Septicaemia?!

Marathon training wasn’t going brilliantly, and my first hospital admission of 2019 has buggered it right up!

It started off with the usual story: I felt generally unwell for a few days, my right kidney was a bit painful so I took my stand-by antibiotics, and on Monday my temperature was 38.3 so I called haematology.  Between calling the assessment line and arriving at the hospital I felt worse and worse, and by the time I arrived I was sweating and rigoring. Classic neutropenic sepsis.

That was 4 days ago and since then I’ve been on 3 types on IV antibiotics, had a kidney scan (my right one is inflamed, oedematous and bloody painful), and grown E-coli in my blood cultures. Pyelonephritis —> bactereamia (aka septicaemia!).

I still fully intent to drag my arse around 26.2 miles of London on 28th April. That’s got to be worth a tenner, surely?

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/emily-stringer2

Love Emily x

St Petersburg; Russia

On this week of annual leave I have added the following to my bucket list:

• Get involved in a borderline kidnap situation in a foreign taxi
• Get denied entry to Belarus

...and achieved them both.

The flight from Heathrow to St Petersburg was lovely as I had the entire row of 3 seats to myself, and lay across them for a nap. It was wonderful, and I landed feeling energised and ready to take on a very snowy Russia.

That was an error.

I’m reasonably well travelled and I KNOW the precautions to take when taking a taxi abroad. I know to agree a fare in advance, but he spoke minimal English and kept saying ‘taxi meter’. How badly could that realistically end up? The guy had a lanyard, so of course he must’ve been legit!

The driver seemed nice, and I feel such a muppet for writing that. I spend a good chunk of my working life explaining that people who do bad things (perpetrators of abuse) very often appear to be good people because they HAVE to - very few women would continue to date an abusive man if he leant over the dinner table on their first date and punched her in the face. No, they have to be pleasant and trustworthy (initially, at least) so they can then change when the victim is in too deep to change their mind.

The driver insisted on helping to put my rucksack in the boot which, retrospectively, was the first red flag as my passport was in there. During the drive to the city nothing specific happened, but I started feeling increasingly uneasy and distrustful of this man. I can’t pinpoint why. I turned out to be right and not just a cynical cow when he drove me to a cash point - even though he had no idea how much money I had on me. I was starting to become very aware of my vulnerability, and he was becoming scarier with each complaint I raised, or question I asked. It was also becoming clear that he spoke fluent English and the situation was getting dodgier and dodgier.

I lied and said my purse was in my rucksack, reasoning that way I could take it in the back of the car with me, and jump out of the door if I needed to. He accompanied me to the cash point where I withdrew more rubles than I thought I would ever need and then, purely for a lack of an alternative, I got back in his car. The roads were icy and fresh snow was starting to fall so traffic was moving slowly. My mobile data doesn’t work in Russia so I couldn’t use my phone to map our route against my hotels location, but I was sure we weren’t going in the right direction. I asked him how much the meter was at, and he replied 8,000 rubles - my research told me to expect to pay 800-1000. We were clearly doing laps of St Petersburg to increase the fare, and he was ignoring my instructions to take me to my hotel. I was looking out of the window to try to get my bearings, and then I spotted my hotel. He drove straight past it, so at the next set of traffic lights I chucked 5,000 rubles at him, gambled on there not being child-locks on the door (of course there wasn’t; there weren’t even seatbelts), and legged it to my hotel.

I told the receptionist about the ride, and she offered to help me report it to the police but I didn’t see the point given that I was leaving Russia for Belarus the next day. Instead she upgraded my room which was lovely. I got to my room, inserted the keycard into the door, and it was opened (from the inside) by a man who, I assume, was a hotel employee. He had no cleaning equipment with him, and the room looked entirely undisturbed, so I shrugged it off and ran myself a bath. Whilst in the bath I heard a knock at the door, which I ignored. Then came another one, so I wrapped myself in a towel and answered it (still covered in bubbles). It was a maid, offering me a chocolate, and asking if I wanted my sheets changed. I politely declined, inwardly thinking “I’ve not slept in them yet, love”, and grumpily shut the door. Then I remembered about The Man who came out of the room, contemplated what he might have done on the bedding/what the maid knew that I didn’t, and then wished I took her up on the offer.

I got up early the next morning to do the exploring of St Petersburg I was too annoyed to do yesterday, and saw frozen rivers, pretty cathedrals and churches, and  an old lady fall over. In the afternoon I had a vanilla taxi ride (costing 800 rubles) to the airport, and checked in to my flight to Minsk. Well, I tried to. 

Before I left I’d researched the visas I’d need, and the google blurb from gov.uk clearly stated:

“All British national passport holders (except those entering on a diplomatic or official passport) can now enter Belarus for a maximum of 30 days without a visa (the day you arrive counts as day one, regardless of arrival time).”

