Thursday, October 13, 2011

A career hanging in the wind, she's going to love me!!

At last some good news.  As previously mentioned Tiphanie went off to London.   It has been a long two months especially for her.  Some of you will recall me writing about Tiphanie spending a night in hospital with anaphylactic shock while she was in Wales.  This had a massive knock on effect for her job.  She had already secured a job as a fisheries observer before she came home and before commencing her job all that was required was a medical.  During the medical she said that she had spent the night in hospital with anaphylactic shock.  This admission meant that the doctor would not sign her off to start her job.  At the time she had been taking two different antibiotics for a throat infection.  She was immediately taken off both of them.  She returned home not knowing which one she was actually allergic too.  She was however told that it was not likely to be penicillin because she has taken them periodically throughout her life and that it was most likely to be the other antibiotic that she was taking. Fortunately for her the doctor realised the enormous impact on her career if she couldn't pass her medical and arranged for her to go to an allergy clinic in London to be given both antibiotics under controlled conditions. Several weeks later she was sent off to London.  Christopher and I had to pay £400 towards the visit but it was a small price to pay if it meant the difference to her having a job in her field or not.  She went into hospital on the the first Thursday after she arrived and was administered the first antibiotic, the one they thought had caused the reaction.  Nothing.  She then had to return the following Thursday to be tested for the second one.  Nothing happened until the last dose was administered.   The reaction was the same as previously, her face swelled and she got short of breath.  The reaction however was not too severe and they were able to treat it with tablets rather then with an epi pen.  The result was that although the drug ended in the 'in' that normally indicates it is a penicillin it was not a penicillin but in fact an antibiotic that belongs to a small group of drugs called quinollins which apparently are normally given to people that are allergic to penicillin.  Happily Tiphanie is now signed off and starts her job on Monday.  She has tablets in case she should accidentally take quinolllins and an epi pen but she is absolutely clear about what she is able to take so I don't see that she will ever use them but better safe then sorry.
This problem unfortunately has hung over her for approximately two months while she has been working on her masters dissertation.  The knock on effect has been she lost interest in it because she couldn't think of any other job in her field she could do here if she didn't pass her medical.  She has one week left to finish it which she will but I think we will all have to keep our fingers crossed that she gets good enough marks in the dissertation to pass.
I actually wrote this weeks ago and since then Tiphanie has now been at sea for coming up to three weeks. 
After her induced reaction

Normal face

1 comment:

  1. I am glad Tiphanie got her allergy problems solved. It must have been frightening at the time and stressful having her career goals at risk.
    I can remember incidence in my life when I was stressed out over possible changes in my life direction (I was married and had more than myself to worry about.)

    I think we forget when we get older how stressful things can be in your transition years of young adulthood.

    I wish her well. I am sure life will sort itself out for her. You have strong family ties which help.

    ReplyDelete