Beds and Wards

I am still in Brighton Hospital, still on level 9 and still waiting for a bed in Guildford. Everyday we call and they say no or maybe for the NHS Bed and today or tomorrow for a private bed which is extremely frustrating. Brighton surgeons don’t really want to operate and Guildford do and it is now a week. However in that week I am brighter and stronger. I am still getting bouts of appalling pain, but by and large the pain killers work. My jaundice is still there. However as this gallstone is so big and causing such an obstruction I have to be on very powerful iv antibiotics until the gallbladder is taken out, otherwise I may get the same infection that had me crashing and burning like last week.

As I look around my ward it is easy to see why beds are so short two of the ladies have been on this ward unwell for 3 weeks or more, they cant find what is wrong, and they are not well enough to go home to eat and drink. Also when they are older they do not move and the muscle wastage is apparent even to me in a week and their condition deteriorates. The other three of us, well you know what I am up to blocking a bed, and the lady opposite is here until better and the other is an on the cusp senile dementia patient which a short term memory loss and although disabled with an adaptive home she has gone down hill. It is hard for her to accept that she does not make the decision as to whether or not she goes home. She is going into respite care and has taken it that they are housing her in a gym! We are all in a surgical ward and I am amazed how little we see of the doctors, any doctor. There is the one important ward round and they make the decisions on you in the 5 minutes by the bedside. If the results are not chased and they have not got them for the next day for example you miss another day. The doctors and nurses are wonderful and all work hard, when you are sick the care is amazingly good.

I am back on level 9 in the Millennium Building at the County Hospital and there are some familiar faces which makes life better. Dieticians, stoma nurses, healthcare workers, nurses and the ward rhythms remain the same. I was asked one morning, as I was feeling down, if I would consider moving bed to another ward. As it was a question rather than a statement I said no and have decided to stay on this ward until they get me to Guildford. It might not work!

11/6/19