Friday 30 April 2010

Day 45 – Steak and chips please

Friday 23rd October 2009

Slept pretty well up until 2am when I was woken to have my obs taken. I thought they had stopped taking them. I couldn’t get back to sleep so put on my MP3 player and listened to one of my audio books. I was so glad I had them as there was nothing worse than twiddling your thumbs and starting at the ceiling when you can’t sleep.

Am still on the stronger antibiotics, and will be until Sunday. Thankfully there has been no side-effects which is good news.

Kermit came and said that my protein levels were low.
“It’s common for patients who have been in hospital a long time to have low protein levels”, he said trying to reassure me, “however you need to eat more as it will help your healing”.
I said I’d try but it was hard as the food wasn’t very nice.
“I’m sure I could manage to eat steak and chips”, I said.
“I don’t think the dietician will be able to arrange that”, he laughed.
“What about a Big Mac then”,
Sister Clarke pulled a face.
“That’s far better than the food I’m getting here”, I said.

It’s no wonder my protein levels are low. If they fed me decent food, there wouldn’t be a problem. ½ of an egg, which was so small it looked like a quails egg, didn’t constitute an egg salad…

Yesterday my lunch and dinner consisted of crackers and cheese. That was all they had put on the trolley for me. At lunch today there wasn’t anything for me so one of the nurses had to go down to the canteen to get me – surprise, surprise – a jacket potatoes.

Doctor Miska called in to say hello. I mentioned that my wound was leaking a little.
“It’ll be just left over fluid from the drain”, he said.
I wasn’t convinced so got told off for not being positive.
“How can I be positive when there’s been so many setbacks”, I replied.
“Be positive”, he reiterated, “and you’ll be home on Wednesday”.
“Oh, yeah”, I laughed, “tell you what, we’ll have a bet. I bet you a tube of smarties that I’m still here on Thursday”.
“I’m not a betting person”, he said.
“You’re just saying that because you’re frightened to loose”, I smiled.
Tracey, one of the domestics, came into my room.
“She won’t look on the positive side”, Miska said to her.
“I know it’s hard but you’ve got to”, she said.
“When you look on the black side of things you can never be disappointed”, I replied.
They both realised that no matter what they said I wasn’t going to change my outlook.

Young Natalie, the student nurse, came to say goodbye as she had finished her five weeks training on the ward. She gave me a big hug. I’m going to miss you and Mary she said.

Andrew, the microbiologist, called in to see me. He was pleased that the new batch of germs they had taken from my last washout hadn’t grown. He asked if I was still happy being in the side ward. I replied that I was, but that the room could do with a bit of a clean, and showed him the dust and debris behind my locker and under my bed. He said he’s have a word with the nurses but only to say that the room could do with a bit of a freshening up.

While my mam was visiting Doctor Richard called to see how I was doing. He explained that they were going to leave me on the antibiotics a day longer than expected so I should be finished them on Monday. I told him that my wound was still leaking.
“Don’t worry about it”, he said, “it’s probably left over from the drain”.
Looks like both him and Miska were singing from the same Hymn sheet…

I asked what would happen if it continued to leak. He shrugged his shoulders.
“It may mean that there are still some bone fragments in there”, he said, trying to think of a reason
“Not another washout”, I cried.
He changed the subject quickly and mentioned why I needed to have four units of blood recently.
“Your blood pressure when down to 68”, he said.
Even for me that was low.
My mam asked him why that could have happened. He replied that there was a lot of blood loss during the washout and because of the infection.
“I take there was a lot of infection”.
“Oh yes,” he said, “it ate everything in it’s path – bone, muscle, even the metal. It was quite a mess in there…”.

My feeling sick talking about food was back again. It must be my body’s reaction to all the jacket potatoes I had been having as I was pretty fed up with them. Even the thought of fish and chips tonight didn’t make me feel any better. I asked my mam if she could bring some sandwiches in with her tomorrow.

A little later the dinner trolley arrived.
“Marie”, asked one of the nurses, “would you like fish and chips or your jacket potatoes and salad”.
“Fish pleased”, I replied.
“Can I have your salad”, shouted Mary, “as I fancy a salad for a change”.
“Be my guest”, I replied.

John arrived that evening with some good news. Gordon the tattooed engineer had installed the stair lifts. Yippee !!!!!!!!

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