My Health Scare and How I’m Coping

As many of you know from my Instagram, I had quite the week. I’m usually pretty private about health issues but I felt the need to share that something was going on because my sweet husband had to cancel hosting the Formula 1 Grand Prix last Sunday so he could rush home to me and that sparked a lot of questioning which I don’t mind putting to rest. We also have a very large circle of friends, family and acquaintances that want to know details so putting it all here makes things a lot easier for me because frankly, my energy is at 0% right now. The avalanche of kind words and support has been overwhelming so thank all of you, it has truly brightened my tough week.

Alright, I’ll start from the beginning.

Friday, September 11th, I took the dogs on a long walk and was feeling really great. I’d had a very physically active, busy week but had no complaints. Once I got home and sat down I was struck by an intense stomach pain. I assumed the salad I had earlier must’ve had something bad in it but weirdly I didn’t have any other food poisoning symptoms so I just took a bath and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Saturday morning I was still having stomach pain but was coping with it better so just went about my day. I did some gardening, laundry and made some lunch then the pain came rushing back in but far more intense. It felt like my whole abdomen was on fire and swelling up. I tried lying down but couldn’t get comfortable so decided to try and take another bath but as I walked to make the bath up I felt my vision go blurry and suddenly my body collapsed onto the carpet like a sac of bricks. I don’t even know how long I was out but I was extremely confused when I came-to and had no idea where I was. It also sounded like a waterfall in my ears and my body was too weak to sit up right away. Once my awareness came back it quickly turned to panic. “Oh my god this is bad, I’m home alone! Can I even get to my phone?? What is happening to me?” I had to calm myself down and army crawl back to my bedroom where my phone was thankfully on my bed. I called 999 straight away, explained what was happening and they had an ambulance coming in ten minutes.

I called my sister to tell her what was going on and to let the family know. I hesitated calling my husband at first because I knew he was on camera in Italy and I wanted to see the paramedics before talking to him. I butt crawled down my stairs to my dogs to make sure they were secured and to open the door for the paramedics to come in when they arrived.

4 paramedics came in around 4:30pm and immediately started a series of tests…temperature, blood sugar, ECG, blood pressure…all came back normal so they asked me to do the tests again but standing up and within 5 seconds I was fainting onto the bed. And with that, we were all on our way to the hospital. I called my husband from the ambulance and without question he started making arrangements to get home.

Upon arrival at A&E (ER to Americans) I actually began to feel worse. My color was completely gone and I was shivering cold. They tried and tried to take blood and get me hooked up to an iv but my veins were completely hiding away. Once they managed to get blood I fainted for a 3rd time. They had to get a special doctor in to get my iv going which he was successful and the drip started helping me feel better right away but as soon as the bag finished and while I waited for a new one, I fainted again.

At midnight, they decided to move me to one of the main wards for more testing and even though I took it very slow to get into the wheelchair, I still fainted again! On top of all this the pain was still raging in my abdomen so they gave me some morphine which didn’t cure it but took the edge off for sure.

As my test results rolled in I quickly became a head scratcher case with all the doctors and surgeons. Everything was coming back not only normal but really healthy. Yet I was still in excruciating pain and couldn’t stop fainting when I sat or stood up. They arranged a scan for the next morning and ordered me not to eat anything in case I needed surgery.

It’s kind of impossible to sleep well in a hospital so I maybe got a couple hours sleep that night. The next morning the surgeon came in and explained that they suspected I had gallstones and will have a closer look at my ultrasound scan. The scan lasted a while and she didn’t find gallstones but did find a lot of free fluid all throughout my abdomen. She also saw what looked like a small cyst rupture on my ovary. I was moved to the surgical ward and given something to help me get rid of the fluid.

Once in the surgical ward I was able to have a visitor for 1 hour and thank god my husband had just gotten home. Outside of the allotted hour we were able to meet in the hallway seating area just outside the ward to just be together and save my sanity. I did have one breakdown on my last morning in hospital after a really tough blood collection that took 3 nurses and multiple tries each. I just wanted to be home and was growing unbearably frustrated and sad that I had no answers yet. It took another full day and more blood tests for the surgeons to make a diagnoses and allow me to go home.

Upon disbatch the diagnosis was: I had a small cyst rupture and that tiny amount of fluid somehow leaked up into my abdomen (possibly whilst lying down) and caused the lining surrounding my organs to have an extreme reaction and create more fluid which built up and the pressure distressed my organs which was maybe why I was fainting.

Then, I was given a new diagnosis on my checkup a few days later. After having a different kind of ultrasound they discovered A LOT of blood pooling in my pelvis. Turns out the small cyst bursting actually opened a blood vessel and the blood ran out of space to go so started spilling upward causing all the distress in my abdomen. In short, I was moderately internally bleeding which was causing the fainting, headaches and weakness. Luckily they could see that the site of the broken blood vessel has healed but now my body is working overtime to clean everything up which is exhausting me.

The pain is pretty much gone but I have to be very careful to not overdo it till I get my strength back (at one point I was struggling to squeeze toothpaste out of the tube). I’m still worried I’ll faint again and this feeling of no energy doesn’t help but I’m hopeful each day is getting better. I feel strengthened after eating and have been drinking tons of electrolyte water and taking iron to get myself there. I’ve also been getting acupuncture to help my head/body aches and bruising from all the needles. Having my husband and dogs around me at all times is also the best medicine. I’ve never felt so incredibly grateful to be alive and at home. I don’t mean to sound dramatic but going through a mystery illness at the hospital for 3 days can really make you reflect on your life and appreciate every bit of it x100. Even totally healthy people like me can find themselves in these frightening situations. Every day, good or shitty, is a blessing.

Phylicia xx