Me and Bob being tired had a lie in, we were just getting up and the phone rang, it was Jude, Steven had just been to the Doctors and they were referring him to the Hospital with possible CCF (after googling it i found it meant oh help "congestive heart failure," ) or heart failure.
Symptoms for past 3 weeks include
- Headaches, severe
- Tiredness and Fatigue including no energy
- Unable to sleep
- Loss of appetite
- Tremor in left hand
- Chest pains
- Fever (especially at night, burning up and sweating while claiming he is frozen)
He saw 3 sets of different doctors during the day, each time rising in hierarchy, the end result was they suspect he has an infection in his Artificial Heart Valve (see below Infective endocarditis)
To find out definitely they need to grow some blood cultures which takes 3-4 days, so he will be in over the weekend.
They are talking about referring him to cardiac department, where they will probably put a camera in, so they can have a look at the valve.
If the culture is positive, he will need to go on high dose of anti biotics, which would mean an extended stay in hospital.
We eventually got home about 7pm.
Stevens Temperature was recorded as 39C.
Normal human body temperature varies slightly from person to person and by the time of day. Consequently, each type of measurement has a range of normal temperatures. The range for normal human body temperatures, taken orally, is 37.0±0.5 °C (98.6±0.9 °F). This means that any oral temperature between 36.5 and 37.5 °C (97.7 and 99.5 °F) is likely to be normal.
From http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Endocarditis-Infective.htm
Infective Endocarditis
Infective endocarditis is an infection that can seriously damage heart valves and cause other serious complications if it is not treated quickly with antibiotics.
Who gets infective endocarditis?
Endocarditis is uncommon. In the UK it occurs in about 20 in a million people each year. It can occur in anybody, but the risk of developing it is increased in people who have:
- Heart valve problems or an artificial heart valve. Heart valves that are already damaged or abnormal are more likely to become infected.
- Had surgery to a heart valve.
- Certain congenital heart defects.
- A heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
- Had a previous episode of infective endocarditis.
- Been injecting street drugs such as heroin, with dirty or contaminated needles.
- A poor immune system. For example, people with AIDS.
What are the symptoms and signs of infective endocarditis?
Slowly developing infection
In many cases the infection develops quite slowly. This is sometimes called subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE). Symptoms can develop gradually, over weeks or months, and can be vague at first. You tend to feel generally unwell and may have general aches and pains, tiredness, and be off your food. A fever (a high temperature) develops at some stage in most cases. As these first symptoms can be caused by a lot of other conditions, the cause of the symptoms may not be diagnosed for some time.
Heart murmurs tend to develop. These are sounds that can be heard by a doctor listening to your heart with a stethoscope. Murmurs are caused by abnormal flow of blood through faulty or damaged valves. If you already have a heart murmur from an existing valve problem, the murmur may change or become more intense. A new or changing murmur is often what alerts a doctor to suspect infective endocarditis.
Reading the above Steven has got classic symptoms of the condition.
Finished the day with a lager shandy and watched
There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)
Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.It was supposed to be a feel good film, but got too close to heart and i got tearful at times.
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