And The Jumper

Ok, as well as the addict, the other fascinating character was the one in bed opposite.  She must have been mid to late 20's, was married and had her mother who came in to see her often.  Basically, when I was brought in and coming around from the general anaesthetic and the morphine highs, I kept smiling at her.  All she did was scowl back.

Anyway, it turns out that she'd tried to end it all by jumping out of the window at her mums flat.  She survived with a broken leg and the left side of her face was drooping a bit but on the whole she was alive and relatively unscathed.

Anyway, for the first few days she had lots of docs and psych people visiting her and drawing curtains around her.  I have very good hearing and an uncanny knack of turning in and out of conversations so I managed to piece together her story from those conversations.  In the main she just wanted to be discharged back into her mums care but her mum did not want that to happen. She called her mum a witch and blamed her for everything - in many ways it was like viewing crazy teenage tantrums which were far worse as they had had such a dramatic and almost devastating ending.  

Her hubby didn't seem like the brightest kid on the block but he seemed to try and do all he could to make her happy.  Her mum by no means seemed perfect but she did care so that was something.
During the night the jumper was bloody annoying as she was like a whining child moaning and asking for painkillers.  In our part of the ward, her general moaning was stopping everyone from sleeping.  There was one night when the others turned on her and told her to shut the hell up.  It was about time really as she in many ways was there due her own devices and the rest of us were there for ops etc.  You could tell she wasn't used to being told off in that manner as she soon shut up.

In the end, an ambulance came by one day and she was carted off to a mental hospital nearby.

Patients - The Good, The Bad and the downright crazy

Well my first foray into the hospital was certainly interesting esp as I had 2 different locations on the ward during my stay.  The patients were certainly a mixed bag and in many ways the inspiration for me to write this blog - just fantastic characters to observe when there's nothing else to do as you're stuck indoors.  Here's the cast list:

The Surrey Princess
The ultimate in posh bitchiness.  She was a classic, skinny,dirty blonde, demanding - someone where only the best would do. Actually, on the 2 days that I was on the ward with her, I don't think she actually spoke to me - maybe I just didn't come across as being posh enough.  Anyway, she certainly knew her painkillers and was an expert in saying oohh no, such and such doesn't work for me, I prefer this and that one (the more expensive pills from  what I can ascertain).  This girl knew her drugs and her rights.  Her nervous disposition compounded her fear of needles and her own shadow by the looks of things meant that she wasn't the best patient when it came to getting a line put in or having bloods taken.  I have to admit it was kind of funny to watch.

She did display the ultimate example of bitchiness though. One of the other patients whose mum had flown over from Georgia as soon as her daughter was rushed into hospital arrived outside visiting hours straight from the airport. Anyway, the Surrey Princess told the nurses that it wasn't fair that her mum was there outside of the official opening hours and that she should leave.  Basically her parents had been told that they would have to wait until official opening hours to see her.

It was divine retribution though when her parents arrived early too and the other girl got to say to the nurses that that wasn't fair and they were asked to leave and come back later. She shouldn't have been a cow in the first place.  It was hard enough being in hospital as it was.

The Georgian
Apart from her run in with the Surrey Princess she seemed quite nice.  Although her and her boyfriend seemed to spend most of their time hiding behind curtains - not sure if her encounter with the princess meant that she just didn't want to have a shop window open to all on the ward.  Her mum was lovely though. Plus her mysterious boyfriend seemed nice.

The Joan Collins Esq Glamour puss
Defo my fav character that I met in hospital.  She was an old lady from a bygone area - who did her hair and put on make up just before major surgery and was chatting up the young docs (she must have been in her 80s).  She was just fabulous and had such a zest for life that it was just infectious.  Rouge, bouffant hair and powdered face.

She was Italian and lived in Highgate with her elderly brother who she helps to look after. Constantly reading Mills and Boonesque love stories and having energy and having a smile on her face. She had fractured her leg and left it for four days before coming to hospital as she thought it was nothing and didn't want to waste anyone's time.  How amazing was that and humbling. I loved chatting to her as she was fascinating and I have her number and will defo call her to make sure that she is ok.  Plus help her out I guess - once I'm fully back on my feet.

It has to be said if I'm anything like her when I'm her age with energy and spunk I'd be one happy bunny.

More about the characters in my next post .......

