AndyBlog

A Bolt From The Blue

...and so this young female doctor who I have never seen before approaches my bed and tells me that I'll be going home tomorrow.

Just like that.

It was only then that I realised just how hard to please I was.

Sure, it will be great to switch to tablets from drips. Sure, it will be fantastic to go home tomorrow - I really love my home, and all the possibilities it holds for me.

But....I'm not healed!

My leg is still seeping that horrible fluid and I am in the most awful pain.

It is simply that they believe my treatment can continue at home safely, with an option to return to hospital should I need to if it it returns to its previous condition.

Yes, let's make that clear, too. I have improved. It's hard to really embrace the improvement, given that I still have serious problems, but my legs are less red and hot. This means that the cellulitis is definitely not as bad as it was.

So now I feel a whole range of emotions. One of great excitement, to begin with. Then a load of worries about when I will be out and who might be able to pick me up.

Still, hope is a great evil in hospital, and I will refrain from hoping too much. They think nothing of casually requiring an extra fews days here and there.

I also feel confusion, and worry that at home things will just escalate again. I worry that quite a lot, and so will have to discipline myself to continue with treatment and bed rest, rather than throwing myself into work. Not that I could do that just now.

I need a few good nights rest and some lovely peace and quiet. Ah yes, peace and quiet...mmmmm.....

Oooops, there I go, hoping again.

Pain, and more pain

First of all, let me deal with the subject of today's cheerful little picture. This is Donovan, possibly the nicest, most friendly and efficient nurse on the ward.

He goes the extra mile and shows care, as well as just duty. I mention him, because he gives me hope that there are people who have not been sucked into the depressing mire of money-based thinking and 'jobsworthing'. I find it easy to believe that he is in his job because he wants to care for people. In this money-grabbing and selfish world in which we live, I find the existence of people like Donovan very cheering.

I'm sure he's not the only one.

I suppose the thing I have to express the most today is just the sheer amount of pain I have had to deal with and am currently dealing with.

The last 24 hours has been a tough one, with pain levels rising, rather than falling. During bandage change this morning I was in real agony, and it has only abated very slowly since.

I also have pain still from the drip, and the drip is now almost continuous. The vein is distressed with so much fluid being forced through it, and my whole hand and arm aches also.

I think it is this combination of pains, both quite significant, which makes my overall experience pretty negative at the moment.

Because the drip is taking so long to go through, my 9.30pm dose started at 1.20am this morning, completing at 4.50am. This is hardly a way to get a good night's sleep.

Anyway, my wife has just arrived, so I'll moan to her for a while. :-)

Problems with pricks...

An old and anticipated problem has reared its head today.

My body is not a good one into which to insert needles. My veins are hard to find. This means that the little tap they put into my arm to administer the IV Antibiotics is very hard to get in.

I was lucky with first vent, which went into the bend of my arm. I was luckier yet with the second, which was sited by the duty staff nurse one night. She prayed before she put the needle in - and her prayers were answered.

As of now, that vent has been there a long time and it is giving me a lot of pain as the fluid goes through it and into my body. The dose is very large and so a big strain is placed on the vent.

Bearing this in mind, after Dr. Babu failed three times to insert a new one today (ouch!!) , he is now talking about a small operation to open up a large vein in my arm and insert a more permanent vent.

This is as fascinating as it is scary.

And now, after having both leg bandages changed (more ouch!) and several pricks in my arm (repeat of previous ouch!!), I am hoping for an easy evening, despite the painful vent in my right hand (new ouch!!).

In reality, the flow inwards is so slow that I can expect to be hooked up to the drip most of this evening and maybe past midnight.

Ouch. This illness lark never seems to be completely straightforward, does it?

Sleep, glorious sleep!

The departure of Spider-man to another ward has changed everything for the embattled residents of ward M2, Room 1.

Room 1 has gained a level of peace and, dare I say it, sanity, that I had not considered possible. I can only pity his new 'friends' wherever he has gone to.

Geordie still did his usual trick after visiting time, I wonder if it is some kind of protest. Aside from that, it was a very quiet night, and I slept pretty soundly for a large part of it. I woke up a lot, but only for
a few seconds to turn over.

This morning, breakfast afforded us that most treasured fare, a bacon sandwich. Possibly the smallest ever bacon sandwich, but a bacon sandwich none the less. It may only have been a quarter of a slice of bread in size, but that little burst of taste is something else. I will never turn vegetarian.

