Homeward bound...

 

I have finally got home after being in a hospital bed for two and a half weeks. It took a while from being told I could go home to actually going home due to a wait for the drugs to be brought up to the ward. In fact, they were going to be so late that I went home without them and returned the next morning to collect them. 

Now this has got me thinking. I can understand where some drugs come from. Ancient man found that when he had a headache he could chew on a branch of the willow and it would ease. And there were many others, witch hazel, etc. But some I just don't get. Ancient man would look at a plant with nice berries and think 'They look tasty' and eat a few. The next morning he could have a dose of diaorh  dearo the shits and think ' I wonder if it was those berries, I won't eat them again'  Or he could wake up dead. His friends would gather round, look at him, dead on the floor, and say ' Right, chaps, let's not eat those berries.' 

Sensible. Trial and error, typical early science. You start to wonder where the plans to boil stuff and see if you can remove the poisons and see if you can make it edible came from. Rhubarb, rich in vitamin A, a substance that can kill you if too concentrated? Who eats rhubarb anyway, horrible stuff. 

I have come out of hospital with lots of new drugs. One of which needs to counteract the effects of another drug. I am on large doses of steroids and that can lead to osteoporosis. Therefore I have to take an alendronic acid tablet once a week. It must be taken on an empty stomach, with a full glass of water and I must remain vertical for 30 minutes after taking it. This is down to the fact that if it sticks in my oesophagus it will eat its way through. How many times did they feed it to volunteers before they found a method of taking it that wouldn't ruin the patients' food pipe??

'Oops, let's try it with half a glass of water...'

'Nope, burnt through again. Brig in the next victim sorry, patient'

' Full glass of water seems to work but it still wrecked his oesophagus. I wonder if we should get him to sit up for 10 minutes?'

'So 10 minutes didn't work, nor did 20. Let's try 30 minutes. Next!'

There are probably many other drugs like this, chemotherapy drugs, for example. It is a good thing that these have been discovered but there must have been a lot of trust and mistakes along the road. 

Only a short one today, only because my brain was overthinking stuff.

Regards

Giant68 :-)

 

Still here...

 Two and a half weeks later I am still tied to a hospital bed, although there is light at the end of the tunnel and I may be out of here by the end of this week. 

My breakfast this morning consisted of a bowl of bran flakes, a glass of apple juice, a coffee, 16 pills washed down with another 3 disolved in a cup of water. Seems like this is my life now. If I want to stay alive and functioning i have to take pills. 

But that is not what this is about. This is about this place, the hospital. A place where I have seen the best and the worst of humanity. 

The best? Docrors, nurses, cleaners, the helpers who bring the dinner round. They are the carers and in a perfect world, with an unlimited pot of money, they would all be given what they deserve. And they deserve a lot, in money and respect. 

A collection of consultants worked to keep me alive. Very focused individuals, Very clever people who stood and scratched their heads and hoped what they had done was enough t get me through the night. They admitted that the next morning. They are people who understand how the drugs work and how they interact with other drugs. If they gave me this one it would effect that one so I would have to take this as well which would stop that one working... They worked it out in the end and I am still here. 

The nurses. They are the ones who understand how to get these drugs into me. I watched a consultant fiddle with a drip, upping the amount, while three nurses looked on in horror. Once he'd gone they set it properly. The nurses who had to clean me up after a particulary hazardous use of the commode. It's a humiliating thing, the commode. But they were reassuring while they cleaned me up and made me feel a little less humiliated.  They were chatty first thing in the morning as they come round to do the first obs of the day, blood pressure, oxygen saturation etc. we had a giggle over the fact that I quite like the potassium supplement when everyone else thinks it's disgusting. The nurses who change the beds every morning to ensure our comfort. The nurses who suddenly have to go running as the alarm sounds as someone has a heart attack. The nurses who rarely sit down during their shift. I'm a big fan of nurses, and not just because of the outfit. 

The cleaners who ensure that there is an infection free environment, or as close as you can get to one. Here for 12 hours in a soul destroying, monotonous job.

The people who deliver our breakfast, lunch and dinner after a kitchen has taken some ingredients and turned them into something quite inedible. 