Being Part Of the 'In' Crowd

As mentioned previously, I have never been in hospital before.  Little did I know that they are such a hive of activity. They take monitoring and evaluation to a whole new level. Urine, blood pressure, taking bloods, pills, anti clotting injections (that bloody hurt and often drew blood I'll have ya know), pills, catheter and monitoring of it. Then it's onto the cast that make up 'the hospital'.

Consultants are obviously the leaders of the pack and they only grace you with their presence once every few days.  Mine thought he was cool and basically had a humour bypass but hey he's a decent surgeon so won't hold that against him.

Otherwise you're in the hands of the gaggle of junior docs. I have to admit that the main junior doc assigned to  me was a bit of a cow and managed to freak me out no end at times when I just didn't need that. It was her first week at the hospital and so she was eager to follow the consultants words to the latter.  But freaking me out when it came time to remove my catheter for the 1st and then 2nd time was no help at all.  By saying that if  bladder didn't wake up soon I'd have problems for the rest of the life for some reason was not inspiring. It made me bloody scared and only seeing a bad bleak future for myself.  I do think that in terms of people these junior docs have a lot to learn- empathy is one of those things that goes cap in hand with experience and  maturity.  It was painfully clear that many of these junior docs were fresh out of school and had no idea about people or how to understand and communicate with them.

As for nurses there were good and bad ones.  And some that were a combination of the two much like Jekyll and Hyde. There was one who was my main nurse when I arrived - she tried to take out a line from my hand when it couldn't actually be done so she was tugging hard at my hand just to make sure and yes I did almost cry.  She was a bit of what I'd call a brown noser - licking doctors arses and smiling at the sister but at times she was an outright bitch.

I was moved to another part of the ward for my last few days and the nurse there was loads nicer.  She treated all of her patients differently and took time to get to know us. She had been an inpatient herself at the hospital for a similar op so had empathy and maturity.

Then there was the I work way too hard nurse.  She did something crazy like 3 or 4 nts back to back so stress, ridiculous workload and sleep deprivation  meant that she was horrible to patients.  There was no empathy, pure bossiness and general rattiness.  At one point my anti clotting injection that she had tended to give me a in my arm (tho it made my arm bleed) - well the next night she was going to give it into my belly. I told her to take her hike as one of the symptoms from my op was constipation and I hadn't been for days and had a really swollen, tender belly.  I told her no categorically. I won - it was in my arm. Yay.

And as for the patients, where do I begin ..........

Preparing for the Big Day

As a hospital inpatient virgin, I was a bit flummoxed about what I needed to do before heading into hospital for an abdominal myomectomy. Work, life, what happens if things go wrong - so much to think about and such little time. 

Home - well this was me setting up home entertainment (tv, dvd, hifi) in my room for those days post op when I'm not too mobile. Obviously this was a bit of a challenge and I've still not quite managed to get my Freeview to work but hey. Also, had to get in some frozen food and other bits so that I wouldn't starve whilst recupuratting.

Work, saying to my boss for the umpteenth time I'm having a major op and will be off for around a month or so.  It sinked in on my last week when all my plans had a big gap in December. So then it turned into handover notes time and getting things into a nice state where I could hand them over to freelancers etc. It was funny talking to colleagues about heading into hospital - had comments such as " I'd trade places with you anytime to have a month off work - could do with that at the 'mo".  Did point out that major surgery wasn't a walk in the park and a high level of pain and discomfort would also be part of the package so quite the picnic they'd assumed.



The main thing for me was worrying I guess - would I be ok?  Would all the fibroids be removed?  Would I still be able to have kids? Would I still be ok to be operated on as my period was due when I was being operated on?  So many questions and my appt with the consultant happened 6 mths prior to my my op so there wasn't really anywhere to turn.  I have to admit that I did a lot of online fact finding and people's blogs about their myomectomy experiences were a god send.  Some stuff I had to take with a pinch of salt and one thing that stood out was the fact that everyone was different in terms of how they reacted to the op. 


In the end to settle the what happens as I'll be on  my period question was settled when I rang the ward where I'd be and spoke to the sister.  She also helped reassure some of my general neurotic fears so that was good.  And thank god I could take tranexamic acid tablets before my op (outside the nil by mouth time) so at least I'd be able to leave the house 2 days prior to my op.  Without them another 2 days of my life would have been ruled out as my periods were just crazy.