Madness. It's all madness. 48 hours of mayhem. Cups of tea at the ready, you're all in for an epic one...

Sooo, on Saturday I went to watch a political film with my friend David. During that film my side started hurting about a 6/10 but I thought it was just my body's way of saying "Constanze, it's one thing making us sit through boring films about elections, but this amount of sugar is illegal in most countries" and ignored it. I don't have e.coli. Then Sunday, Monday and Tuesday went by with the pain staying at around a 6.5/10. I knew I had e.coli again, but I thought I'd better wait a couple of days before hassling the hospital because no one likes a hypochondriac. Wednesday appears, I decide to do some Christmas shopping at the Sheffield Christmas market. All of a sudden the pain in my side goes from a 6/10 to a 10/10, ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Constanze can barely walk and wants to scream and moan a bit and has to hide in McDonalds for over an hour with a cup of tea waiting for the five thousand painkillers she's taken to start working so she can shuffle down the hill to the bus home. I pondered going into hospital because I was only a 15 minute bus ride away but that seemed a little too rockstar, just rolling on up to hospital unannounced, I'm not the cancer version of David Lee Roth. I just wanted to be home really, me and lots of tramadol and a hot water bottle all rolled up on the armchair seemed like the best place to be. So go home I did. When I got there I thought it would probably be best to phone up the hospital because 10/10 pain is pretty bad and not entirely normal and I quite wanted it to go away. So, I phoney phoned them up and one of the lovely transplant nurses answered and immediately said "Why didn't you just come into hospital today when you were really close you buffoon (well, you know, she said something like that but a lot nicer)" and then tried to book me in for day ward but they were engaged and then said go to day ward tomorow I'll book you in later when they've finished being busy with the other funny blood types. Then I rolled around on the armchair all evening and went to bed. That was Wednesday.

The next day was Thursday. I got up bright and early to get to hospital nice and early so I could see Yusef before he trotted off to clinic in the afternoon. My memory of the day is a bit hazy because by this point I'd been taking tramadol for 24 hours and tramadol and my brain don't really get on. You might remember me and tramadol from previous posts, side effects of tramadol can include euphoria but I just get tired and confused. Typical. Anyway, as soon as I got there it became apparent they weren't expecting me (Constanze- "HI EVERYONE I'M HERE" Antony- "IT'S LOVELY TO SEE YOU BUT SHOULD YOU BE HERE?") and I had to explain the e.coli/not e.coli/lots of pain scenario but I forgot to mention it was in my bladder so they started asking about my poo and I was very confused because you don't poo out of your bladder. Eventually though all was explained and understood (even more so when the transplant nurse arrive to book me in, after I'd arrived, haha) and I went to sit down and wait for about two hours while they located my notes and brought them up. I made many origami reindeer :)

When my note finally arrived back from oblivion Yusef called me in to see him. Obviously if it hurts all doctors want to do is prod it so I spent a good few minutes lying on the examination bed with Yusef poking, tapping and jabbing all of my abdomen and asking DOES THAT HURT DOES THAT HURT. The answer was yes it does hurt, a lot lot lot. Yusef pulled some very concerned faces because I never ever show any pain but the pain was so painful that not even I could hide it. When I told him the drugs they'd given me last time I had e.coli he declared they were wrong and looked a bit angry. He wasn't sure if it was e.coli again or something else (other options included infected kidney, berzerk appendix and confused colon) so wrote me a nice ultrasound card so they could scan me up baby. Unfortunately he gave it to one of the nurses who then proceeded to lose the card so there was time spent looking for that. And then when it was found she didn't bother to tell me so I was sat for a long while being very confused. Then a man with a chair appreared to wheel me down to C floor radiology and we shared the lift with about a hundred rolls of toilet paper. Then I arrived in radiology and they didn't know who I was and thought I might be Jade but I'm not Jade and then the porter didn't know what to do with my notes because my notes were too big to fit in the notes holder and the man said he's never seen notes as big as mine ;) It was soon realised however that I was Constanze and I took off all my clothes bar my knickers and tights (I was so glad I'd worn nice pants) and put on one of those ever sexy hospital gowns and sat in a room. Then a person came to scan me. This proved difficult because all the pain I was in meant I was tensing my muscles and couldn't really stop and I also couldn't breathe in deeply because you guessed it, I was in too much pain. The pictures she got were not good, but she couldn't see anything hugely major wrong so all is probably ok. There was a disturbing moment when she asked "Have you had your spleen removed?" to which I quickly said "NO" to which she said "Are you sure?" and I said "YES, my spleen is exactly 9cm across" and she said "Oh yeah, there it is, it's 9cm as well you freak, get a life and stop measuring your organs". Oh, and she asked me if I knew about this fluid build up in one of my cavaties and I said no (then remembered about reading about the fluid build up over Snowden's shoulder) and she said it could be due to lots of things but then got distracted by my other organs.

I finally escaped the scanning (or more prodding your sore bits for laughs as I like to call it) and thought I was free to go back to day ward but she decided to do another scan after I'd had a wee to see how well my bladder had emptied. The answer was not well. Before I had a wee it has 250ml of wee and after I still had 100ml which is a classic sign of e.coli. Mystery almost entire solved maybe. Back up to day ward, when I fell asleep and was woken up by a doctor they'd stolen from P floor who said it's probably just the e.coli being a bugger again but he'd like to bring me in and do more tests but only if I wanted to so I said I'll see if a proper course of antibiotics makes me feel any better and if not I'll come in and he was like DEAL! Everyone is happy :) So, after 6 hours and lots of prodding I was able to get my new drugs and go home, bliss :)

I also gave them a lovely urine sample at some point during the day as you can see above. It looks so clear because I went for a wee and forgot to wee in the pot so in a desperate panic I downed half a litre of water in the hope I would wee some lovely wee again. Saw Nick too and overheard him trying to make another patient have one of those stomach feeding tubes that I refused to have. The other patient refused it too. Down with feeding tubes!

And that's where I am now. The pain is back to a 6/10 but that's mainly because I've taken enough painkillers to kill a normal man. Haha, you know it's bad when I take painkillers! The ones I have interrupt your sleep a bit and confuse you and I keep half waking up in the night and sending people disturbing texts about suitcases. It hurts less in very specific positions so I either have to be sat in a chair bolt upright, lying down in bed on my back with my knees in the air or walking like a gorilla to feel a bit better. Unfortunately as you can imagine walking at a 35 degree angle makes me look a bit bonkers so I'm having more confused stares than usual but oh well.

Apart from all that I'm having a very good time lately. Not entirely sure why as I haven't really done much or achieved anything substantial, I guess it's just because winter has well and truly hit and this makes me very happy indeed :D

Got to go now, need more tea to FLUSH OUT THE E.COLI. Do you think the e.coli thinks it's going down one of those flumes at the water park when I have a piss?

Constanze :)

P.s I apologise for how badly written this post it, I'm so drugged up and tired and confused that words are confusing and hard! :) :S

P.p.s For the next week I have to take 17 tablets a day instead of my normal 7, MENTAL :D

P.p.p.s This post makes everything sound worse than it is. E.coli in your bladder is painful, but not serious :)