And a special mention for Valentin. An old curmudgeon, perfect word for him. He is a nursing assistant who has been working nights while I have been in E3 ward. He is in his 60's, Jewish and very grumpy. He told me off for something n the first night I was in here. But it turns out that he has a very dry and cutting sense of humour. He makes sure that we are all comfortable, making sure that we are all moving and not laying in the same position all night, pressure sores. I was awake in the early hours the other night and he gave a quick thumbs up to make sure I was OK. And he makes us all hot chocolate before he turns the lights out.  It's very 'Cider House Rules' I can almost hear him saying "Goodnight you Princes of Maine..."  

As for the worst... I have spent some time waiting in A&E for a bed to made available for me. In there are the drunks and the yobs. The people who are just wasting the time of the medical staff. Shouting and being aggressive to people who are trying to treat their wounds. Wounds recieved because they got drunk and decided that a fight would be a great way to end Friday night at the pub. Although there was one that made me laugh and that was an old lady, grubby dress and greasy, grey hair who stormed through A&E with her zimmer frame yelling " get out of the way you f#cking f#uckers!" 

Next time I will probably be back to the grumpy, stupid stuff, but this one felt right.

Regards

Giant68 (-:

Sex and drugs and rock and rock and roll, blood and soup and wee!

 Strange title for a blog, I know, but I have had a bit of a strange time just recently. This is not a blog that will dwell on a dark time, although it could and I think that I would be justified. I don't want sympathy, although a week ago i would have liked someone just to grab me in a big hug and say "Everything will be alright" even though it patently wasn't. I was in hospital and expected to die. A team of doctors were very worried and I heard conversations about me that should not have been heard. 

However, it appears, obviously, that neither God nor the Devil wanted me that night and the Grim Reaper left my hospital room without any company.

I have, currently been in hospital for a week and a half and while I have been in here I have had time to contemplate, make some life-changing decisions, and observe. 

The observation is generally about things that have happened to me. But first I must say that my stay in a Cardiac High Dependency ward has shown me that a: Doctors are the most focused people I have ever met. A whole team was working on me, trying to figure out what the feck to do to save my life. And b: Nurses are the most amazing people on the planet. A doctor will say "Right, what we need to do is get these drugs into this patient" They have no idea how that will happen when every space is already taken up with cannulas. The nurse will look at the patient and say " OK, I think there is room for just one more cannula on the end of his penis, stick it there, next to the catheter pipe..." This is not so far from the truth, to be honest. And the answer to "How much rubber pipe can we get up this old man?" is quite a lot. How many of you now have a strange look on your face and watering eyes? How do you think I felt with all that garden hose up my bits???

Anyway, back to observations. There is a tendency to not finish anything. In the middle of the night busy nurses would come in to do the hourly obs, turn the lights up to a point of burning out my retinas and then not turning them back down again when they were done. I would then be forced to press the buzzer and call them back to turn them off. Wasting more of their time than if they had just turned them back down in the first place.  But that wasn't the worst. I had a catheter up the todger. Not the most comfortable thing. You'd think it would be good. wouldn't you? No desire to go for a pee, just let it keep flowing... 

Very true. However, nurses would come in and move the bag so that they could empty it. Invariably they would hang it quite high for ease of draining it. Then they would leave it there. Higher than my kidneys... Can you imagine the discomfort of the back pressure? I bet you can't.  Again, one of those things that waste even more time than just putting it back in the first place. 

Drugs. Jeez! I can't believe the amount of drugs  that have been pumped into me. Dopamine, noradrenaline, Furosemide, Potassium, magnesium, oramorph (nectar of the Gods!). The tablets every morning and evening. I even had some being pumped straight into my heart.

Rock and roll. Not really. There was no rock and roll here, sorry. 

Blood. Lots of blood. I had two cannulas pop out of me and spray blood everywhere. I had an arterial line in that decided to leak all over the floor. 

Soup. That was the staple food while I have been in here. Pea & ham, chicken, veg, it was all very nice and not too heavy. Too much food and I would be forced to use the commode. I had to a couple of times and it is humiliating. The nurses have to clean you up and they never do it quite right. Not their fault. The second time, I filled it. Literally. That was the biggest walnut whip i have ever seen! I felt sorry for the nurse that had to take that away and beat it with a stick to get rid of it. I also thought that I had got away without making a mess with the soup. Unfortunately I had spilt quite a bit down my gown.

Wee... While I was unfortunate to have the catheter in there were a couple of times where it just let go. With the back pressure it would force its way around the pipe and I would be soaked in urine. At least it was my own I suppose...

Once I'm out of hospital I shall insert some pictures but for the moment you will just have to use your imagination.

Regards

Giant68 (-: