Hospital Day 13

This is the small garden outside my window. If you look at the photos I posted yesterday you can see where it is. The building next to it seems to be an administration building, just two floors high. In the daytime I see people working at their computers, and at the weekend the offices are shut.

Last night I slept about three hours; from 2 am to 4 am and 5:30 am to 6:30 am. As was to be expected, I felt shattered when the nurses on the morning shift woke me for me medication and my daily tests. I tried to get back to sleep when they'd gone, but I had no chance. I was still coughing, though less than yesterday.

Shortly after 10 am I was visited by a doctor I hadn't seen before. He told me that yesterday's bronchoscopy had shown no bacteria in my lungs, so they now assume it was a viral infection. He also said that my infection has been improving for the last two days. I was also tested for HIV, which I only found out today, and I'm negative. That's one more trouble off my mind.

He told me I'm having another CT Scan tomorrow, and based on the result I can go home on Friday. I have mixed feelings. I'm desperate to get home, but only if it's certain that I'm well. I'm still coughing an unnatural amount. The worst that could happen is that I'm sent home on Friday and have to come back into hospital two months later. I have a lot of questions to ask the doctors before I'm discharged.

I'll have to be patient with my eyes, which are still sore. Yesterday I was diagnosed with blepharitis. The ophthalmologist at the Katharinen-Krankenhaus told me what I had to do, but she didn't say how long I needed to do it. This morning I was talking online to my good friend Rose Wright from England. She told me it will take four to five months for my eyes to heal. The best I can do is use eye drops to relieve the symptoms. That's a long time, but I can deal with it.

So was my Day 13 in hospital lucky or unlucky? I'm undecided. The next two days will be the important ones.