139 – Circling the Drain, Part 6: 6 January 2025

Like the two birds in this photo, by May 2021 Margaret and I had entered very choppy waters indeed and the chances of us achieving smooth landing looked vanishingly small.  I took this photo in Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand South Island on 31 December 2019.  Our short stay in New Zealand heralded the beginning of years of suffering for both of us.  It was the last enjoyable holiday we ever had.

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The resumption of my circling of the Death Drain happened without warning.

On Thursday 3 June 2021 I started and finished the day with zero symptoms.  I ate all of the usual regular meals and I did one hour of walking exercise and 30 minutes of yoga.  Seemingly, I had fully recovered from the illness that had put me in hospital for the first week of May.

In the morning of Friday 4 June, I had breakfast without incident.

After breakfast on that Friday, my symptoms abruptly reappeared – stomach bloat, severe abdominal pain, inability to breathe properly, plus an optical migraine.  My symptoms came so suddenly and so severely that Margaret took me to A & E that same day.  In A & E, I was treated as a possible Covid patient until the Covid test returned a negative result.  There were no beds available in the hospital where I went to A & E and at about 7:00 pm I was sent to the same hospital where I had spent a week in May.  The was no ambulance available to take me there, so Margaret asked Cheryl Scopazzi to drive us there.  It was dark, cold and miserable when I was finally admitted.

Because I had been admitted through A & E, during this hospitalisation I was not under the supervision of Dr Aiyappan.  This had some unfortunate consequences for me.  Dr Kannusamy was a very pleasant man but he lacked the skills of Dr Aiyappan.  I will relate some of those unfortunate consequences in the next Blog.

My symptoms eventually eased slightly during my second spell in hospital, but they were always present.  For most of my hospital stay, I suffered severely from bloating, stomach pain and an inability to breathe.  On Saturday 5 June, the day after my admission, the pain was severe and I was unable to get any sleep.  Once again, Margaret did not recognise me as I shuffled through the passageway until I greeted her.  Margaret said I had aged so much she did not realise who I was.

Dr Kannusamy did not tell me this, but he clearly assumed my symptoms were the result of depression caused by Margaret’s terminal cancer diagnosis.  He conducted no tests to establish if I was suffering from depression and he carried out no substantial work to investigate the presence of any underlying physical illness.  Dr Kannusamy's misdiagnosis of depression meant this.

·         My underlying physical disease was not investigated and diagnosed while I was in hospital.

·         I continued to suffer severely from my symptoms while I was in hospital.

·         After discharge from hospital, I suffered an increase in my symptoms for a period of three weeks until I was again readmitted to hospital.

·         After my third hospital admission, I spent another two weeks in hospital before my underlying disease was diagnosed and my symptoms were brought under control.

Initially, Dr Kannusamy was once again in charge of my treatment during my third hospital admission.  Luckily for me, he stepped down from this role and Dr Aiyappan diagnosed what was wrong with me and prescribed medication which has kept me alive and symptom free since I left hospital in July 2021.

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Dr Kannusamy did organise a cat scan of my abdomen and pelvis on 7 June.  The written report from the cat scan set out this conclusion.

CONCLUSION: The most significant finding is the diffuse thickening of the bladder wall and reactive changes in the adjacent fat.  Appearances could relate to cystitis, due to UTI, or cystitis from other causes, such as radiation. Abnormal thickening of the distal oesophagus, recommend correlation with the endoscopy findings, uncomplicated colonic diverticulosis.  Mitral valve repair with small bilateral pleural effusions,

I had not been troubled by cystitis before the cat scan and I have not been troubled by it since the cat scan.

My underlying condition had no connection with cystitis and I have never had any treatment for cystitis.

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My small weight gain from May was reversed in June 2021.  This Table summarises my weight in June.

	June 2021
Date		Weight
Friday 4 June		77.9 kilograms
Saturday 12 June		76.5 kilograms
Tuesday 15 June		75.2 kilograms
Friday 18 June		75.5 kilograms
Friday 25 June		74.9 kilograms

 .

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Almost immediately after I was discharged in the morning of Friday 11 June 2021, my full range of symptoms returned.  They were continuously present for the next three weeks, resulting in yet another period of hospitalisation. 

The three days immediately after my discharge were extremely difficult.  I suffered continuously through the nights of Friday 11, Saturday 12, Sunday 13 and Monday 14 June. 

Monday 14 June was a public holiday and by 7:00 pm that day, I was in such agony Margaret phoned an after hours GP service.  The after hours GP eventually arrived at about 3:30 am on Tuesday 15 June.  By then my pain level had decreased from extremely high to high.  The GP prescribed Mebeverine Hydrochloride to relieve spasming in my bowel.  I obtained the Mebeverine later that day and took it exactly as prescribed.  It had no noticeable impact on my symptoms.  The after hours GP was extremely competent and pleasant, but he too was unable to diagnose what was wrong with me.