Hospital Day 7

Day 7 already? Where has that come from? Today's my seventh day in Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus in Stuttgart. Let's catch up on what's been happening to me for the last week.

In my post last Tuesday I first mentioned that I was feeling sick. But that isn't where the story starts. I have to go back to Saturday 9th April, 12 days ago. I was feeling unwell after returning home from the film festival. On Sunday morning I seriously considered staying at home, but you know me. I like my films. I survived the three films on Sunday, but I was feeling even worse afterwards, so I called my doctor. She told me to take a Corona test, and the result was negative.

I went to the doctor again. She tapped all around my upper body for ages, before finally saying I had a lung infection. I don't know how she can tell that just from touching me, but that's why she's a doctor and I'm not. She told me to let myself be X-Rayed, which was possible at short notice at a medical centre in Stuttgart. I came home in the evening, sat down to relax, and there was a knock on my door. It was my doctor. She'd already received my X-Rays, and my infection was worse than she thought. She told me to admit myself into hospital as soon as possible. She told me to go to the Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus in Stuttgart. It wouldn't have been my first choice, because there are two closer hospitals, but she said they have lung specialists.

It was late, so I stayed one night at home. Possibly a mistake, but I wanted to settle a few things first. The next day I took a taxi to the hospital in the early afternoon. I spent hours sitting in waiting rooms and seeing various doctors and nurses. They all asked me the same questions about how I felt and why I'd gone to hospital. It was frustrating. I thought they were going to send me back home. Finally I had a CT scan. After an hour's wait a doctor came to me and said, "Mr. Hood, you have a lung infection". Hooray! They'd finally caught up with my family doctor and her fingers! I was put in a bed and rolled to a ward. For anyone who's interested, it's Station 1B, Room 9.

My symptoms:

I had painfully sore eyes. It annoyed me (and still does) that this wasn't taken seriously by the doctors.  They kept asking me if I have an allergy to pollen. I insisted that I don't.

I coughed a lot. Not just normal coughing. I had long bouts of non-stop coughing.

While laying in bed I had feverish waking dreams. Sometimes when a sister asked me something I didn't know who I was talking to.

I feel so weak, utterly feeble.

I lost my appetite and my hunger. There's a subtle difference between the two. The first two days I ate nothing. The sisters (one in particular) complained at me and told me to make an effort to eat. Snce then I've been doing my best to eat at least half my meals. I've learnt to swallow without being hungry, but there are certain things I can't manage. Bread disgusts me. I can't eat rice. I can only manage meat in small doses. It's not that I've lost my taste. Things taste the same, but I don't like them any more. I've got used to eating a bowl of semolina twice a day. That's become my favourite meal, but if they forgot to bring my breakfast I wouldn't care.

I assumed I was getting better. My fever dropped, and I was coughing less. Then yesterday a doctor came to me and said, "Mr. Hood, your infection is getting worse. We need to give you stronger antibiotics. We'll wait a week to see if you improve".

What! Yet another week? After that I was lying crying in my bed. But I decided to pull myself together. Yesterday I got out of bed and put on my clothes for the first time. I wasn't strong enough to stay out of bed for long, but it was a start.

And today I decided to  return to my blog. That's therapeutic in itself, even though my sore eyes are making it difficult to type.

There's more I wanted to write today, but I'll put it off until tomorrow. At least you know I'm still alive. Suffering, but alive.