But it's only Chicken Pox...part 3

Now, where was I, oh yes, spent Sunday night in hospital and slept.

Next morning, I awake on the Medical Assessment ward at Farnborough Hospital in Kent. Being looked after, and getting even spottier! This is fine I suppose, but I am still finding it harder and harder to breathe and not really getting any better and at the back of my mind is the worry that Chicken Pox shouldn't be this bad, but in classic NHS style no-one can tell me what's happening.

Over the next couple of days (Monday and Tuesday) I drift along in a bit of a haze, concentrating on breathing. I am given regular Nebulisers of Ventolin that help a little. During this time I progress from the tubes that deliver some oxygen to both nostrils, through a normal mask to a "special" mask that had a pneumatic rim that was supposed to have a tighter fit to my face, to get more oxygen into me. Clearly this wasn't working!

By wednesday it's been a week now and I am still getting worse, so I am not happy and my family are really worried. Elaine and the boys (Matthew and Sam) are keeping my spirits up. By now I have spots everywhere, and I mean everywhere, Elaine says one day that at least you can't get spots on the palms of your hands or soles of your feet - which is when I show her that you can!

During this time, and I'm not sure when it happened, I started to get visits from someone called Paul, he was the only person who really talked to me about my condition. He would come twice a day and take a reading by putting a kind of clip on my index finger. I now know this measures the amount of oxygen in your blood. Paul was an outreach nurse from Intensive Care, and was monitoring my status while they decide what to do with me.

As an aside, it is noticable that I have a lot of visits from random groups of student Doctors and other medical staff. Who all have a good look and move on.

At 6:30 AM on Thursday morning I am intubated, anaethetised and put on a ventilator in Intensive Care. Things are really getting out of hand!

to be continued.....