Monday 16 September 2013

So much for making plans!

Well no sooner had I arranged to head to Devon than I started to suffer some excruciating pains. It started on the Saturday 20th July the weekend that Jade Joes girlfriend had planned a mad hatters tea party in my garden. I was meant to make cup cakes but as the weekend went on mad the pains continued to rack my stomach they were soon off the menu.
The party went ahead whilst I spent the day in bed. Tuesday I should have dropped joe and his mates and jade to gatwick as they were flying out to southern France for a week staying in Elliot's mum and dads French apartment.
They left around 2am I didn't settle and around five am decided enough was enough! I did call for an ambulance but was told they didn't have any available, I felt a bit guilty calling one anyway so ended up borrowing money off Zak and getting a cab. Adam was brilliant but obviously worried.
I walked into a and e and sat with a few people complaining about their wait and detailing their problems to each other. One by one they were called in triage and then came back to sit in the red seats, I was next and told the nurse about my symptoms and history and afterwards assumed I would return to the red seats, but she told me no come this way and took me through to a cubicle with thankfully a bed I could lie on.
A registrar came to see me, I would see him later on his next rotation in HDU. The doctor directed the nurse to give me an NG tube.....awful. She tried my right nostril but it wasn't having it at all and the pain was awful, so she put it through my left nostril instead which I wouldn't ay was easier it is such an uncomfortable process but was better then the right. By the end of the procedure my nose was running and my eyes were streaming.
I don't think it was that long really before I ended up on a ward, cedar ward to be exact.again I was in an end bed next to the door. Across from me was ester who had been in a car accident it turned out, initially I found her difficult but then as the days went on realised that she had mental health problems and probably a slight learning disability. She was a bit of a kid at times and totally inappropriate in her requests for example anyone who appeared on the ward would be called over in her hope that they would answer her questions. She was very sweet and gave me some mango juice but then wanted some back. She did the same with rolos telling me to shut my eyes before she gave them to me, having sussed her out I offered her some back which she eagerly accepted. If she had visitors it was fine and from the morning till visiting time at three she would constantly ask what the time was every half hour!! If she didn't have visitors and you did she would ask questions butting into the visit where she could.
Next to me and in a couple of days opposite me when I moved to a window bed was Brenda. Brenda had been very ill and nearly died and had already spent three months in hospital. She was a proper south Londoner with the accent to match, as I got to know her it transpired that her son was in prison, something to do with his girlfriend.she trusted no one and had been hood winked by men that she had been with. The nurses she loved to think she got on with which she did on the whole, but she also used to get annoyed when they didn't come immediately that she called them, looked to me that they were busy and prioritising, but Brenda thought they couldn't be bothered. She did have a difficult situation with a Stoma that leaked as it was in the wrong position due to the need to be her when she arrived. We did get on though and I think she wanted to become lifelong friends, but I headed off the ward after just over two weeks to have my op and didn't return.
The surgeons didn't want to operate but after more than two weeks of no food and no gas coming through the Stoma they decided enough was enough. I was wheeled down to surgery for the third time in my third hospital on the 9th Aug having found a met in my spine on my ct scan since arriving at hospital they wouldn't give me an  epidural, but as the last two hadn't worked I wouldn't have wanted one anyway.
I remember the anaesthetist putting me under and the next thing I remember is waking in HDU. They had found adhesions all through my bowel, three surgeons got inthere and had a go all female....in the end they got to my small bowel which they couldnt work on but luckily found a way of by passing it which is what they did, the surgeon made it clear that i could not have continued without the op. i was very lucky that they could do something there was a chance they would go in and not be able to do anything. The Macmillan doctor had advised that I get my affairs in order before the op...I did getting my will signed the day before!!
I had a little section of ward to myself and very nice one to one nurses. Well in the main anyway one nurse I hardly saw. I have little memory of being there apart from the interminable search for a vein as mine are so bad. A junior doctor tersely looked and suggested my foot, I said I was not going to have a line in my foot and she was not sympathetic at all, I was causing her more grief than she wished of at the time I think. In the end a consultant anaesthetist who was really lovely used a portable ultra sound machine to find a vein. I told him that they wante to put it in my foot and he agred that was not appropriate, I thought I heard him tell the doc in question that the foot was not acceptable or maybe it is wishful thinking.
After a weekend in HDU I moved to Juniper ward the sister ward to cedar. I managed to get my own room here which was good. Had to wait another couple of weeks before I was able to leave it had been a month since I arrived. Carol next door arranged to pick me up outside the entrance  which wasn't too far from my room. When it got near to the arranged time I pressed the call button for help with my stuff but no one came so I ended up carrying three bags of stuff to the car.
I took the lift down and walked down the corridor I was feeling quite weak already and struggling through the window I could see carol standing on the pavement looking out towards the hospital entrance I was willing her to look back and check the route I would becoming from but no she looked left right but not behind!! As I got to the exit a lady asked if I needed help as I was wobbling by now I just dumped the bags on the floor before I collapsed as carol finally saw me. A small amount of frustration which at the time seemed the worst thing I had experienced....it wasn't and at last I could go home. A summer spent in hospital!!

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