From Beginning to Endo...

One persons story of having endocarditis...

Earlier last year, when BP was out doing the practical research for our ecstasy article, a 6am stumble out of an East London club brought us red-eye to red-eye with a new face for the BP firm. Fully versed in the many shades of shitfaced and accents of bullshit, Andy has had a few freaky times. For our 7th issue, Black Poppy wanted to pick his brains about his experience of having endocarditis. We wanted to know what it felt like in real time to have a life-threatening infection of the heart valve and Andy, ever E-bliging, told us the story, from Beginning to Endo...

I'd recently split up with my girlfriend and was beginning to get back into the swing of going out clubbing again. I was working at the time and doing a bit of coke on the side but pretty much holding things together. One day, this bloke comes round to see me to get a bit and then says, out of the blue,"You look like a pinner. You look like you inject". After telling him to fuck off I discovered he had a spare works on him and although it had been 3 years since I'd used a needle, I'd not often used coke just on its own - it was always speedballs. So, I had a hit and after that, slowly but surely, I got into it - it got me by the scruff of the neck y'know? I was getting superb coke at the time and then along came this batch of mediocre stuff. It was a bit sedimenty but if you'd had a little more patience than greedy bollocks here, you could have mixed it up clear. We all promise to filter but don't always do a good job of it - saying we'll do it better next time round (hoping there will be one). My hygiene routine around injecting was pretty sloppy at the time... After a couple of weeks of good filtering and lazy filtering I started feeling these aches and pains in the top of my arms and my breathing did n't feel quite right...

In hindsight I can see that this was the beginning of an attack of endocarditis.

It all came to a head one weekend. On the Friday, after having a 'lazily filtered hit' (may I say it was a good one!) I started to feel rough, like I might of had a dirty hit. I had no painkillers at hand so it was aunaturel/ e. I went to bed but had a night of broken sleep. I got up to find I still had a bit of coke left - so what's a man supposed to do? Of course, sit down and filter this one properly! Yes, i still had a few aches and pains but I had to change the way I felt somehow.

At last a good hit After 30 minutes my body started to talk - no shout - at me; something's wrong sir.. Bad hit or worse, this was now becoming a problem. It was self infliction of a class A drug. I needed help, help from a doctor, consultant, but not the morgue! By Sunday morning, I was finding it hard to breathe. I couldn't seem to get a deep breath and my shoulders, thighs and ass were constantly aching. I just couldn't get comfortable. I had a severe headache - every conceivable type of headache was being played out in my skull - and I don't normally get headaches. My chest really hurt when I took a breath -I had to concentrate on slowing my body right down so I could take slower, shallower breaths.

By the next morning, I knew something pretty serious was happening. I didn't actually want to go to hospital; I was hoping things weren't that bad and I also didn't want to get told off when f got to A&E for something they might see as my own fault - the self-inflicted. But I made the decision.... Hospital. I was skint that day; I didn't even have the bus fare to get there so I had to walk. A long, slow, difficult walk to A & E. Once I got there I had x-ray's, scans and blood tests and was finally admitted to ICU after 26 hours curied up on a bench in A&E. I was put on a 24 hour slow release drip - my temperature went up to 107 and everything started to take a hold. It was like a bad hit times 5. Pains all over my body, headaches - in a nutshell - feeling seriously shite, I longed for some TLC, sleep, food - an escape from my drugfuelled routine! The doctors came to see me.

From the symptoms noted on my assessment form - together with the fact that I was an injector - seemed to give them an idea of what they were looking for.They checked my nails for 'splinters' (little dark lines on the nails) and various other symptoms related to endocarditis.- fever, headaches, painful limbs, shallow breaths etc...They told me I had a collapsed pulse, which I found out was related to me having a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot on the lung. This gave me an irregular heart beat. It's then that you realise this is fucking serious and it's happening to me. All that was needed was a clot on the brain - cabbage, heart - good chance, well maybe no chance, or a stroke.

And then they took the piss! Well my piss. Bloods, cultures, tests for Hep C and HIV, then I was x-rayed, scanned and had an ultrasound, MRI and EGG. The results showed a vegetation on my tricuspid valve - or Infective Endocarditis. I didn't know anything about it. Didn't even know how to spell it. Still don't! Endo..End..Oh, pains in the heart! By this stage, I was well up for a good nights sleep. I was dosed up with gentamicin, the domestos of the antibiotic world, (IV 4 times a day for a week) continued on antibiotics (fluxocillin IV for 4 weeks) and deltaparin, as well as countless painkillers and sleepers. This combined with food x 3 a day and TLC from the nurses, I was content to rest my old body and wait....

After 4 weeks of pretty much just what the doctor ordered, here I was clean; heart and arms repaired, blood good, as well as 1 fi stones heavier. So you can imagine I was feeling pretty happy and confident. It was nice to wear a tshirt... The funny thing about having IV treatment is that you end up living by the sword but luckily for me, this time, not dying by it. I do sometimes wonder whether I'll have any long term problems, when I read or hear stuff regarding the heart, it now relates to me too. i.e I now have to have preventative antibiotics EVERY time I go to the dentist for treatment or have any type of surgery. For insurance and filling out forms, that niggling question at the end 'Have you got any heart problems?' Well, yes. I have.

This all happened 1 year ago, nearly to the day; hospital for Valentines Day! So what am I doing now? Still alive. Have I learnt anything? Well, apart from liking my choice of drugs, maybe now I at least change the way I take them. It can be a hard life being into drugs; addict, junkie, user, taker etc. Be aware of the circle, that vicious one. Take care of yourself, be more hygienic and its not always clever to be able to do shitloads of everything. And believe me, what the eye don't see, the heart can feel.

End o story, Andy.

To read our health fact sheet on endocarditis fro IV users, click here