Day 56 – It wasn’t fair

Tuesday 3rd November 2009

It had been nearly two days since Kermit prescribed the cortisone cream and still no cream. Why didn’t that surprise me.
Sister Clarke popped into see me during breakfast and asked if I had received it yet.
“Not yet”, I said.
“Leave it with me”, she replied.

Ran, the charge nurse who was on secondment, came into my room just before nine o’clock.
“Sister Clarke has given me this”, he said. It was my cortisone cream, “have you used this before”.
“No”, replied.
He removed my dressing then said, “make sure you put the cream all over your hip, not just on the red bits”.
“Even on my scar”, I asked.
“All over”, he said.

Later that morning Mary called in to see me. She was a little upset.
“I’ve got some bad new”, she said, “Mr Gill (her consultant) is going to London for a week so he won’t let me go home until he returns”.
Mary had been building up her hopes that she could be going home today.

As Kermit hadn’t been that morning I asked Gill, one of the auxiliary nurses, if he was due to come today. She replied she wasn’t sure but would ask Sister Clarke.
She came back about five minutes later to say that he had been on the ward but just asked if my hip was still red.

After lunch I called into see Mary to tell her that I’d finally received the cortisone cream.
“Lets have a look at your redness”, she asked.
I looked down at my hip and saw several small blisters along my scar line.
Tracey, one of the staff nurses, walked past Mary’s room so I asked if she could spare a minute to have a look at the blisters.
“They’ve just come on since I started using the cortisone cream, I said.
“Lets go to your room and I’ll have a better look”, she said.

Back in my room Tracey had a good look at the blisters.
“Don’t worry”, she said, “it’s nothing serious. The cream is too strong for your wound line”.
“Ran told me to put it all over my hip”, I said.
“Forget what Ran said”, replied Tracey, “don’t put any cream on your scar”.

The bay opposite my side room was now occupied with women and I said hello to one of them as I passed her going to the loo.
“I’m sick of this bloody place”, she moaned, “I wish I could get out of this bloody place as I’m bloody fed up”.
She, along with the rest of the women in that bay, had only been on the ward since Sunday. I really wanted to say to her ‘if you’re fed up after three days, try nearly eight weeks…’.

A little later I could hear an argument taking place outside the nurses station. It was between Ran and a woman from the ladies bay.
“I’ve got two children to look after and have to get home”, she shouted, “I could do all this (meaning her hip replacement exercises) at home and come back in a couple of days”.
Ran told her in no uncertain terms that she was not going home today.
“My husband works for Northumbria Police”, she yelled, “he has had to waste leave to look after our children. I have to get home”.

Alicia, the physio, was also been given a hard time from women from the same bay.
“Slow down”, she kept telling her, “you’ll fall”.
“I’ve got to go home”, moaned the woman, “the sooner I get myself walking, the quicker I’ll go home”.
“You’re not ready to go home”, replied Alicia, “you can hardly walk”.

Both Mary and myself were less than impressed that evening when the woman who had the argument with Ran had been allowed to go home.
“It’s because we don’t shout or make our mouth go”, complained Mary, “if we did, they’d get rid of us pretty quick”.
“I intend to become the patient from Hell tomorrow”, I said, “Kermit won’t know what hit him….”.