Day 4 - Meeting the consultant

Saturday 12th September 2009

I never slept a wink. My back was in even more pain than last night and the hand where I had been having the IV antibiotics was extremely red, swollen and painful.

At 6.25am I couldn’t take the pain anymore so buzzed for some painkillers. An auxiliary nurse arrived. I asked if I could have some morphine and explain about my hand.
“Ooh that nasty”, she said, looking at my hand, “the Venflon needs to come out. I’ll tell the nurse”.

At 6.30am a staff nurse arrived, not with any painkillers, but with another bag of antibiotics.
“The auxiliary nurse said it needs to come out”, I said as she was attaching the drip to my hand.
“Your hand is fine”, she replied, not even bothering to look at it.
I winced in pain. I could feel every single drop of antibiotics that was going through my vein. I looked up at the bag of liquid.
“It’s dropping through very slowly”, I said as the antibiotic was flowing into the drip chamber a single drop every couple of seconds or two.
“It’s meant to do that”, replied the nurse.
“Well, it wasn’t last night when you put it on”.
She didn’t reply and left the room. Instead of it taking the usual 30 minutes to finish, the bag finally empted five hours later, during which time I was in agony with my hand.

Both the pain in my back and in my hand were getting worse. I buzzed yet again at 7.30am for some pain relief. The auxiliary nurse said she would ask the nurse for some.

8.45am and I was still waiting….

The domestic cleaner came into my room with a cup of tea. I couldn’t sit up to drink it because of the pain in my back so she put the tea into a beaker for me. The cleaner asked if I was ok to which I explained that I was in severe pain. She suggested I buzzed for help. I replied that had already done that twice and no one came.
“Leave it with me”, she said.
Two minutes later a staff nurse came in to my room with some painkillers.

Later in the morning there was a knock at my door.
“Hello, I’m Mr Green”, announced a tall, good-looking man with a floppy fringe, “I understand you’re having one or two problems with your hip”.
“At the moment my hip is fine”, I replied, “it’s my back that giving me grief”.
He then asked if I have any history of back problems.
“No”, I replied, “but I think the problem is with the bed. The mattress is too soft”.
“Can we arrange for a different mattress”, he asked the nurse who was accompanying him.
She thought for a while. “We don’t have any other mattress. They are all the same”.
“Because the patients here in the hospital are mainly elderly”, he explained, “all the mattresses are designed to combat pressure sores, which is why the mattresses are so soft”.
Mr Green then came up with an idea, “what about an air mattress. That might help”.
He also arranged for some strong painkillers to be prescribed.

“Basically, you have two options regarding your hip”, he said, “I can clean it out, get rid of the infection and leave the hip in. However the infection will keep coming back and you will have to have it cleaned out again every couple of months”.

“And the other option….”, I asked.

“….is I remove the hip then clean out all the infection. Depending on what damage has been done, I might be able to put in a temporary hip, which will tide you over for a coupe of months”.
“It’ll be a major operation”, he continued, “lasting several hours and requiring several weeks stay in hospital. You’ll also have to spend the night following surgery in intensive care”
“It’s just a precaution”, he tried to reassure me, unsuccessfully.
“You don’t have to make a decision now”, he added, think about it and let me know tomorrow. I’m on call all this weekend so if you have any questions, just let one of the staff know, and I’ll pop in to see you”.

There wasn’t really anything to think about. Option one was a none starter so it had to be option two. The words ‘intensive care’ really freaked me out. Only really sick people spend time there so I thought there must be something sinister going on and he wasn’t telling me.

I was staring out of the window, which overlooked the main hospital car park, thinking about what Mr Green had said about it ‘being a major operation’ when a voice said ‘hello Marie’.
It was a staff nurse call Venus. “Can I take some blood from you”, she asks nicely.
It took her two attempts to get enough blood for the samples and she even apologised when the first attempt proved unsuccessful.
“Would you like a bowl to get washed”, she asked.
I said yes as I couldn’t go for shower because of the pain in my back.

“Finished washing”, she enquired, ten minutes after giving me the washing bowl.
“Sort of”, I replied, “because of my back I can’t bend down to wash my legs or feet”.
“I’ll do them”, she said cheerily, picking up my flannel. Once she had finished washing me, she then helped me get changed out of my nightshirt.
She noticed my right hand, “That looks really sore”, she said.
“It is”, I replied then told her what had happened.
“I’ll put it another one in” she said.

After a couple of goes trying to find a suitable vein Venus finally managed to put in new Venflon. “Hopefully that one will last”, she said.

My new mattress arrived. It was meant for pressure sore patients. The air inside of the mattress was moved every couple of minutes by an electric pump. It wasn’t the quietest of things but if it worked then great.

I discussed with John the options that Mr Green, or Kermit as he was going to be known as from now on, and we both agreed that number two was the only feasible option.