My consultant says that he is happy with my progress, but my left leg is still pouring with fluid. Just as bad as ever. The onward march of the cellulitis has been well and truly halted, though, and I look forward to it starting to receed soon.

I should say something about how I feel, rather than just recounting the facts of each day.

I must be feeling a little better, because today I have the first pangs of seriously wanting to be home again. I bet that sleep did it. No doubt, as the day progresses and I feel gradually worse, this feeling will pass.

I am really very frustrated that this condition keeps me from my work and from my life. I realise that I have a wonderful life, rich with friendship and interesting things to do. At times, I believe I have squandered it by taking it for granted.

In my little world, where so much is urgent, I have a tendency to forget to do what is important. My goal for the next period of my life is to share the time out between the urgent and the important, giving time to indulge my creativity. I somehow doubt I will ever look back and wish I had spent more time mending computers.

And so on with the day. Drips, tea, tablets, washes, bed changes, bandage changes, lunch, tea, consultant visits, tablets, drips, tea, evening meal, tea, visitors, tea, drips, bed.

It's busier than you might think.

Whoever /you/ are, I hope you have/had a good day. Thanks for taking the time to read these ramblings.

A little balance...

I am painfully aware - well, painfully everything - that I spoken, thus far, from an almost completely critical standpoint.

So let's stand back a touch and put things into context. What feels to me like a desparate state of affairs, may actually represent only a small actual error on the hospital's part.

Much of the problem is the slow nature of the way in which hospitals move. In their terms, they respond immediately, in my terms, it is no-where near fast enough.

Let's look at the state of play today, and see where we are up to. Here are the five main points on the positive end of things:

1) I am on 4 litres per day of antibiotic IV drip.

2) The cellulitis may already be responding. It has certainly failed in its bid to crawl further up my leg.

3) My bandage has been changed at least once every day on the worst (left) leg.

4) Spider-man (alias 'John') has been moved to another part of this ward. This should mean we get a quieter night. A lot depends on Geordie, and whether or not he fancies any late night 'action'.

5) I now have regular pain relief that I don't have to fight for. Whilst it is not as flexible as I have at home, it is now workable. This, alone, has cheered me no end.

All that positivity has left me slightly giddy. Now for the negative points:

1) I am in a geriatrics ward. They have no specialised equipment or skills to help me with my condition.

2) They have not managed to source the proper bandaging materials. I am assured that they are ordered, but their arrival may still be days away.

3) Because of the kind of patients on this ward, sleeping well at night is near impossible. It's noisy, very hot and the others are liable to act unpredicatbly.

4) There is a perfectly good dermitology department which could treat me far better than here, yet who refuse to help.

So, you see, if we remove that 72-hour time lag from admission when things were very very wrong, the picture looks a lot more rosy.

Many of you will have heard me tell similar stories based on my stay in Dryburn hospital. This place is clearly better.

1) Here, I have been seen by a doctor every day except Sunday. At Dryburn, five days elapsed between me seeing a doctor.

2) There was something very depressing about Dryburn, this place is a lot friendlier. The staff are, for the most part, great.

3) The food is much better here.

4) My consultant is not smug and arrogant. He's an approachable guy who does listen. At Dryburn.... well, not that.

5) I have not received pointless lectures about weight loss or diabetes here.

I reckon that's enough comparisons. My point is to show you that now that I am a little more stable, I can stand back and view things in a more even-handed way.

If they were able to put me on a more appropriate ward and get the required bandages, this place would now be performing well. What it lacks, is the ability to get stuff right from the outset.

Here, it seems, the patients must fight for what they get - and fight hard.

A night-time tale

Sunerland General Hospital probably isn't the kind of place that will appear on TV in one of those morning slots. Their bathrooms are not so good, for one thing. What this picture could never adequately convey is the rich and all-powerful aroma.

Nevertheless, when one has just experienced one's most painful ever bandage change and been attacked by another patient - it represents the kind of lockable haven the one needs at a time like that.

All is quiet on the ward now, it's like that during the day. Impossible to imagine the anarchic mayhem of last night.

The nurses were overstretched, because the whole ward was kicking off. I was a little cheesed off because my bandages had not been changed all day. Spider-man and Geordie were completely gutted at not being allowed home, as was Smiler, but he was not involved in the trouble.

