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...

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.

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.

another surgery update

the latest innovation in our surgery is a self service check-in, if there is a queue at the reception desk, you can go to a screen and enter your date of birth. it then recognises you, confirms your appointment, tells you that you have checked in and to wait until you are called.


in some ways this is a bonus as it saves hanging around in the queue behind someone with a tedious query on their prescription, but is it the start of a slippery slope? how long until there are no reception staff? and if you follow that train of thought, how long until the doctor is a screen - though to a point nhs direct is already doing that.

GP surgery update

had a blood test and an inr test yesterday. after a blip the inr seems to be back at the level it should be, but unfortunately i have to go back for another blood test as the bottles weren't labelled correctly and so they couldn't be tested (ummm).

the surgery still looks a bit bare, but the out of date magazines have arrived - so there is now something to read, and there are some books for the children in addition to the toy cars that were there at the beginning.

but the latest arrival is an aquarium!!! the staple of chinese restaurants and gp surgeries the world over. it hasn't got any water in it let alone fish, but it is now in the waiting room reading to sooth all those waiting patients.

there is also a nice plaque on the wall announcing that the surgery was officially opened by the Lord Lieutenant Lady Mary Holbarow. if there were a pair of twee curtains there, they are there no longer!!

lack of focus

I've been a bit silent for the last ten days or so. partly to do with work and partly to do with a long weekend on the isles of scilly watching matthew rowing. i'll have to fill in some of the blanks later.

today i was back to being elizabeth as i had an opthalmology outpatients appointment. this was at penrice, the st austell hospital and meant that i could walk there. a good thing as part of the procedure of looking into your eyes is to dilate the pupils, which means you lose focus for a while and life becomes a little blurry and driving home would have been highly dangerous. it only took me 35 mins to walk there and slightly shorter on the return journey as it is more downhill. it was also a good thing to walk as the parking was particularly horrendous today. an older gentleman who was waiting for his appointment filled me in a bit with the history of the hospital and informed me that the land was given with a condition that there was never to be a charge for parking. which explains why it appears to be the only hospital in the world that doesn't charge for parking and would make a stay in penrice an awful lot cheaper than my recent stay at treliske.

another far too young consultant, dr jones (david) looked into my eyes and found nothing untoward except a tiny 'insignificant' cataract in the left eye. which is all good news, though one has to question when an 'insignificant' might become a 'significant'.

then i had a very painful walk home, trying to find shade from the sun and doing some of it with my eyes shut. why when it seems to rain in cornwall 95% of the time, was my walk home on a beautiful sunny morning? i'm at home now waiting for my eyes to return to normal so i can drive to work and have just hung out the white bedsheets, more pain! i might have to dig out my sunglasses in a minute.

frequent visitor award

went back to the gp surgery today, my inr and warfarin dosage had gone haywire whilst i was on the antibiotics, so i needed to do a new blood test and then on to see the gp to plan the next couple of weeks.

the surgery has only just moved from a rather cramped bungalow near the station in st austell to a brand new building about quarter of a mile from our home. i was a visitor there on their very first day of opening, and was back there again on the third day and the fourth day. in fact the one disappointment of being admitted to treliske on the friday was that i missed the opportunity to have been in the new surgery four days out of the first five, as i was unable to make my appointment that morning. had i made that appointment i was going to ask if there was some kind of award that i would be entitled to enter myself for, 'most frequent visitor' or similar. but then i realised that it might make me seem like a real hypochondriac so maybe i'll just let that one rest.

the new surgery also needed explaining to a few of the medical professionals during my hospital stay, some knew it was changing, others didn't.

after my visit today (it has now been open for two weeks) i can report that the building still looks shiny new, but the offices are beginning to look a bit more lived in - ie packing boxes have gone. the waiting rooms are a bit bare - no mass of posters advertising various help services/ clinics/ websites etc and one child was telling her mum how she might bring some of her old toys down, she obviously felt there weren't enough.

the upshot of my visit is that my inr/ warfarin dose still need to settle down (an appointment has been booked for a week's time) and i have been signed off work for a week - to start with. the gp was supposed to have used these new 'fit notes' that are being launched today - but she hadn't had a chance to talk with her colleagues about how to fill them in.

goodnight

overall today has finished off better than it started, possibly going home tomorrow and some lovely visitors today. i've had a shower and am now in bed.
however i'll be signing off tonight on a slightly more serious note.

