The Backstory

New Year's Day 2014

I woke up with a banging headache and a sore throat - not much different to everyone else's New Year's Day I imagine but unfortunately it wasn't a hangover.

I had stayed over at my boyfriend's house but as my headache got worse and worse I decided to take the risk of driving home (approx a 40 minute journey) and made it there ok.
I've always been prone to sinusitis and bronchitis and I assumed I was getting another dose of this so I went to the doctor's to get antibiotics. My GP accepted my self-diagnosis and I was given a week's course.

After a few days I wasn't feeling any better (and still hadn't managed to go back to work) so I went back to the doctor's and saw a different GP. This time he sounded my chest and confirmed there was crackling in my lungs and diagnosed pneumonia. To be honest, I was quite shocked, not something I had remotely expected, especially as I didn't have all the symptoms, most notably the cough. I was prescribed another lot of different antibiotics and sent home.

After finishing the antibiotics, I still wasn't feeling much better and ended up going to the NHS walk in centre at 2am with really bad back pains. I had them on and off, mostly in the night, but this time it started in the evening and I could barely breathe without triggering the pain. The doctor I saw there told me that the antibiotics hadn't worked and the pneumonia still hadn't gone. So...I got more antibiotics - oh the joy!

Soon after the walk in centre I went back to my surgery and saw yet another doctor. She told me the pain was pleurisy and is common alongside pneumonia. I have to say that from this point on, this is the best doctor I've ever seen - the most caring and attentive I've ever encountered. She sounded my chest, took my temperature, checked my throat, my ears, my eyes, everything. The next morning she called me and said she'd been thinking and worrying about me all night and wanted to make a house call to check me over again to make sure she hadn't missed anything and to decide whether to send me to hospital or not.

She arrived and did all the checks again and decided she wanted me to go to the Acute Medical Unit to be on the safe side. My mum and I spent a really long day in the Royal Liverpool Hospital having my blood taken, a chest X-Ray and an ECG. One plus side of the hospital is that you get the results back on the same day! My chest X-Ray showed a shadow on my left lung, confirming I had pneumonia. The blood tests showed that everything was pretty much out of whack, low red blood cells, high white blood cell count etc. And the ECG showed I had tachycardia - or fast heart rate. The doctor I spoke to would have liked to have kept me in hospital as he was concerned I might have a blood clot on my lung. I really don't like hospitals so wasn't pleased with that plan, so we came to a compromise, that I would come back the next day for a CT scan and in the meantime he would give me an injection to thin my blood as a precaution. I came back for the CT scan and luckily I didn't have a blood clot so I was discharged.

So that was pretty much my Janaury - not the best start to a new year!

I also had to move out of my flat at the end of January so packing everything up and arranging everything to go to my parent's house/storage was pretty stressful - took me the full month to pack everything which was a long time considering I hadn't gone into work at all!

Near the beginning of February I had one day of feeling really good, loads better and much more normal so when I had my doctor's appointment on the Monday when my sick note ran out, I pretty much insisted I was ok to go back to work. She wasn't really convinced but we managed to compromise that I would go back for a week of half days initially. I managed to make it through the week but it didn't go very well but as I'd been in work I convinced myself I was ok to visit my boyfriend in Manchester and go flat hunting! This all took its toll and I had to go back off sick from work.

In this next period of absence from work, towards the end of February, I had another X-Ray to confirm whether the shadow indicating pneumonia had cleared, which wahey, it had! I was still feeling pretty rough however and kept getting headaches, a sore throat and earache which would last a few days then clear, then come back etc. So back to the Dr's I went and this time I was diagnosed with pyrexia of unknown origin and was signed off work for longer again and also got a fun trip to the infectious diseases clinic! They took a few swabs from my nose and mouth. The results of this showed that I had some kind of bacteria at the back of my throat but it wasn't a worrying one so they didn't bother to investigate further or give me anything to treat it!

It took a long time for me to feel anything resembling normal and made the decision to go back to work in early April. Having moved to Manchester but continuing to work in Liverpool, the daily commute was/is tiring and after a couple of weeks back I still wasn't feeling myself - very tired, falling asleep every evening on the sofa, heavy feeling in my bones, couldn't get up in the morning, headaches and more. After yet another trip to the Dr's (they all know me by name now!) I was told I had Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome and it would be at least 6-9 months before I was feeling back to normal energy levels; making 2014 pretty much a write off!

I'm 3 months into it and would love to say I'm starting to feel better but unfortunately I'm not, I'm still struggling but hopefully remaining positive (which is definitely hard sometimes as my boyfriend will attest!) and trying to keep a good balance between rest and some activity, I will start to improve and I'm hoping this blog will introduce me to others in a similar position and we can help each other through it and out to the other side!