Day 11 in bed at last

Bed 4, Bay 7, Level 9A West, Millennium Tower at the Sussex County hospital is going to be my situation for the next two weeks.

This means a few things, they have found me a bed on the right ward, and they have decided what is happening to me now.

First things first, I was on acute admissions ward, which is what it says on the tin, they tend to take patients before there is a bed available on the right ward and then off load them. So there is a high turnover of patients, many different conditions and needs. I was in a mixed ward with two respiratory men, a disabled renal man and a 90 year old who had lost her short term memory who had fallen over and could not walk on a damaged hip. To go to sleep with all these different conditions lead to 1-2 hours sleep. The main problem was this lovely old woman who did not even have the memory to know she had a sore hip and every time she work, or was woken she started being frightened again, “Where am I?” “We need to call the police I have been kidnapped”, “Why am I here?” “In hospital?” when it was explained, “Do my family know where I am?” “What have I done?” This also happened at the top of her voice and there was no filter. I felt so sorry for her, but it would have been ok for me but it woke me so many times.

This morning my veins in my arms totally gave out, so from 7.30am I was unable to have liquid drip, antibiotics, paracetamol, a couple of other specific meds for thinning blood and calming the stomach. I could still sip liquid and have intramuscular morphine. So as I was coming up to be put onto IV food they needed to find the pict team. This took some doing. I had a good nurse called Emma who promised to get me onto the ward and with a pict line by the end of her shift at 3. A pict line is a line into a central vein and this is highly specialised.

I had a walk first thing and saw blue sky and sunshine and sea air just from the car park returning back to my bed. I had a sleep and then the pict team turned up and I have a central line which does not have to be done again and they can take bloods from it as well. A specialist nutritionist came and asked questions in order to get my mixture right.

Then I heard I had a bed on the ward. I have to have an x-ray to confirm that the pict line is in place, and they had to confirm that the bed was ready.

After much waiting I went up to the ward at 3, the doctors confirmed at 7 and I finally 12 hours later I was put back on the drips and food and antibiotics. Rowena visited twice and Gilly Lower turned up. I was lovely to see them, whilst they were there Mark sent me a text saying “overturned car”. I was so worried, and we tried to call him and could not get hold of him nearly beside ourselves with worry. I had not realised this was related to the traffic text we had received earlier! Had they taken my observations at that time It would have been through the roof.

The bed is very comfortable, I have a view of a back of the building, but I can see sky from my bed and this is my home for the next two weeks with 4 other women, all seem quite and not too much beeping.

I have seen Mr. Lamah twice today and he has confirmed that they are still unsure where the hole is, the have a few guesses and feel that they would not like to operate. 10 different specialist have had a look, no resolution so we are waiting. I will be on a drip for fluids, food, antibiotics for 2 weeks to give my insides a break and let them heel. If I am not leaking any more then obviously this is a good sign, and it might be shorter. However I know I will be recovering from this for a good long time.

Still no results.