AndyBlog

Enjoying the view...

As I sit here, writing these gentle prose to you, dear reader, this is the view I enjoy.

It's an old man's piss-bag.

Levels have been rising steadily all day, and I was tempted to try a time-lapse movie for your lurid enjoyment, but decided the moral line had to be drawn somewhere, and this is it.

The main purpose of this posting is to let you know how difficult it is to get pain relief in hospital.

At home, I had a nice combination of pain killers going which was genuinely helping me. Sure, they were strong, but they worked quite well.

When I came into hospital, the one doctor I did see promised me that I had nothing to fear, and that they would ensure I was as comfortable as possible. It was one of those nice, comforting speeches which invites trust.

Initially I got two of the three drugs I took, with a promise of the third later. It never came. Then I moved wards. Upon arrival at the new ward they informed me that one of the drugs had been stopped. The other two were supplied regularly.

Today I discover that the other drug has been stopped, leaving me with just paracetamol. I can requst the morphine, but it requires approval each time and they often cannot get it.

My question is this:

Who is making these decisions? Who is cancelling my medication without telling me? Someone is deciding my level of pain relief without examining me or speaking to me. I find this deeply troubling. Nor can I complain.

I must wait till a doctor chooses to visit this backwater. Since I don't belong on this ward, my doctor may never visit. Nor can I leave to seek him out.

The nurses can only give me what comes up on their computer, and they say they do not know who controls the computer.

Somewhere along the line, I am being told a tale.

Is it too much to ask that my pain is regularly and effectively relieved without me having to fight all the time?

On a similar theme, one of the advantages of being in hospital is that I can have my bandages changed more regularly - particularly on my left leg which is pouring with fluid.

I was told today that they did not have the staff to do the second change, so would have to wait till morning. They say they are too short staffed to do it.

I am glad that this is a public record of how I am being treated. I would guess that it is typical of the way patients can expect to be looked after if they have a condition like mine, which does not easily sit in a category.

The message from this side of the fence is that the NHS feels very second rate, overstretched, inefficient and, quite honestly, under skilled.

I am really sorry to be here, but I will tolerate it, as long as they are able to give me the IV antibiotics that I need.

I am sad, exhasperated and very very tired.

Lovely grub!

I'm aware that I have already been significantly less than complimentary about my treatment here in the Sunderland Royal Infirmary, but there is one shining beacon of loveliness which should not go without praise:

The food is great.

This morning, I was tempted with three quarters of a bacon sandwich - a much better proposition than I make it sound.

The bacon was smoked, and perfectly cooked - something rarely seen, even in the best breakfast cafes. The bread was good old fashioned 'plastic' white bread. It may not be good for me, but it tastes rather nice.

Lunch, today was a traditional Sunday roast and I had a pretty nice chicken breast with veg. The spuds were not good, but one cannot expect perfection. I really wasn't that hungry anyway.

This evening I was tempted with some broth soup and a yoghurt. Maybe not the fare of gastronomes, but edible and reasonably appetising. All of this in stark contrast to the food on offer in Dryburn Hospital in Durham - where most of the food was all but inedible.

So well done Sunderland!

(shame about the patient care)

Late night action

Because the hospital is full to bursting, the only bed they could find me was on a geriatrics ward - so it's me and a load of crazy old men.

John, next to me has a machine which makes a single loud bleep every 1.932 seconds. Sometimes it's 2.236 seconds, and then sometimes 1.485 seconds. I think it is this variety which has the potential to push my fully over the edge into madness.

Spider-man accross the way roams around endlessly through the night. He visits me sometimes, grunts and shows me his plimmy tube. He went out the fire escape three times by the time I finally got some shut-eye at around 4am.

Geordie, to the left of Spider-Man, as I look at them, has spent the best part of two hours in the toilet - the only toilet for 16 of us. When I finally got access to the room, there were suspicious mark on the floor and a tell-tale smell. Maybe some form of geriatric dirty protest. Nonetheless, difficult for me to negotiate with a drip in my arm and the attendant trolley.