Marvellous.

With hindsight, I really should have clicked on the link and read the part which explained:

“If you’re travelling immediately from/to a Russian airport or entering Belarus at any other border point other than Minsk International Airport, this visa-free arrangement doesn’t apply and you’ll need a visa.”

Instead, the check-in assistant took great pleasure in informing me.

I researched my alternatives as best as I could using crappy airport WiFi. Option 1: get a flight to Estonia (where I was going after Belarus) and pick up my itinerary from there. Option 2: fly home. The flight for option 1 was the next day, but my Russian visa expired at midnight. Not wanting to spend a night kipping in an airport, or messing with Russian border control, I picked option 2 and took off a few hours later.

Not my most successful trip, and the first one I’ve ever abandoned!

Love Emily x 

Very busy. Much travel. Wow.

Where to start?

New job: loving it. I’m neither stressed nor bored. Admittedly I don’t feel like I’ve got a clue what I’m doing but no-one seems to mind. 

Car: it’s done several lengths of the M1 and maintained power throughout so that’s progress. Unfortunately I did park it in a place that was on the periphery of legality and was midway through reporting it as stolen to the police before being informed it had been towed away. 

Poland: I was expecting a weekend of vodka fuelled debauchery, but instead I had pneumonia. Warsaw was lovely, just disappointingly civilised!

Iceland: not as icy as the name implies. Darryl and I walked inside a glacier, swam in a geothermal lagoon and spent 7 minutes sitting in the audience of an Icelandic poetry recital trying to keep straight faces/pretend we knew what was happening. We didn’t see the northern lights, but we did discover Icelandic Dominoes do vegan cheese on their pizzas, so I think we can call it a net win.

Upcoming trips: Latvia and Lithuania in January. Russia, Belarus, Estonia, Finland and Sweden in February. A break in March and April to focus on marathon training (link below, if you feel like donating!). Netherlands in May. China, Japan and South Korea in June. USA in September. 

Love Emily x 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/emily-stringer2

Pripyat; Ukraine

Partly inspired by Jack Whitehall but mainly driven by my perverse desire to test the limits of my luck/mortality, I visited Chernobyl. Yes - the radioactive nuclear meltdown place where it’s still inhabitable for humans. I like to keep things interesting!

There were 3 distinct and scary parts to this trip. In ascending (and co-incidentally chronological) order:

1. The drive to Stansted as I was putting a significant amount of trust in a, frankly quite dodgy, Fiat 500. 2 weeks previously its engine had cut out in the middle lane of the M1, the first attempt to fix it wasn’t successful, and I’d got it back from the garage after attempt #2 the previous day. Whatever wizardry the mechanic did had worked, and my little car got me there in one piece. 

2. The taxi ride from Kiev airport to my hotel as I was being driven by one of the scariest individuals I’d ever encountered in a car less likely to pass its MoT than mine, and this bloke wasn’t wasting valuable fuel to heat his car and de-mist the windscreen. Also, his route of choice included several U-turns into oncoming traffic - Uber screenshot available to anyone calling bullshit. I had several questions, mainly: “good sir, I must probe your disregard of the Highway Code and ponder if this is because you believe others are in pursuit of your vehicle?” which, in the heat of the moment, came out more like “you’re driving like we’re being chased, you big mad bastard!”. He turned to face me, stared me in the eye (please bear in mind he’s driving and I’m in the back seat) and menacingly whispered “you do not know that they are not”. I’ve got no idea who “they” are, or what his diagnosis is, but I know I’d love a rummage through his psych records.

3. The blasé attitude of Ukrainians to radiation, or rather health and safety in general. I did some research before coming here (I.e. watching Jack Whitehall and David Farrier doing similar) and knew that a dosimeter reading of >0.2 or wasn’t normal. My Geiger counter was bleeping frantically when the radiation level reached 0.3, so my guide re-set the alarm threshold to 5.0. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but I knew how I felt when the count went to 415.0: mildly concerned. 

Leading on from point 3, this trip I learned that the Chernobyl disaster extended far beyond the initial explosion; the subsequent management of it was equally as catastrophic. It took 36 hours for any type of local exclusion zone to be put in place, and the accident only became internationally known of because the radioactive fallout was detected in Sweden - 2 days later. Even then, the Soviet government denied responsibility.

Walking through this abandoned area on a bitterly cold snowy day was darkly mesmerising. Pripyat (a purpose built city for the employees of the power plant and their families, just 3km from the explosion) had been re-claimed by nature in just 32 years. I saw different buildings: apartments, hospitals, supermarkets, schools. Each area was destroyed enough to feel surreal and disconnected, but most also had remnants which brought the reality of the abandonment back: dolls left in a nursery, full shopping trolleys in aisles, patient’s medical notes, a gas mask. There was even a fairground which had never been used - it was due to open 3 days after the evacuation. 

