Peter’s Hospital Diary

It was a funny day for me yesterday, a couple of temperature spikes (more antibiotics) and a spell of feeling lethargic, but I went to bed feeling quite well. The person in the bed adjacent to mine is a snorer, but a set of earplugs sorted that!

However, my midnight observations showed that my oxygen saturation was down at 91% so I was started on a low oxygen flow (equivalent to about 25%) which brought the sats up to the 95-96% mark.

Then this morning I noticed that my vision didn’t seem right – I had been experiencing some visual hallucinations, but had thought nothing of it (textured surfaces, imagined 3D objects and things like that)

I did a quick couple of self tests and discovered that I had lost all peripheral vision in my left eye, indicating retinal or optic nerve damage. Not good.

Having reported this, I was due my heparin injection, but since one of the causes could be bleeding, I declined that, but had some paracetamol as an anti-inflammatory.

Further checking showed that it was my left side (not just eye) that had the problem, indicating a possible visual cortex problem.

The doctors came round and suggested that this was more likely, possibly cause by pressure on that part of the brain, possibly from a bleed. They thought refusing the heparin was a good move! Anyway, they arranged for me to have an CT scan to see what is going on, with a referral to the neurosurgery team. They also said that it may well resolve spontaneously.

I’ve just had the scan, so I’m not expecting results today (although I’m always happy to be pleasantly surprised!). My eyesight is unchanged from this morning (no better or worse) so we will wait and see. I did have a good chat with a final year medical student who wanted some practice at clerking in patients.

So while it may be Oneards, there doesn’t seem to be a lot overall upwards movement! But then, the infection has been dealt with so that’s good, and the next thing to do is to determine why the Sats dropped, which might also have been infection related – so we’ll go Onesrds and Upwards down that path! ? (there is always a positive if you look hard enough!)

UPDATE: Really rapid turn around on the CT scan results. It looks as if there has been a tiny blood clot in that area of my brain causing either some vey local damage or a pressure point. The clot may resolve itself spontaneously (be re-absorbed) or it may need a clot busting drug to shift it. The question will be if the damage repairs itself (if there is damage) or my vision returns to normal). Not the best news, but by no means the worst!