Recent hospital visit.....

[Alan H]

This started a few weeks ago with a 9 day visit to Gozo (Malta) with a group of mates for a few days scuba diving. Only did 6 days diving as some of the dives were a bit strenuous and 40 metres + depth. Now theses were planned (& done) safely & well, and after all, I've been diving 34 years, 3* instructor and Chairman of our local dive club, so 'quite' experienced.
Average age od the group was 70+, but all very experienced!
Anyway, the day after we flew home from Malta, I flew to the Algarve (Portugal) for a long weekend with SWMBO, her son & his wife + the 3.5 year old mini monster granddaughter. Flew back home after about 72 hours or so. No issues at all. Had some physio for achey back & shoulders (long ago whiplash injuries from a couple of rear ender car accidents), & all ok except for being very tired (as expected!!)
A few days later, the right leg was quite swollen & I ended up in the local hospital with suspected DVT (fortunately not!) & cellulitis for a full week.
Managed to 'escape' yesterday afternoon, & now I have to take 5 tablets, 4 times a day for over a week. And that's a LOT of tablets!
Flucloxacillin (2 @ a time) & Clindamycin (3 @ a time).
Leg measurement 4" below knees are - Left 14" round, Right 15.75" round, so quite a difference. Right leg deffo not happy, but appears to be slowly winning!
So despite some folks best wishes, as Gloria Gaynor sang - I will survive!
(Hopefully a bit longer, anyway!)

Good job all my bikes have electric starts anyway!

Legs_281023.jpg

[Alan H]

And a quick update of meds consumed........
I understand they are different types of antibiotics, all with different side effects.
'About' 28 doses of i.v Flucloxacillin + 16 i.v. doses of Clindamycin (in the first 7 days!)
Now onto tablets.....
In the last 5 weeks, I've had 138 500mg tablets of Flucloxacillin, 132 150mg tabs of Clindamycin, 9 100mg tabs of Doxycycline, 11 x 500mg tabs of Clarithromycin, and another prescription of 24 500mg Flucloxacillin tablets from yesterday for three days.
That's a total of 314 assorted tablets weighing in at 119.2 grammes (or 4.2 ounces!)(plus the i.v. meds).
Oh and some oatmilk cream for me semi crozzled leg skin.
Good job I don't pay for meds innit!!!
Now the only side effects other than dry & cracked skin on the red cellulitis leg, has been the ability to crap through the eye of a needle several times a day and the inability (more like 'I daren't') to fart, due to obvious reasons. Fortunately, the old rule of 'never pass a toilet' has been very carefully kept to and no accidents have happened! The amount of bog roll used has been 'a lot' and sneezing a lot for the last couple of days has caused some near miss moments. Thankfully sneezyitis has now gone!