It was magical in a way I can’t describe. I can’t recommend visiting enough, especially before the area becomes more touristy and looses its spooky silence. I came home with the same number of digits/appendages as I left with, and no green glow. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe!

Love Emily x

Malta, Athens & Budapest

On Wednesday I arrived in Malta. I stayed at a hotel in  Birżebbuġa which, charitably, can be described as “an up and coming area”. The hotel was lovely and marketed (indeed, named) itself on its proximity to the water, which was technically not untrue. However, in my mind, this conjured up images of being by a beach, or cliff, or harbour. Well, I was next to a harbour, but it was the ‘bloody massive shipping container’ type with not a pretty little sailing boat in sight. 

Vowing to undertake better hotel research in the future, the next day I arrived in Athens and smugly cast aside all doubts of my hotel selection abilities. The place I stayed was at the bottom of Acropolis Hill, and had stunning views of the Parthenon. I enjoyed the sight from the rooftop bar and did shots of ‘Unicum’ (a Hungarian spirit; incidentally the most vile thing I’ve ever consumed) with some Moldovan backpackers. The next day I did all the usual Athens tourist stuff, and made my way to Budapest.

In Budapest I stayed on a boat on the river Danube, which was right next to the Hungarian parliament buildings, and had really good views of Budapest castle. I had a nice little stroll down the riverbank the following day and deciphered the public transport system.

No injuries, no disease, no drama!

Love Emily x 

A souvenir from Asia

I knew my next hospital admission was lurking somewhere in the future, but I didn’t expect it to be this bloody soon.

I arrived home from Gatwick feeling pretty damn ropey, but the obvious culprit seemed to be the 11 hour flight. The next day I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a car, and unfortunately I have previous experience of that for comparison. My temperature was 38.5 so I took a bit of paracetamol, but an hour later it had climbed to 38.8 and I felt like that car had reversed back over me.

I went through the usual drill: called haematology, they admitted me, and initiated treatment for neutropenic sepsis. Given my recent travels I was moved to an isolation room on an infectious diseases ward; my temperature rose to 39.1, my BP plummeted to 62/40, and an extremely angry looking (but completely painless) rash crept over me. Loads of exciting swabs and blood samples were taken over 7 cannulation attempts and 2 femoral stabs, but I avoided another lumbar puncture (I think because I was very vocal about my headache from last time). So far the only thing grown was enterovirus in my throat which isn’t particularly interesting or significant, but the tests for all the exotic diseases take time to do. Initially the working diagnosis was dengue fever, but now chikungunya virus (no, I’d never heard of it either!) seems a lot more likely given how my rash has evolved.

I’m home now, just feeling like I’ve been beaten up, and marvelling at the souvenir I brought home.

Love Emily x

Diffushi; Maldives

The Maldives. Wow.

There was an initial kerfuffle on arrival: I’d thrice asked the hotel for boat transfers between the island the airport is on, and the one where our hotel was. Whether those emails were received and/or ignored will remain a mystery, but what I do know is Ben, Clare and I spent a decent 6 hours lugging our backpacks around Male, sweating our tits off and relying on the kindness of strangers who compensated for the lack of signs/maps/information kiosks and directed us towards the boat we needed. 

We were not happy campers on arrival, and even less so when we discovered the hotel website photos had been taken by an extremely talented photographer, our triple room contained one bed, and the highly anticipated hotel spa was actually at another hotel. We thought we got fair compensation when we negotiated free drinks (we had already paid for full board) for our whole stay plus a free snorkelling trip, but it then transpired that the hotel didn’t have a licence to serve alcohol and the snorkelling trip was included anyway.

Waking up the next morning after an early night, we were all in better moods. We went snorkelling about 3km from the coast of Dhiffushi and all the hyperbolic cliches are about to get rolled out. Going underwater was like entering a different, magical, world. The only sounds I could hear were my breathing and heart beat which gave me far greater focus on what I could see - which was stunning. The flora and fauna of the reef were vibrantly coloured, and the fish weaving around it were equally vivid and beautiful. I spotted several turtles, and got close enough to one to stroke it. It was amazing, and something which should be added to your bucket list.

I spent the next couple of days lazing on the hotels private beach, reading, writing and doing not much else. On our last evening we went to a local spot where stingrays and baby sharks are known to go to in the evening to feed, and paddled with them in the sea.

All in all, I loved the Maldives and I’ve never been anywhere which comes close to rivalling it’s natural beauty, but 3 nights was enough. I’d no longer feel jealous of anyone who told me about their upcoming two-week honeymoon in the Maldives because, unless you’re a ‘beach holiday’ fanatic, there’s nothing to do except... nothing. Maybe that’s part of the appeal for some, but I was getting a bit bored (and burnt) by the end of it. 

That’s my latest adventure brought to a close. Next stop: Malta.

Love Emily x