Riding in a rollercoaster

It´s been so long from my last post that I could hardly remember what I wrote. Surely enough things didn't go quite as I planned. The next day I didn't go to school, nor did I print those resolutions of mine. Instead I got some complications from the operations the week before and had to rush back to KUH again.

Tuesday morning I went to KUH to get some intravenous medication I was supposed to have once a year. After I got home my tummy started to ache. I tried to sleep, but finally the pain had gotten so severe I had fainted after getting up. After coming back to my senses I thought I should maybe call a taxi and get to the emergency duty at KUH. At the hospital everyone thought the medication caused the pain. After two nights in the ward I fainted again and now the doctors were sure it couldn't be due the medication anymore. Instead it was my liver, that had been accidentally left bleeding into my stomach,after the biopsy they took the week before. I was rushed to be patched, spent a night at the intensive care unit, during which I couldn't sleep a wink and my stomach filled up with fluids again. From ICU I was moved to the cardiac care unit, where they agreed on draining the fluids out. Only this time they did it painfully slowly, letting out only two litres of bloody fluids every day. The whole trip took one week and I felt like a wreck after getting out.

After I got home they rang me from Helsinki, Meilahti hospital. They wanted me to come over next week for some new examinations. There has been some discussion whether I would need a heart-transplant in the near future. Now more information was needed to back up the decision of putting me on the transplantation-list . The trip to Helsinki took another week, but I had only few examinations. Just some bloodtests, an echo and an endoscopy of my heart. Other than that I just lied there and read and thought I'd finally be bored to death. Anyways, the cardiologists seemed baffled with the results of the exams. All the results were better than earlier in February and my heart actually looked strong and well-working. It seems, at least for now, that I wont be needing that transplant afterall in any time soon (knock on wood). The poor cardiologist looked like he didn't know exactly what to do, since nothing needed to be done. He ordered me to come over again in September for another control, and wished me happy summer holiday. I think I got the best news I could possibly have.

Some month it has been.  And now I have the whole summer ahead of me. I think my rollercoaster is finally climbing uphill.

-Tiina

PS: After coming home from Helsinki, I enrolled to that Synja-hiking I told you about =)

Light as a feather

It´s been a while since my last post, but now I´m back again, light as a feather. 

 

The past three weeks have been rough, for I´ve spend most of them in the hospital. I had a short holiday between the hospital periods, but somehow I was too tired and disappointed to really enjoy it. I even went to Oulu to see my boyfriend but it didn't help at all. I hated the way I looked and felt more than ever and being close to someone made it even worse.

Yesterday I got home from my latest trip to KUH. This time the doctors and cardiologists had finally agreed on draining the fluid out of my stomach. They had to do it so that the other operations could be done safely. In less than a day, they drained over 10 litres of excess fluid out of my body. I lost seven kilos! Though the operation was slightly painfull I was so happy I wept. It felt like I had finally gotten back my own body from the aliens of illness. Lying on the hospital bed I felt so light, like hovering in the air. When I got home, I wanted to try on all my clothes that didn't fit me for the past year. The cardiologist warned me though, that this would be only temporary, that the fluid would come back. I just wish so much that I could stay like this, at least through the summer. Or untill they finally decide what to do with my poor mess of a heart. 

-Tiina

Back home

I got back home from Helsinki late last night. It was a short but good trip even though I lost my calender and catched cold..

Anyways it was great fun to see friends and the meeting was very useful. We had lectures about different topics associated with congenital heart defects (CHD from now on). One lecturer, heart-surgeon Markku Kaarne, told us about hearts' re-operations. He operated my heart last May and finally now I understood what he did  almost a year ago. And I must say it was pretty wild! Of course he explained the operation to me several times back then, and even draw pictures, but I must have been wrong in the head too, 'cause I just couldn't get it. Well, to my defence I can say none of the general practitioners that I've met afterwards understood it either.

When the lectures were over, I had few hours to chat with the others. Then I hopped in a train to Kuopio and the others went bowling. As for Helena, I had a piece of red yarn with me, to mend my mittens, but I was too exhausted after our rummaging through several flea markets.

Today it was warm and sunny enough to go out in leather jacket and a cardigan. I'm afraid this blog'll turn into a weather blog =)

-Tiina

Heart me, Heart you.

Yay! Today I'm going to Helsinki and this time not to hospital! I´m going to a Synja meeting with other young adults with heart condition in Pasila, Helsinki. Synja is a division of Finnish Association for Heart Children and Adults, meant for young and adults with congenital heart defect.

I joined the Finnish Association for Heart Children and Adults last summer after I got ill last spring. My family had been a member before, when I was little, and we used to go to these weekend meetings at Rovaniemi with my mum and brother. Last autumn I attended one of these meetings in Suomenlinna, for the first time in more than ten years. I remember I was so nervous and excited about the trip I almost cancelled it. But I'm so glad I went. I met people who had gone through the same I had and I made new friends. We had information about heart-transplantations but also lots of entertainment. We held a Christmas party and Santa Claus visited us and there was a magic-show. I think the best part though was to spend time and chat together among other activities. And I have to say that humour between gravely ill people and normal people is VERY different =D

It was such a good weekend and now I get to meet with my new friends again. I´m so excited!

Also, I´m staying over at my old classmate from Oulu. I shold take my knittings with me, since everytime I'm staying at Helenas' and see all her lovely yarns and handcrafts and knitting magazines I get this huge urge to start knitting immediatly.

But now I gotta start packing. Happy weekend to y'all!

-Tiina

Introducing Hurdis

Hello everyone and welcome to Hurdy-Gurdy Life. This is my blog about trying to be more positive.

Long story short, about a year ago I got very ill, had major heartsurgery and in the aftermaths of that, got depressed. Basically I thought there´d be no more good things in my life never, never, ever again. No point even trying. Well, lately I´ve been feeling a bit different. I´m sick of being sick and sad all the time, thinking I can´t do this or I can´t do that. I want to get better, get over this and get back in the game. So, to make sure I´m really trying, I´m gonna report all the nice and happy and positive encounters and thoughts that I´m surely gonna have. I hope you enjoy the ride. I myself, am definitely trying ;)

-Tiina