waiting...

so now the wait begins...
i have been told that i can go home, hurrah!
however, i now have to wait for some medication to come from pharmacy. this can take some time...
last time i was in i was hanging around for several hours and ended up in the rather soulless 'discharge lounge'. fortunately no one seems to be in a hurry to get me off this ward, so it looks as if i will be able to 'enjoy' my lunch any minute now!

there has been some interesting developments over which antibiotics i should be taking, with calls to micro-biology. last night the dr on duty was about to put me on doxycycline, which i was on for a couple of days last week and which made me rather unwell. reading the small print i discovered that it shouldn't be given to people with lupus! apparently the whole thing would be a lot easier and the elbow would have cleared up weeks ago if i wasn't allergic to penicillin. all i can do is give what they take me, which seems rather defeatist, but i've seen so many drs here and they all say something slightly different that i think it will be easier to go back to my gp and just have one dr tell me what to do.

anyway i'll get back to waiting...

e bay

trauma 2 has 4 bays of beds and 4 siderooms. the numbering and lettering carry on from trauma 1, therefore bays e to h and rooms 5 to 8. there is a high turn over of patients here, they are admitted, have their bones set in theatre and then go home. so nurses often refer to their patients by their bed, so you have 'the gentleman in g3', 'the lady in room 8' etc. but what makes me smile every time is when they refer to 'e bay'.
overhearing a conversation between a patient and a nurse yesterday i discover that trauma 2 is meant to be for the men and the ladies on trauma 1. it would appear that currently in truro that there are more clumsy ladies than men as, when i arrived, both e and h bays had ladies in. at one point yesterday afternoon e bay was empty before filling up again but it is now a mixed sex bay, probably breaking government guidelines etc. the toilets here are also mixed sex, which was ok, but now that e bay is a mixed ward there is one gentleman there (though i hesitate to call him gentleman) who never puts the toilet seat down! grrrrrr!

evening update

unfortunately my superduper bedside tv/ phone/ internet screen thingamebob has not been playing ball for most of the day. this has meant that i have been unable to comment on the minutiae of life on trauma 2. so the entries on cleaning/ visiting/ today's meals/ fellow residents/ the nurse's new puppy will have to wait for another day or hopefully another hospital stay. (or indeed never!)
i will report that matthew has managed to break the visiting hour rules every day, by visiting at lunch time and overstaying in the evening. this evening his boss kept him late at work wanting to talk about the royal cornwall show, so he only arrived at 8pm, when visiting officially ended.
i can also report that the food today was typical hospital food. they try and source some local ingredients, so my potatoes have been enhanced by trewithen farm butter pats and i had a langdale farm yoghurt, which i have never heard of and sounds more yorkshire than cornish, but the menu said cornish and i implicitly trust the menu.
please spare a thought for the bloke on the ward who has been waiting since 8am for an op and it is now 10.15 - i think it was the lack of cigarettes that has been annoying him more, but it must be frustrating.
anyway my elbow is still improving, so i'm all set for release tomorrow. in the meantime i'm showered and in my pj's waiting for my evening meds and then it'll be time to say goodnight.

morning all

i can report that things were a lot quieter in sideroom 8 last night and as a result i slept a lot better. i was awake every few hours, but soon dropped off again. i am supposed to have the antibiotics every 12 hours. with having had the first dose at 1am the nurses said that they would set me off on the next dose about 11am. needless to say it was 2pm when i had the next dose, so i was expecting a late night drip again. but after the 2pm drip i had reacted slightly with a slightly swollen arm, so at about 10.30 i was given the good news that i would now be taking tablets instead of having the drip. this meant i had a much earlier night. though i was really getting into my book (the help a christmas pressie from my MIL).
have already seen the consultant, a different one from yesterday, elbow is again much improved so we agreed that i should stay one more day and get this cracked and all going well i shall be going home tomorrow!!
it is now 10.30, i am up, showered and hair washed. i have spoken with matthew, finished the book and chosen my food for tomorrow, now hopefully destined for the next occupant of sideroom 8. action packed morning so far!!! i will now go for a little walk to the shop and get a paper.

where's heston when you need him?

have now had my second meal as chosen by the previous occupant of sideroom 8. breakfast is sorted on the ward and was cereal and toast - can't really go wrong with that. lunch was chicken and bacon lasagne with potatoes, green beans and mixed veg followed by sliced peaches and custard. hmmm. this evening i was offered mushroom soup and a sandwich. this i rejected and was offered jacket potato and cheese followed by a slice of maderia cake.
i have watched two programmes recently about hospital food. the first was about how bad the food was and how many leave the nhs malnourished. the second featured heston bleumental trying to change the menu at alder hay. well i wish he would come and change the menu here. otherwise i will end up eating the crisps and chocolates that people very kindly bring in. naughty but nice!

men in uniform

...and i missed them!!!!!
we had a fire alarm this morning. the door to sideroom 8 was swiftly shut and i concentrated on reading my paper. from what i know of the fire alarms here, the continuous alarm means that it is nearby. (intermittant means an alarm has gone off somewhere else.)
i was later told by a nurse that there had been a smell of smoke on this ward and that one of the staff had set the alarm off. and that there had been half a dozen firemen outside my door, a couple of whom were quite dishy.
the smoke was thought to have come from the incinerator chimney and been blown in on the wind, so life carries on on trauma 2

my room

i am currently occupying sideroom 8 on trauma 2. unlike sideroom 2 last year, this room has no ensuite facilities and the view is of a courtyard and the windows of the ward opposite. i always wonder if it would be considered polite to go and introduce yourself to the occupants of these wards, because if you can see them, they can see you! the reason why i've been given my own room is that i am considered infectious - as i came in with an infected elbow. it was because of this that i didn't get my bed until so late last night as the hospital had to play musical beds (with rooms being teamcleaned in between and only one team of cleaners!)
the antibiotic drip was started at about midnight last night and stopped again about two minutes later as the canula that had been put in at lunch time gave up the ghost. a clinical services facilitator was called to insert a new one and the drip resumed at 1am.
i then had a rather disturbed night as i had the drip removed at two, listened to th nurses talking about cross-stiching around half four and the ward beginning to wake up about 6. as this room is near the nurses station i get to hear a lot. and as this ward has pre and post op patients there are always bleeps and alarms. still having had my shower and got dressed, there isn't exactly loads left on the to do list for today.
the good news is that i have yet to meet a 12year old doctor, though the consultant can't be much older than me.