My heart will go on...hopefully

So, I arrived in the A&E department of the Ulster Hospital, within minutes I was in triage. The nurse there told me I looked very weak & unwell even though my vitals were normal. She took me through to the majors unit of A&E, not a nice calm place that's for sure.. I again had blood tests, chest X-ray etc done & again they showed nothing.. But this time my Doctor actually just looked at me, knew there was something going on, that I wouldn't look the way I did if I was perfectly healthy.. It was time for her to clock off for the night so she handed me over to another doctor. I again repeated my symptoms to him, but this time he picked up on one, "I feel worse when i stand up, my head goes really light & the colour drains from my face", so he decided to repeat my ECG, lying down first then standing up.. And FINALLY, they found something unusual. My heart rate when I was lying down was 52bpm. And when I stood up, instantly, jumped to 146bpm. There it was, a black & white symptom. Nothing I could over exaggerate. I was now a very interesting case, 19, post surgery, otherwise healthy, with a racing heart rate, only when standing. I was admitted to the medical assessment unit for the night as there were no beds on the cardiology ward. I continued to be sick through the night even with anti-sickness meds, and became very very restless..The next morning my room was constantly visited by Doctors.. No one had any clue what was going on.. I was given 4 bags of fluids which helped to get rid of the nausea & regulate my temperature even though I still couldn't really eat, especially the horrendous hospital food (minced chicken for example). I was then moved up to the cardiology ward & assigned to Prof. Trinoch & consultant Dr. Donnelly. I was given a telemetry which monitored my heart 24/7, one night I got out of bed & the doctors came running in to see what I was doing because my heart had just raced to 160bpm. I was started on beta blockers to help control my heart rate, within a couple of days I felt much better, I was given the diagnosis of SVT (super ventricular tachycardia), I won't go unto it cause I'll be here forever, but look it up if your interested. I was allowed to go home, & continue to take my beta blocker each morning.
                                                           LJxo

Complications Part 2..

So, this was now the 10th of October.. I had lost a stone in the last 2 weeks, was practically grey in colour, exhausted, my temperature was all over the place, I felt clammy all the time, nauseous, vomiting up everything even water, extremely light headed when standing up; all the colour would drain from my face, I'd feel like I was going to collapse & my chest pain had gotten worse alongside a racing heart. My mum decided I needed to go into hospital, that I  couldn't afford to lose anymore weight, so off we went to the Royal Victoria Hospital A&E. I sat in the waiting room on plastic chairs for 6 hours, despite telling them I was 4 weeks post spinal surgery.. I was eventually seen by a junior doctor. She did a chest x ray, bloods, urine, found nothing so told me that I had pain anxiety & that I was "skin and bones, pale, exhausted, but nothing is wrong, you should just get anti-sickness medication off your GP on Monday" this was on Saturday.. That night I spent all night lying on the tiles on my bathroom floor trying to keep my temperature down, vomiting even with nothing to be sick on, got no sleep & was getting weaker & weaker. The next morning I got up early had my medication & tried to have some breakfast, 3 bites later & I was being sick again.. I felt like I was dying.. I was so dehydrated, weak, sore & exhausted. I called the on call doctor, she came out immediately, took one look at me & told me I should be in hospital for fluids & anti-sickness if nothing else. She gave me an anti sickness injection & gave me a note to take to A&E, this time in the Mid-Ulster Hospital. I got an over night bag together & off I went..
                                                                          LJxo

Complications..Part one

So although my surgery was great, & Mr. Shaw did a fab job it wasn't all plain sailing.. Far from it. So going back to when I was in London, I had this persistent chest pain on my right side, almost like a burning sensation when I moved, particularly when I sat forward or stood up. I mentioned it to my doctor, but nothing was ever investigated so I thought it was part in parcel of the surgery & it would probably heal itself. Well, it didn't.. I went to see my local GP on the 23rd of September for the nurse to check my scars were healing & everything was how it should be. Both the GP & Nurse said how pale I was & that I didn't look well. I mentioned to the GP at this point that I had the recurring chest pain, she then sent me & my mum up to the Royal Victoria Hospital as she didn't know enough about scoliosis or the surgery to advise anything. We then headed to A&E, sat for a few hours before being seen by a Junior Dr. He did bloods, chest x-ray and arterial blood tests.. found nothing wrong, but sent me up to orthopaedics anyway. They were not any help at all!! They simply upped my morphine by 20mg, which was already 140mg per day, and considering i was only 47kilos, that was a lot! They then sent me home. I continued to get worse.. now losing weight too. I couldn't have imagined what was at the bottom of this, all i knew at this point was that I had continuous chest pain that wasn't getting any better..
                                                             LJxo