At 2.21am it was busier than the daytime was. These lads save themselves for the wee small hours. It didn't quieten down as the night went on - not a bit of it.

Last night, now I am safely installed in an excellent hospital, Fiona had to come in and do my bandages. Not only that but the "Pharmacy is closed", so she had to bring in the materials as well.

Whilst she was doing her erstwhile job, a doctor sent a message down that he would not prescribe the bandaging materials unless he saw the stuff in person, and could Fiona please take them to the ward he was on. Poor Fiona.

She had come, more or less, straight from work, with barely a break. She was really tired and rightly exhasparated at having to bandage me. She could have been forgiven for thinking that now I am in hospital she did not have to worry about that sort of thing.

She did not visit the nice doctor.

Predictably, they struggle to get the drip-fed antibiotics into me. My veins so rarely play ball that it is a bit of a vain hope in the first place.

It took 9 hours to give me my first dose of antibiotics last night. The drip was taken out at 4am. I've had almost no sleep. The pain relief they are giving me is far from sufficient and there is talk of switching me to oral antibiotics. If this is the case, I might as well go home now.

Once again, I find myself wondering why I am here, and marvelling at the poor care of the hospital. Is there anyone or anywhere in the medical system that can or will actually help me?

I think not.

Now then, what was I saying about optimism?

And so this is hospital...

That sly smile on my face should not be mistaken for happiness. Maybe more a philosophical acceptance of my situation.

I am now installed and officially ill. I'm not sure I needed that kind of confirmation, but there it is.

They will now pour high quantities of antibiotics into me and see if I heal.

I'll let you know.

Sitting and waiting...

Here I am sitting in thr back seat of my car looking at the hospital car park.

Terry is trying to find out where I have to be. It's quite scary.

There is a small chance I might not be admitted today. We'll see.

It's all happening. One way or the other.

It's Hozzie time!

I suppose there was some sort of unpleasant inevitability to what I am about to tell you, but I had dared to hope that there was not.

Sadly, on the advice of my doctor, who has been fantastic and worked very closely with me, respecting my extreme desire to stay out of hospital, I am, none the less, going into hospital tomorrow.

Fiona and myself have tried to sort out the problems with my legs at home, trying everything we knew, up to and including complete bed rest, and nothing has seemed to work. My pain is getting worse, the legs are getting worse and I, myself, am pretty miserable.

The thought of going to the place makes me feel sick inside. I hate it. I hate the smell of it, I hate the strained look on the faces of those who work there, I hate the arrogance of the consultants, I hate the way the place demeans the individual - for individual you are not, you become a lower life form entirely. You become - "Patient".

Then there are the 'mirth bringers'. Someone will call on me to say that I am overweight. They will call on someone to tell me not to eat pies. They will also call someone to tell me I am diabetic (actually being diabetic doesn't seem to be a pre-requisite of this). They will test all the stuff I have. They will test blood, urine, puss, cellular discharge and anything else they can squeeze out of me. Then a big arrogant man with lots of trainee arrogant people around him will tell me that this illness is all my own fault, and imply that I should think myself lucky to be getting any treatment at all - and that I certainly shouldn't feel I have any right to complain if anything is less than satisfactory. He will then go on to explain that this is not his area of speciality and that I really should be in a different department, although he will not know where.

He will half-transfer me to someone else - and the upshot of this will be that no-one treats me for a while. Instead, I will just lie there, wondering why all this has to happen - interrupted only by the genuinely wonderful tea lady, who will bring me my fatty and carbo-rich meal of pie and chips.

I will not eat it, because I am serious about me losing weight - even if the hospital are not.

I may be being a little harsh, but I really have been there before, several times. Each time has been worse than the last. The only reason I have agreed to go now is that it is to a different hospital. Maybe they will be better, and I can report on these pages of wonderful things and great joy.

I do hope so, because, you see... I am an optimist.

The annoying thing about pain...