as i have said before roskear ward is a cardio ward and tonight one of the male patients arrested. it was all handled very well and with very little fuss. it was just after visiting so the remaining visitors were asked to leave and the crash team arrived with very little fanfare. you heard the defib warm up, someone said 'clear' and you heard the shock. it was successful but arrangements were then made to take him to coronary care (to do this a swap of patients was made). from the discussions and telephone conversations it appears that he had come in for a pacemaker and had, up until then been doing quite well.
only once have i been on a ward where someone has died, it was a young mother who had taken an overdose and again it was all handled very discreetly.

today we are removed from death, it is no longer something that happens in the home. however we still think of hospitals as places where people go to get better and the vast majority probably do, but as tonight has shown there are near misses and failures. even today my consultant reminded me that when i arrived on friday i was in a life-threatening situation.
so although i'm making the best of a bad situation and trying to find humour in my circumstances and the people who surround me here, i also respect them for the roles that they perform and the treatment and care that they have shown me.
thank you

rare sighting of 'lesser spotted consultant'

i am happy to report that this elusive creature has finally been seen in sideroom 2! it was around 4.15 this afternoon and in his honour both the door and curtain were used.
it was a generally positive meeting and offers the very strong possibility that i could be home tomorrow!!!! i am to reduce my current steroid dose over 6 weeks and see him in outpatients in a couple of weeks. in the meantime the 14 year old dr has taken a blood sample that will be sent to Bristol, hopefully get the results in 2-3 weeks and somehow this will determine what future medication i can go on.
i notice that no-one has volunteered a time slot for this sighting in my latest sweep-stake, obviously the prize of a hospital meal was not a big enough incentive...
the next sweepstake could be either the time i leave or when the canula will be removed (it isn't currently needed, but is being kept in 'just in case'), though there is always the possibility that both will happen more or less simultaneously.

good morning - day 6

morning from sideroom 2. it is wednesday 31st march, and the start of my 6th day in here...
am in a bit of pain this morning, maybe my painkiller free day yesterday was a bad idea, though i expect it will be like this for a while until i get onto a stable dose of medicine.
apparently the weather has turned and the day staff have all come in saying how cold it is outside, according to the bbc website there are blizzards 'upcountry' and for the first time ever during a hospital stay i was cold in the night.
it was a bit hard to get up this morning. had another drip at 6.30 and then breakfast in bed, which left me puzzling where i am, not a hotel, i'm not working but then again i can't really go anywhere and all there is to look forward to is a similar day to yesterday...

with regard to the canula sweepstake that started last night- it was done at 8.45, so my drip was through by 10!! it was put in by the junior dr who hangs around this ward who, to give him his due, has been keeping my spirits up. matthew and i refer to him as the14 year old! he could be a major heart surgeon of the future but for now he got a good size canula in first time, so i'm happy. charlotte - his beard is halfway between bumfluff and mature.
i've decided to start another sweepstake - this one on when the 'lesser spotted consultant' will arrive. the prize will be hospital meal, we will go for half hour time slots. please leave your bids in the comments.

claire it looks as if i'm still here, so would love to see you before/ after richard lander. any other visitors will be most welcome

12 year old doctors!

when my lupus was first properly diagnosed i was a student.
a stay in hospital meant that you might know some of the med students, and boy did medsoc have a reputation in Cardiff (always a slight worry if you thought of them as consultants of the future!). flirt with the junior doctors and the consultants were reassuringly grown up (a bit like your parents).
as an outpatient i was aware that consultants are nearer in age to me, but this stay (first in 13 years) has alarmed me by how young the junior doctors are.
last night i was waiting for a new canula, a dr was requested at about 7pm and i was woken at 1.30am by a 12 year old boy who was trying to convince me he was a dr and he was here to put in a canula. he looked the part, stethescope and all, but surely he was no older than the teenagers i work with?!
well i gave in but i think i've blown his cover - his first attempt was awful, i have 2 inches of lovely bruise on my arm to show for it. fortunately the second attempt worked.
i've told a couple of the nurses who have laughed and agreed with me that they do look too young! unfortunately the reality is more that we are getting older - aaaarrrrgggghhh

update - the photo is the handiwork of said 12 year old doctor, taken 4 days later! the 14 year old doctor told me that the vein is now dead...