It kicked off around 11pm with Geordie taking all his clothes off and using another patient's bed as a toilet. Nice. Then the nurses arrived to give me my IV drips and change my bandages. For me, it was a bit too much going on at one time.

They set about both legs at the same time, ripping off bandages, tearing through Tubifast™. They must have noticed me looking rather pasty-faced and not breathing well.

"Does this hurt you?"

...one asked...

I don't remember much more. It's a bit of a blur. They're not great bandages, but they're on.

Unfortunately, whilst they did their work, one of the nurses must have ripped out my vent. So, the dodgy process of inserting a new one had to take place before my IV antibiotics could continue.

Are you still with me?

At around 2am my drip finished and I settled down to sleep.

Barely minutes later I felt a touch on my legs, and there was Spider-man. His real name is John.

I was quite startled and told him to go away back to bed. He moved forwards and thrust my Patientline™ TV at me. I put my arm out and sopped it hitting my head.

A little louder now, I insisted he get out out of my way and go back to bed.

Then he took a folded from the bottom of my bed, folded it once more and hit my legs a few times.

I was kinda shocked and still am really. I reported this to the night staff and, rather fearfully, tried to sleep again.

Geordie and John were up and down all night. At 4am, Geordie phoned his son to ask him to pick him up for the pub. After getting no joy, he switched Radio 2 on, nice and loud.

How was your night?

Dr. Babu

It's possible that I am running short of pictures, but here is an entertaining little number, featuring my left arm and the complex array of tubes and pipes running into it. It looks fun, but is a bit annoying, It's
like carrying a bunch of keys around in my elbow-crack.

Anyway, just two days after I requested it, a doctor came running to see me today. I'm sorry that I am still well loaded with sarcasm, but that is the way it is.

In reality, it was a very cheering visit for me. He doubled my doses of IV antibiotics and listened to my tale of woe.

Whilst he offered no explanation as to why the medication had been gradually stopped, he did agree to reinstate my former levels of pain killers.

This has meant that I spent this evening in relative comfort. I almost burst into tears after he left. I felt like I had won a big fight. I got to thinking that I might have to leave this place if they would not treat me properly. Now, if it all works out, I get what I need to stay sane, and so I might rediscover my good humour.

I can't help feeling a little like Nadia from Big Brother with her cigarettes. No matter, she won.

So, it will be Wednesday before they know if the uprated treatment has started to work. As of now, my condition is about the same as when I first arrived. Maybe a little worse.

Still, let's try to look at today as the day I turned the corner.

Let's try really hard to think that way.

Really, really hard...

A moment...

...alone with a mirror.

Heal my body, feed my soul.

No.... Feed my body, heal my soul. Yes, that's more like it, because the sausage sandwich was great.

But hang on...there's no real sign of feeding my soul. I guess I should figure it out again.

Pain Relief Update

My pain relief has now been reduced to Paracetamol only and I am in agony as a result. Again, no consultation with me, no contact with a doctor at all.

I am hopeful that a doctor will arrive later today so that I can talk to them about this crazy situaton. I am, frankly, shocked that this could happen. Until I went into hosptial, I believed that everything just
happened as it was supposed to. I still prefer to believe that I have been stunningly unlucky.

I do see parts of the hospital where everything seems to happen as it should. The CDU that I was initially admitted into had a buzz of efficiency about it. The staff seemed motivated and interested in the patients. That gave me hope.

Now I am on the wrong ward, under a doctor and consultant who never visit here, and the gap back to the last time I saw a doctor is growing rather large. I have not seen a doctor since 11.45am on Saturday. That's 48 hours now. Should that grow to 72 hours, I think that starts to become a pretty
serious failure of care.

Please bear in mind that a doctor, somewhere, has still seen fit to make decisions regarding my pain relief.

Once more, I am left shaking my head, and continually rocking back and forth as I try to cope with the pain.

The staff are all very pleasant, and have often promised me that a doctor will arrive, but none has.

I'm conscious that I'm going on about this rather too much, but it is important to me, and so I have to express what is burning through my mind.

I should also say thanks to all who read this blog and who have emailed. It is much appreciated. Thanks to you all for your support and offers of prayer. This goes a log way to making this experience less lonely.

I have a great little pic to post, so I will make another entry later.

Maybe with some cheering news. I hope so.

Erratum

Following my previous post, I have been asked to make the following statement:

Everything is fine. I am happy. My treatment is proceeding well.

Thank you.