Day 19 – Walking with wheels

Sunday 27th September 2009

Slept ok last night. Had to have three lots of IV antibiotics so was ‘wired for sound’ for over an hour every four to five hours a day.

One of the staff nurses (couldn’t remember her name) wasn’t very happy with me as my fluid chart said I wasn’t drinking enough during the night. Last night, other than some water to wash down a painkiller, I only had a few sips of apple juice. What did they expect me to do, wake up every half an hour to have a glass of water !!!!

I was so bored. I couldn’t face doing my needlework cushion and reading was out of the questions as it kept making me go to sleep…

The worse time for being bored was after washing (9am) and 2pm. Thankfully seeing as I didn’t have my catheter bag anymore, I could go back to bed for 40 winks during the morning.

I asked myself if I would like to be in a side room when I came back in to have my hip put in and to be honest I wasn’t sure. Being on your own was great as you can do your own thing without disturbing the rest of the patients. However when you were on your own, there was a tendency to feel like you were being forgotten about. On a ward you could easily catch a nurse if you needed anything, whereas in a side room you had to buzz and it felt like you were constantly buzzing and being a nuisance.

Joanna, the weekend physio, came to see me that afternoon while John was visiting and asked if I’d like to try walking again. Still couldn’t manage so her assistant went and got a walking frame with wheels, which had sort of bicycle handle bars attached to it. My arms and elbows lay across the bars and took some of the weight off my right leg. It was really hard work at first but I managed to walk about twenty feet. Joanna was really impressed with my progress, considering that yesterday I couldn’t walk at all.