hsphaven

During my last week in hospital I started to feel a bit off. I had several extremely vivid nightmares. There was the one I wrote about in my last post, and the second one was about a terrorist attack. I had a bout of lethargy so heavy I couldn’t get out of bed, could barely reach for my phone and I missed my lunch. I also felt like coughing, though not much of a cough came out. I had this general feeling of being unwell (malaise) which made it hard to go out. And one day I just couldn’t get my temperature right, turning the air con on and off a zillion times. I was going to do a RAT when I saw my mum, but ended up telling the nurse about my symptoms. I wanted them to give me some slack in the morning and let me sleep, and something I’ve learnt from my mum is that people only back off and show some compassion when you’re physically sick.

“If you don’t want to catch this bug I suggest you keep out as it’s not nice!” I threatened my Scottish nurse when she came to get me out of bed.

I then had to get a RAT and a PCR test, and was not allowed to leave my room until the results came back. The nurses put a trolley with protective gear (blue plastic coats and gloves) outside my room, so the whole ward knew that I was sick. She came in dressed in a blue coat and took my blood pressure, which was extremely low. My ears rang and I went dizzy and faint.

The RAT came back negative, and it wasn’t until that evening that I got the results of the PCR test. I got a text on my phone:

“Influenza DETECTED (POSITIVE)

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) NOT DETECTED (NEGATIVE)”

I was freaking out at first as I didn’t know what these results meant, but then I found out influenza is the scary term for the flu. The hospital discharged me the following morning, which wasn’t a big deal as it was only a day or two before I was meant to be discharged.

I underestimated this disease. I thought it seemed fairly innocuous at first, not much worse than how crap and run down I feel all the time. I wasn’t coughing that much. I didn’t have a sore throat. I also didn’t have a runny nose, blocked head or any mucus like people commonly get with the cold. Instead, I felt like I’d rammed my bicycle into a brick wall. I had a headache for a while and felt slightly concussed, dizzy and out of it. But it was bearable. On the surface I look ok. But according to 13sick, the flu is different from the common cold. It is caused by more serious viruses. This disease has a nasty edge to it, and, like the ocean, it can change quickly if I’m not careful. It seems to really mess with my sleep, and I have had nights where I’ve thought I might need to go to the emergency department. It has reduced me to a frail, shadow of myself, to a child who wants their mummy. Many times I have thought I’m getting better and am ok to go out and see people, but then I have become extremely unwell and have had to retreat. On Sunday I went to a country town with my mum. As we started looking in one of the shops, I had a coughing fit and had to leave. It was all too much. Then yesterday I went out with my disability support worker. I was fine when I got up yesterday, but then when we went out I started feeling very strange. I wasn’t sure if I was awake or asleep. It all felt like a dream, or a virtual reality. It was an incredibly scary experience. I felt like I was dying, dissolving into nothingness. It felt like I was on drugs or something. I was barely able to perceive my surroundings. At one point I couldn’t even perceive my own body. We were crossing the road and I felt light, as though I was floating outside of my body. I was terrified I would feel this way forever and was desperate for anything to ground me back to earth. I wished I had some black crystals which are meant to be grounding, but I had none. I wished I had someone to hold my hand, but I had no one. My disability support worker then dropped me back home and left me in this state, even after I said I thought I might need to go to the hospital.

The feeling of walking through a dream world continued when I was at home. I was also trembling, as though I was having an anxiety attack. I felt as though I was watching myself do everything, such as making tea (which I could barely even hold) and texting. I felt like a ghost, and didn’t even know if I was breathing or not. I ended up calling the nurse on call number. I told the nurse I had the flu and was getting these scary experiences. She called Ambulance Victoria. I was both grateful that she took me seriously, but also wasn’t sure if the hospital would be the most healing place for me. My dad was out and I had the house to myself. It was a good opportunity to get some rest without being around another person and their energy. I just can’t seem to hack being around people right now. I cannot go out, I cannot play badminton, I couldn’t even go out with my disability support worker. Another lady from Ambulance Victoria called me back and we decided not to call an ambulance. I told her I was starting to feel better. She was going to organise for a doctor to come visit me at home, but in the end she referred me to their psych department, thinking my symptoms were psychiatric. So I had to deal with those arseholes again.

“I hear you’re experiencing some anxiety,” said the man on the other end of the phone.

“What do you mean “anxiety”?” I asked.

I couldn’t believe it, they just thought it was all in my head, like I was some kind of hypochondriac or something.

The worst way this flu has affected me is the way it’s fucked with my head. The nightmares, the dissociation. I am certain that these symptoms have a physiological origin, that they are the product of the flu and an extremely inflamed brain. It’s as though the virus contains all of society’s deepest fears within its DNA. Except for when I have taken drugs such as ayahuasca and marijuana, I have never experienced derealisation and depersonalisation as bad as I did yesterday.

I wanted to cry after that phone call. I wanted to cry when my disability support worker dumped me home and took off. I tried calling my psychologist but they never picked up, returned my call or answered my emails. I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off that I was left alone to deal with such scary symptoms, that I was told I was just crazy, and the only professional who took me seriously was the nurse on call. She did the right thing contacting Ambulance Victoria.

In the end I just embraced the feeling. I accepted that physicality was too much for me and I needed to detach. The feeling even started to grow on me, and in a strange way I was sorry when it wore off later that evening. At least while I was dissociated all my physical ailments like my pain and buzzing head didn’t bother me anymore.

Today when I woke up I was still trembling, but apart from that I feel ok. I have not left the house. I managed to make it through a three hour meeting held over Zoom. I am being paid a good amount of money to attend these meetings so I didn’t want to miss it.

The only other thing that may be accounting for my symptoms is the new herbal antidepressant I’ve been taking called St John’s Wort. Last night I had restless leg syndrome, which antidepressants, including St John’s Wort, can cause. Tremors, fever and altered states of consciousness can all be life-threatening symptoms of serotonin syndrome. So I have decided to cut back on the amount of St John’s Wort I am taking just to be safe.