Here's the story so far

Hello, friends of Enmarie.

My dear girl is having a very trying time at the moment and I think the time is right to tell you about it.

The extremely shortened version is that Enmarie has a life-threatening illness, but the indicators are starting to look hopeful and as of today, 8th July, it's almost safe to say that she will survive it.

The details are as follows:

On Friday 23rd June we went to see our doctor after Enmarie had had a high temperature and back pain.

The doctor diagnosed a chest infection, prescribed antibiotics and referred her to hospital for an assessment and IV fluids. We are very lucky that he did.

After an initial assessment the hospital admitted Enmarie. She lay in bed with a saline drip and morphine for the back pain she was having. The morphine didn't seem to be dealing with the pain and Enmarie was suffering a lot. I stayed with her overnight and we tried to get the staff to give her enough morphine to stop the pain but she had a very disturbed night and was in even more pain in the morning.

Acknowledging the severity of her condition, the doctors moved Enmarie to ICU on Saturday morning and reported a diagnosis of pneumonia (lung infection), caused by septicaemia (blood poisoning) which itself was caused by bacteria entering her blood from a cut or scratch, we will never know exactly.

Enmarie's lung function began to deteriorate as the pneumonia spread from her left lung to both lungs, and continued to get worse. She was on two IV antibiotics and four drips with various drugs. Her pain was at last under control.

Because of the infection and fluid in her lungs, Enmarie couldn't get enough oxygen into her body by normal breathing, despite being on a positive pressure CPAP machine at 100% oxygen. On Tuesday 27th June Enmarie was intubated and put on a ventilator to help her breathe. She had to be sedated and of course, couldn't communicate. 

It was a lot to take in. After a week in ICU the infection was still progressing in her lungs and they gave her only a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Daily chest x-rays showed no improvement but by Sunday 2nd July her blood and lungs were free of bacteria. She was said to be in a critical condition, but stable. We could do nothing but wait for her body to start to repair the damage done to her lungs, so that she could start to breathe on her own. It's a very slow process, and at that stage she still had only a 50% chance of survival.

It was some comfort to know that Enmarie was unaware of any of this going on, because the was sedated and in no pain. 

After another three days, on Wednesday 5th July, there was a very slight improvement in Enmarie's lung function, though no sign on the x-ray of any healing in her lungs.

Thursday and Friday brought small improvements, and this morning (Saturday 8th) there was much smiling from the nurses when I went in and an improved prognosis. Enmarie isn't out of the woods yet. She is still on the ventilator and there are things that could go wrong and suddenly make her condition worse, however she needs less oxygen in her breathing mixture to maintain a good blood-oxygen level, and they are lightening her sedation.

We're hoping for the best and if all goes well she will be off the ventilator in two or three days. I bet she will have some choice words about all this, when she can talk again!

As if septicaemia and pneumonia weren't enough, during her blood tests the doctors found that Enmarie was positive for malaria. She'd had no symptoms at all but the parasites were there. There's no malaria in Phuket so she must have got it when we visited Myanmar in March. The malaria has now been treated and cured. The public health department came to our house and tested me for malaria. I haven't had the results yet, but I feel fine. They are checking everyone within a kilometer radius of our house, and I've given them a list of all the bars and restaurants and places we've visited since March......that's a lot of checking for them, but they must avoid an outbreak in Phuket.

Once Enmarie is out of ICU, she will be in for a long recovery with some permanent reduction in lung function, but she'll be very likely to live a normal life. OK, she won't be a marathon runner, but that was never very likely anyway. One positive thing is that Enmarie won't be able to smoke cigarettes after this. After such a close call, I think she'll have all the motivation she needs!

I'll post something on here every day, as Enmarie improves. At some stage she will be able to deal with messages and posts herself and I'll keep you posted on that. For now, I'm your sole source of news, but at least you can be sure it's not fake news.

Please post comments if you wish. There are only so many hours in the day, so if I don't reply, forgive me. I'll try to cover any issues in my posts.

Finally, please don't post on public Facebook about this. I'd like to avoid a circus if possible.
I'm sure you wouldn't have anyway, but I just don't want to have to deal with all that.