Tag: hospital Posts

Today was an odd day. It was the first day back to work in about two weeks now, which in itself was a lot of fun, given what we have on our plate. Prior to that though I had to go a few tests down at Chilliwack General Hospital as a final follow-up to all that garbage I went through with my c. diff. infection years ago. Thankfully everything checked out ok, and I think I can finally put that whole health saga finally behind me. That said, I got nothing but sympathy for anyone who acquires c. diff in a hospital setting like I did. After work today I went out and made a run to all of my favourite grocery stores. I’m planning on eating as healthy as I can this year, so I stocked up on veggies, meats, and pretty much everything else I was short of. […]

About a year ago, I was admitted to St. Paul’s hospital for what would later turn out to be a rather severe pneumonia. I don’t really get sick very often, so for me to suddenly be bed ridden after only two days of feeling bad was a very strange event. In fact, looking back I sometimes wonder if what I really had was pneumonia, or if that was just a symptom of what I actually had. I was going over my medical records a few months ago, and found all the reports from St. Paul’s. When they admitted me I was in pretty rough shape. I had a massive fever, low oxygen in my blood, and I was so dehydrated that my blood was taking up far less volume than it normally should have. I also could hardly breathe, which turns out was due to half of my left lung […]

A few weeks ago I received a phone call, the purpose of which was ultimately to talk about some of the injuries I obtained as a result of the incident in November of 2006. During that call, I was asked if I had ever applied for compensation to the BC Victim’s Assistance Program, which I hadn’t even heard of to be honest. The BC Victim’s Assistance Program is a government run program meant to help people who were the victims of violent crimes move on with their lives. It provides financial compensation for people due to medical expenses, time off work, counseling services, and lost income potential, amongst other things. Due to my mother’s insistence, I called and talked to someone in the program and asked if they thought I should apply. They said I should, and mailed me all the documentation to fill out last week. So a few […]

My first MRI was actually fair bit shittier than I imagined. I got to the hospital about 40 minutes before my scheduled time, and went to the Jim Pattison pavilion (like I was told). Unfortunately, there was no MRI facility in the JPP, and at that hour there wasn’t really anyone to ask. I found an information kiosk that showed a MRI lab in the Centennial Pavilion, so I hurried down there and took a seat in the waiting room. Of course, there wasn’t anyone in the reception booth so I just sat in the corner hoping that it was the correct place. There were a few other people in the waiting room with me, so I wasn’t too concerned at that point. However, an hour later everyone had left and it was just me in the waiting room alone. One of the MRI technicians eventually came out and looked […]

Just got a call from Vancouver General Hospital. Turns out in just a few weeks I’ll get the privilege of relaxing inside a big metal tube for an hour down in the MRI clinic. Apparently I can wear my own clothes, as long as there isn’t any metal on them at all. Otherwise the metal will probably rip out and go crazy in the huge magnetic fields. The good news is that MRI’s don’t use radiation, which means my super powers will probably not be affected this round (I figure with all the CT scans and X-rays I had last year, I’ve had my share). Should be a fun time, staring at the inside of a tube while it makes weird noises for an hour. A few weeks after I have another appointment with my surgeon to talk about doing another surgery.

I stumbled upon this article about killer viruses this morning, and it pretty much echos exactly everything that happened to me. I had a nap a few months ago, only to wake up with severe fever and chills. I thought I was battling the flu, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better. Six days later I was in the ICU at St. Paul’s with a 104 degree F fever, and my left lung had partially collapsed due to pneumonia. A high school varsity athlete, a sturdy guy with a health history blissfully free of blips, 18-year-old Joseph Spencer had little reason to think anything was seriously wrong when he got sick last April. Doctors say Joseph Spencer could have died from adenovirus, a virus that usually just causes a cold. The vomiting, chills, fever — “It must be the flu,” he thought. Within hours, Spencer’s fever was 104 degrees. […]

Nearly one year ago today, four guys that I had never met before decided it would be a good idea to put my face through the plate glass window of a 7-11. Prior to that one moment in time, now forever etched into my memory, I was upstairs at the Railway Club in Vancouver, enjoying a few beers with some friends in celebration of their wedding earlier that night. Upon exiting the building, somewhere between catching a cab and eating a bag of nachos, I overheard these four guys harassing a bunch of girls just a few feet away from me. People have told me after the fact that perhaps I should have just kept my mouth shut, hailed a cab, and gone home. But instead, because I thought it was the right thing to do, I suggested to the group that perhaps everyone had had too much to drink, […]

I finally got a hold of my doctor back in Vancouver today to try to figure out what’s wrong with me and what I can do about it. It turns out that I have a fairly serious infection caused by a bacteria called “clostridium difficile.” C. Difficile sometimes lives in the intestines and is normally kept in check by a range of good bacteria that also live there. Unfortunately, as a result of the antibiotic treament I had in the hospital (which was clindamycin I believe), a large portion of the good bacteria have died off, leaving a pile of bad stuff to proliferate: Clostridium Difficile Infection (CDI), can range in severity from asymptomatic to severe and life threatening, and many deaths have been reported, especially amongst the aged. People are most often infected in hospitals, nursing homes, or institutions, although C. difficile infection in the community, outpatient setting is […]

Last night I was released from St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver to continue the healing process at home. I won’t make this a long entry becuase frankly, I find it physically rather hard to type and concentate for writing emails and things right now. The whole episode that led me to head to the hospital is as follows. On Saturday night I was finding myself really short of breath at home. Plus, no matter what medication I took, I just couldn’t seem to get my fever to come down. I hit a point when it hit 39C and my heart rate wouldn’t settle down and I thought to myself that something was very, very wrong. I called St. Paul’s Hospital and asked them if I should come in, and they said yes. So I grabbed a taxi and went over there. When I walked up to the ER desk and […]

Friday morning, I woke up with a rather large fever, and spent the first hour or two hugging a toilet. I was feeling pretty defeated, so I called my mom out in Chilliwack and asked her to come out and spend the night with me. It’s been really great. They made me a meal, looking after me, did my laundry, and tried to do what they could to make me feel better. I went to bed, and actually had a pretty decent sleep. Unfortunately, I had a really large fever upon waking up today, and realized that something wasn’t really right. I went down to the walk in clinic with Marty, which was a challenge since I had a high fever and was thinking pretty cloudy. He did a few quick tests and made me do a urine sample. The first thing he noticed was that there was blood in […]