Day 23 – A bit of good news

Thursday 1st October 2009

Slept a bit better last night – from 2am (when I was woken up to have my obs taken –why !!!) to 6am, which is pretty good for me.

Couldn’t believe it was the 1st October already. I had been here for three weeks and it seemed like a life time. I really hoped they would get their act together today and sort out both my central line and my antibiotics. However from past form, I doubted it….

I worked out that it had taken overall two days to get the various things sorted. That was two full days completed wasted. No wonder they are always complaining about bed blocking. What really annoyed me was the lack of communication. If only they would talk to one another, instead of having to go through channels. Why couldn’t someone simply make a decision. The NHS wouldn’t be in such a mess if it worked as efficiently as the private sector. That goes too for all government departments.

Doctor Zara called into see me this morning.
“When Mr Green came yesterday did he know about what to my central line”, I asked.
“No”, she replied.
“I thought so”, I said.
“We finally bucked up courage to tell late yesterday morning”.
“What did he say”, I ask.
“He went very quite for about two minutes then said ‘get it out NOW !!!!’”.

Zara told me that it would be coming out sometime today. Yippee. I could finally have my hair washed, or even better a shower.

I asked Zara about the oozing from my hip and mentioned that it was getting a little sore. She had a look and said it looked ok. The soreness was from a previous scar expanding because my hips were extremely swollen. I told her what Kermit had said about flushing out the wound.
“It’s nothing to worry about”, she reassured me, “the fluid is clear, which is a good sign. Each surgeon does things differently. Some wait and let it clear itself, others, like Mr Green, prefer to help it along by giving it a wash out”.

One of the staff nurses, came to take more blood from me. I warned her that I wasn’t very good at giving up blood.
“I’m one of the best”, she boasted, as she put the needle into my vein.
“I don’t understand”, she said, “there’s nothing coming out”.
“I did tell you”, I replied.
She tried again, this time using a different arm.
“Your vein has just disappeared”, she said, quite shocked.
“Yeah, it does that all the time”, I said.
A young male auxiliary nurse came into my room wanting to speak to the nurse.
“I’m busy. Find someone else”, she snapped, as she was trying to fill the syringe with blood.
“Just one more centimetre”, she pleaded with my vein, “next time someone else can do this as I’m refusing to take blood from you again”.

An assistant dietician called to see me later that morning wanting to discuss my eating, or rather the lack of it. I explained that I wasn’t a fussy eater, it was just that I didn’t like the food they served. She was going to allow me to have some of the food from the children’s menu and that for lunch I could have a baked potato with various fillings, instead of the fruit I was currently having. I was still to have those horrible high calorie drinks twice a day and she would allow my mam to being in some sandwiches for me, even though bringing food onto the ward was banned. I was told I had to eat lots of protein. If they served me edible meat, I would.

Zara and another doctor called in to say they were trying to sort out getting my line removed today (they had been saying that since yesterday….) and that they are now going to monitor the oozing from my hip. I really didn’t want to go back to theatre so hoped it would dry up soon.

The physios gave me a bit of good news. They are confident with my walking so they would have no objections in me going home. That’s one of the three that was stopping me from going home ticked off. If only the leaking would stop and they could stop arguing about my antibiotics. Then I would be homeward bound…

Sister Charlton had also given me another bit of good news. My central line could finally come out. Normally this would be done by two of the central line nurses, but as Sister Charlton had been trained, she was happy to do it. She explained everything in great detail what was going to happen. Young Natalie, the second year student nurse, asked if it was ok if she could watch. Both me and Sister were happy with that. She was a lovely girl and so eager to learn new things. Norma, one of the staff nurses, popped her head through the door and asked if she too could come and watch. I was one of Norma’s favourite patients so I think she wanted to keep an eye on me.

Sister was having difficulty in removing one of the sutures. The more stressed she got, the more she sang. It wasn’t painful (the removal of the sutures – not Sisters singing!!!), just uncomfortable as she kept tugging at the suture. I was to take a deep breath, she then pulled out the line and immediately pressed her thumb hard on my neck. It was like being throttled. She had to keep her thumb pressed hard on my neck for twenty minutes. By that time my blood should have clotted around the wound.

My mam, who had been waiting outside to see me, was allowed in, so she and Sister Charlton were having a good chat.

After twenty minutes, much to the relief of both me and Sister, who by this time had had a sore thumb, the bleeding had stopped so a dressing was put over the wound. My blood pressure was immediately taken and would be every four minutes. I had to remain flat on the bed for half an hour and only when they were happy with my blood pressure, would I be slowly allowed to sit up.

It was a lovely feeling not being ‘wired for sound’ and I was so looking forward to getting a decent night sleep, well, sleeping in a comfortable position, anyway…