My Journey as a Patient through the Intensive Care Unit at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda
Our Lady Of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda
My Journey as a Patient through the Intensive Care Unit at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda
On the morning of the 8th April 2013 I awoke sometime around dawn at my home in Duleek Co Meath which I share with my wife of many years. ( 30 to be exact ).
There happens to be a small en-suite off our bedroom, which I went to avail of and use the loo there. I felt just a little bit more unsteady on my feet than normal and couldn’t help but fall to my knees at the sink area. I thought at first I was after having some sort of turn, perhaps a stroke or the like. I crawled back to the bed with just the strength of my arms and awoke my wife Maria to tell of my plight. Words were exchanged and I scrawling around on the floor. To cut a long story short, an ambulance was summoned and in due course arrived. In the meantime I had gotten dressed with the help of my wife.
The paramedics discussed and checked me over. We all agreed that perhaps there was a nerve being squeezed between vertebrae in my back and this was subsequently causing paralysis in my lower legs. I had suffered with chronic back and leg pain over the years, and I guessed perhaps it was now coming to a head. My younger years were spent at farm work. That’s how it was back in the seventies and into the eighties. Ireland hadn’t yet heard of health and safety. Young teenage lads worked alongside adult men in order to save the harvest of whatever crop was due for collecting, whether it was hay, vegetables, including potatoes and of course corn which was still being bagged to be carried up to lofts, in our locality anyway and especially on the smaller farms. Sorry – I’m going off in a tangent. Stop!
Anyway, I arrived by ambulance at the hospital to the accident and emergency section. In a short time I was met and examined by doctors who, like myself, seemed a little puzzled at my condition. My wife Maria was present with me through all this. Eventually a young Irish doctor shared his thoughts with us and uttered the words: Guillian-Barré Syndrome. What the hell is that, I thought to myself? The doctor described what it was but informed us of the need to do a lumbar puncture, amongst other things, to confirm for sure that’s what I had. This was the start of my journey through hell – though I didn’t know it at the time.
A lumbar puncture was required and was attempted in the ward of A&E. After two attempts and excruciating pain, even with a local anaesthetic, they failed. A young man, whose main function was as anaesthetist, came on the scene. He took me into the operating theatre and performed the procedure without any fuss, with little or no pain, to my relief. I remember my leg jumping up off the table and I smiling at the idea of same. He must have hit the nerve that controlled it. It’s amazing what sticks in the mind.
Then there was a lady nurse, first name Caroline, who came on the scene. There would be many women of that first name on my journey. She had a voice like a songbird, God bless her, and would occasionally burst into the line of a song. She thought perhaps to distract from the very uncomfortable test she had to do on me…my throat to be exact. Well, she got way far down there with equipment designed for the purpose, and I think sang out loud that I had a viral infection. All gummed up I was. This was the cause of my problem, had triggered the Guillian-Barré Syndrome.
This illness is most basically described as follows. The immune system of the body attacks the nerves going to and controlling the muscles. Instead of the signal from the brain telling the muscle to move, it goes to the outer skin where it feels like pins and needles or severe nettle stings, all the while happening. The illness starts at the toes and feet, moves up the lower legs and sometimes reaches the neck area, even the face and eyelids can be affected. All bodily functions are knocked out as it comes up the body, bowel, bladder and the lungs can also be affected.
There was also an MRI scan carried out, which most people know about. The patient is placed on a rolling table-like affair, then pushed into a very restricted tunnel area, claustrophobic like. Not everyone can cope with this. I managed, though the half-hour or so in there felt like a week, and the banging sound of the magnets or whatever can be clearly heard even through the ear muffs provided carrying supposedly soothing music. Anyway, GBS was confirmed, and it along with the viral infection was confronted by the medical team. The first intravenous needle was put in place to feed the necessary drugs into my body.
At this stage I had better tell you of my life up to now, as regards hospitals and the medical profession in general. I had never been, from the time I was born obviously, been admitted as an overnight patient into any hospital. I was treated in the past for a broken arm in the A&E section as an out- patient, all of forty years previous when I was just in my teenage youth. I don’t mind being examined by doctors of either gender. I had already been for various reasons during my fifty plus years on this earth. I had medicals done for work and inoculations for several illnesses. Here I was now confined to the bed, having to use urinal bottles and bed pans to take the waste away from my body.
This was bad enough but there was worse to come. Over the course of about a week the paralysis came right up my body until it reached my neck. To take the place of eating food, a feed tube was inserted up my nose and down into my stomach. This was most uncomfortable having this fitted. By now the muscles to work the lungs had started to weaken and fail. I was now in the Intensive Care Unit.
Anthony Mullen 