Thursday 19 August 2010

Crisis Meeting

Finally after a waiting a month for various medical people to come back off holiday we managed to have the crisis meeting we'd all been waiting for.

The aim was to make plans for my future discharge - my dad wanted me 'HBC' - Home By Christmas.
My surgeon said he did not feel I was fit for discharge and therefore wasn't ready for rehab, although plans could be made now for when I was ready.

But when would I be ready, I'm never kept updated about my condition, I don't know if my drains are working, not convinced the meds are working. I haven't eaten a full proper meal in weeks because if I do eat then I either vomit it back up or have urgent full evacuation diarrhoea. I've tried the high protein shakes which have only made things worse. Thankfully this bought me a little more time to not have a nasal-gastric tube reinserted. If I couldn't tolerate the shakes then I couldn't tolerate the feed!

Aside from the side-effects of eating, I'm struggling with meal times, my usual times at home would be breakfast about 10 am, dinner about 2 pm and tea about 6.30 pm but in here, breakfast is at 7.30 am, dinner at 12.30 pm and tea at 4.45pm or 5 pm. Now trying to eat at such an early time is beyond me, but when that breakfast consists of about 30 tablets on top of a single Weetabix, at 7.30 am, I think you'd understand my reluctance to eat at that time. As for a warm cooked meal at tea time, it was agreed that my husband and mum should bring something in a flask for me.

It was also decided that I should have a commode at the side of the bed to encourage me to get out and about! - I sat there thinking 'yeah right' they an't get to me quick enough with a bedpan never mind trying to find a commode, and they certainly wouldn't leave one at the side of my bed all day and night..... we shall just have to see how that 'pans' out!!

Finally, the doctors wanted me moved out of my side room and integrated back into society, so I was to give up my single room with lake view and be moved into a communal room with view of a brick wall!

So let's see how we get on with this then!

Tuesday 10 August 2010

Help Me!

Had an enjoyable day today....not. My mum and dad came to visit me and whilst there I started to feel uncomfortable and my mum noticed a smell, well, upon inspection it was me or rather the collection bag on my back, it had leaked all over me and so I was covered in putrid smelling pus! Cue the buzzer for some nursing assistance .
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Oh yeah, sorry why was I ringing the buzzer, it's been that long I've forgotten ... oh yes, I remember!

This is what I've had to put up with, ringing for assistance but never getting it at the time I need it, it always comes too late, so I'm the one who's to blame for wetting and soiling the bed, I'm the one who has to lie there in my own pee and poo, but I'm also the one who's been listening to the bell buzzing with no help forthcoming.

Anyway, the nurse did come and with help from my mum got me into the shower.  She then left my mum to shower me whilst my dad waited outside. It was only when we came to dry me that we realised she had gone and left us with no towels or bed robes to get changed into. My dad was sent to find someone whilst I sat and shivered in the bathroom. Dad came back with the ward sister a.k.a The Wicked Witch, she wasn't happy about having to come to me with towels and gowns and made it quite clear that she wasn't happy about it, implying it was my fault!

I need HELP to get ME out of here soon!

Thursday 5 August 2010

Summertime Blues

So Thursday 22nd July 2010 and a daily action plan had been drawn up to get me mobilised, but to be honest it wasn't worth the paper it was written on, also it only covered Monday to Friday - no plan for it to be continued or adjusted over the weekend and so by Sunday it had been abolished!

A week later and I was back off for another scan and still feeling poorly, by now I had stopped eating. Well there's only so many times you can eat the same thing on the same day week in and week out. Sunday is a dodgy roast dinner with something that resembles tinned beef in gravy, Monday is some fish pie that must just be mashed boiled in a fish stock because I have yet to see a fish, Tuesday is sandwich day, tuna for dinner and ham for tea, Wednesday is the day I look forward to - chips and beans days ( cheese pie optional! ) Thursday, Friday and Saturday are also sandwich days. I once tried a curry but that was an horrendous experience!

3rd August and I received a visit from a lead matron, my mum and dad had put a complaint in about how I was or wasn't being looked after. She was very shocked when she walked in to see a frail young body lying in a bed. It was about this time I finally broke down. After being told day in and out by the nurses that I should be depressed with all the things that had been going on I think my mind started listening to them and decided that yes I should be depressed, I don't know what really happened in my head but I did just wake up one morning and feel down in the dumps.  So following my conversation with the lead matron she wanted me to see a member of the mental health team and talk to someone unconnected to my ordeal.