responsible person with a infectious virus. The Swine flu has now made by cells its host. It has made itself comfortable and has put its spindle feet up. If anyone has done virology they will know that all viruses are wicked selfish creatures. Anyone who wants to read about bugs should consider buying a book called Medical Microbiology by Playfair. I was taught by Playfair at medical school and he is an immensely entertaining writer and lecturer. He makes bacteria and viruses fascinating.
Today, I had to get some air from the outside world so I sat in the garden while dawn broke. The sun and the morning is a beautiful thing to observe when you are feeling so darned ill. It is the kind of thing you appreciate when you come out of a court room filled with vipers and you have to hang onto the fact that actually the world is beautiful and everything else that society creates is largely irrelevant.
My greatest pleasure in life these days is my daily Activa pot of yoghurt. Activa and antibiotics go together because according to a GP friend of mine, it prevents diarrhoea. I prefer strawberry of course and am quite happy to wolf down a number of tubs. I haven't had any side-effects to antibiotics. One thing is for sure, I really do not like being a semi detached home for the Swine Flu virus. It is now becoming an uninvited guest and I would like it to leave. In retrospect, perhaps Tamiflu would have been a good idea. At least I would have felt I had done everything to protect myself. Then again, knowing me I probably would have had some severe reaction to it. Yesterday, I hear a man attended hospital because it caused jaundice.
And would I have had the Swine Flu vaccine? Given the severity of this illness, yes. I will probably recover from this chest infection/pneumonia but some elderly folk/vulnerable people would have died. I think you have to have quite high level stamina to deal with this virus. The virus as advertised is crippling.
My next project is to study Aloe Vera - some tell me that it is good for the immune system. See video below. I haven't made my mind up yet whether I should add it to my regime this week. I have given up on mastering the duvet issue because I neither have the strength or the mental power to concentrate on this.
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