This self portrait of me was done by the Dutch painter Van Halen

...is that it hurts. Take away that one single factor and few of us would be troubled by it. I would count myself joyfuly amongst that number. Sadly, however, reality singularly fails to be open to my influence to such a degree, and pain, in its usual fashion, continues to taunt me a second, third, fourth and fifth time. It farts in my general direction - as, indeed, do I. (but that's a quite separate story, and yes, i am still keeping to the diet etc.)

A measure of success

It's not often that I can say I've lost 4 stones in less than a week, and now is definitely not such a time. That said, and as I implied in my clever title to this piece, today is one of those rare days of unequivocal positive quantification.

To explain, I'm not the kind of person who, when on any sort of diet, needs to check my weight or measurements all the time to see how well it's going. Not me. I prefer to let things build up over a period of time so that, should there be a pleasant news story, it will be significantly pleasant - and if a negative one well....I can just say nothing, and because my updates are not regular, most people forget to ask after a while.

It's a cowardly strategy, but it works for me.

I reckon I've been doing this "lifestyle change" thing for about three months now. The only thing I did at the beginning of it, was to measure myself round my area of "greatest girth". It was a depressing figure to behold, and so was the number of inches. That number was 74.5" and the new number, God bless it, is 69".

So my cowardice has paid off. I believed in the system and waited long enough so that there could be no doubt. I pushed my tummy out as far as I could on both occasions, so as to keep it fair.

At a time when my left leg has joined the right in being eaten alive with cellulitis and when I have every reason to feel at my lowest, it is comforting that there is this one single piece of cheering news. I cling to it. I had hoped that the illness side of things would wait in the wings and show some respect for my weight loss lifestyle. Seemingly not.

Did I mention that my car was broken into again. I mean, honestly - why my car? Why me? it's all so unfair! Arrrggghhhhhh!

(could someone please pass me my toys back?)

Nose Light

This is a picture of Jason Thompson - web authorer, drummer and thrice father, hailing from the very heart of Northumberlandshirefordhampton. He is man of acute sensibilities, perfect manners and exquisite taste.

He has a torch shoved up his nostril.

The torch is switched on.

It makes a funny light come through his nostril.

The light looks funny, and so I laughed when I saw it. I suppose this posting is a kind of an invitation for you to laugh with me - or maybe just smile for a while.

Not got it yet? Look again... look at the funny face, and the comedic raised eyebrows. I do declare, it's almost like someone has dropped an ice-pop down his knickers.

Oh well, please yourself. My car was broken into last night. Again. I hate that. I mean, why can't they break into their own cars?

Cacophony!

All I wanted was a file. Not a computer file, or a paper file - a metal file. Not a file on metal, or about metal, but a file made out of metal for filing wood - or maybe plastic. Naturally, I looked everywhere before finally giving up.

Then inspiration hit; it was under the microwave in the utility room, behind the container that holds the used plastic shopping bags. On approaching the region of bags, I realised that there was a much bigger problem to be tackled first.

What I had taken to be a few bags tucked into a cunning Ikea "bag press", turned out to be a large and predatory area, keen to protect itself and its baggy kingdom. It was a brief but fierce struggle, but eventually I liberated the toolbox from behind the bag kingdom and soon discovered that the file was not there either.

In a brief moment of sanity, I remembered to photograph the bloodied bodies of the dead bags, before I got a bag body bag bag out to bag the bags up in. I am happy to report that we are now well and truly de-bagged, and part of our house has been claimed back once more. At least for a while.

As I basked in this happy truth, some other areas came to mind:

Behind my mixing desk....

I no longer know which wire is which, and the kingdom of wires is truly reigning supreme. Worse still, there is clearly a wires conspiracy which has spread to behind my computer desk...

It's spookily similar to how the rest of my life is. Confused, unclear, elusive...erm....grey...with plugs.

It's possible I shouldn't attempt analogy too often.

Essentially, what happened here was that I took a picture of the mess I made with the bags and then tried to be clever. I can only apologise and urge you to observe the beauty of the clouds.

Oh, look - a train!