This is becoming an ongoing joke on this blog: nope. Still not dead. And nobody is more surprised than I am, given my less than glorious time in the Royal London. If I had started with nine lives, I think that six of them are gone. I really don't want to trust doctors with the last three-so I'd better stay healthy this time!
I went into the immunology clinic on Wednesday, the 13th-and I felt like a lemon, sitting there for four and a half hours while there was a lot of discussion about whether to admit me or give me even more oral antibiotics than I take already. So-they finally decided to admit me, but there were no beds. I came home and unpacked, and I really felt like I had a stay of execution.
That didn't last long; on Thursday I got a call from my nurse (John), who told me to get there as soon as I could. He said he would cannulate me, but I needed to be there early. Well-I should know better by now, having dealt with these people for so many years! I packed a case (again)-all the medicines, the usual toiletries, some clothes, and, of course, makeup. Makeup-must get my priorities right, mustn't I? I didn't wear it for the two weeks I was incarcerated in the Royal London, but I brought it anyway. By the time I finished packing (also bringing books, since there is no wi-fi on the ward), I felt like a Sherpa. Luckily the minicab driver helped me part of the way.
It was the usual: fourteen days of very strong intravenous antibiotics. Nasty. My balance (such as it is) went out the window, and my eyes just wouldn't focus. But-the two things that were really depressing (apart from the fact that I could barely get out of bed, so I wasn't doing anything about going for my usual walks) were the care and the food.
The food is worse with every admission. There were days when they ran out of food-I don't know how that could happen, but it did. One day I didn't eat at all. Someone brought in a tray with a lone baked potato on a plate, saying that there was nothing else. And the potato was so hard I could have thrown it and broken a window-or given someone a concussion. As for the rest of the food-what they served was a mystery. Nothing was recognizeable. I got something on a plate that was truly mystery meat: it looked suspiciously like something my dog would have deposited in the road after eating something that really disagreed with him. I was waiting for it to start moving. In fact, I think it might have been moving...if it had jumped up and run around the plate, I would have asked to be sedated.
The funniest food story happened one morning, when the breakfast trolley was parked almost outside my door. This trolley had things like corn flakes, and other cold cereals, as well as hot water for instant coffee and tea. I was smart enough to bring my own teabags, since everyone on the ward who has been there before (staff included) knows that the teabags are so cheap and nasty, they are probably filled with floor scrapings and wood chips. So forget the tea. And as for the coffee: if I don't make it myself, or go to Starbucks, I won't drink it. The English make coffee that could double as paint stripper. Perhaps it really is paint stripper.
I came out of the room on this particular morning to go get some hot water and make myself a decent cup of tea-and I looked at the breakfast trolley and noticed something that looked like a bowl of pig swill mixed with vomit. Really, it looked like someone had eaten it first (so did all their food, by the way).
I looked, I made a face, and the nurse who was standing there filling bowls with corn flakes laughed, and pointed out that other wards make this (pulverized oatmeal, probably great for people who have no teeth. Or tastebuds.) with water, but on our ward (he said) the nurses make it with milk. What is it? I asked. Ready Brek, he replied. I said it looks like a bowl of vomit, and he started telling me again how they make it with milk, so the patients should be grateful. I then said that I don't care if they make it with Jack Daniel's-it still looks like vomit. I then scarpered into my room so nobody could hurl abuse. It really was funny. One nurse I knew quite well came in and said she would never look at Ready Brek in the same way again. And she said she doesn't eat it anyway. So we both had a laugh-one of the few I had in two weeks.
But the care-I do need to mention that, because we Americans think the National Health Service is so brilliant, we want socialized medicine in the USA. There is a huge "BUT" to that idea. In the UK the population is somewhere around 55 or 60 million (depending on which source you use). So you would think the NHS works here, because at home we have fifty states and a lot more people. Think again. Would it work in the USA? It doesn't even work here, so - the jury is definitely out on socialized medicine over there.
The NHS is a great idea- and when it works (like the speed with which I had cancer surgery last year) it works well. When it doesn't work-well, I think back four years to gentamicin, and that is a classic case of incompetence and the system letting me down. And I am not alone; there are people who have died, or been confined to a wheelchair, or blinded, just because of negligence and incompetence-and waiting for surgery to be available. I kid you not-and in the USA you can sue, and collect; here, as we know, nobody who is responsible for the cock-ups will admit responsibility. It's very sad; the system is being drained by idiots who are so busy paying themselves megabucks (or pounds) that there isn't enough to pay nurses and doctors a decent wage.
I know some of the nurses on the ward since I was there four years ago. The hospital - in its wisdom - downgraded experienced nurses from a band 6 to a band 5-I don't know how much of a drop this is financially, and I thought that the nurse who told me this would tell me about the money -if he wanted to, and he didn't, so I didn't think it was my business to ask. But the nurses who are left do 13 hour shifts-13 hour shifts!! And one I know since she was training (Louise) did eight 13 hour shifts in a row-plus another three so she could make enough money to pay her expenses. That is insane: 11 days in a row? No wonder the nurses reach the point of making a lot of mistakes-and I do mean a lot. They get medications and infusions wrong, they get so much wrong-they are totally worn out. I feel for them-but I still need infusions to be right, so I might have been a little short with some of the agency nurses who treated me.
I had agency nurses - because there were days when the ward nurses were on their own, one nurse to 11 rooms-and two agency nurses didn't even know how to take blood pressure, let alone do an infusion. One tried to stick a needle down the cannula-I pulled my arm away and told her to get me a nurse who knows what they are doing. Idiot-must have been a 300-pounder from Essex.
Last Thursday my last infusion was at 6am-the cannula came out at 7am, and I was packed and ready to leave by 7:15 am. Not that I was ready to sprint out the door-but I kept bothering the nurses to get someone from the immunology team to sign off on me. This should have happened the night before-but it didn't, so I made a pain of myself or I would have had to wait until 4 or 5pm. They finally let me out at 11:15-I raced off the ward. I probably would have knocked over anyone in my path, that is how desperate I was to leave!I'd been -well, not tied up, more like tubed up, arm veins at the ready (to be demolished), and I couldn't wait to get home.
I went into the London with the attitude of what could possibly go wrong? Answer: everything. Only this time I was blunt and on the case, and I was clearly not someone to be messed with. I realized that I didn't really care, as long as people did their jobs (for better or worse) and didn't kill me this time. So that worked.
It has taken me a week to recover from the hospital stay and the antibiotics-they were really strong, it was like putting bleach into my veins. I should have the cleanest veins in London now...And I did get out of bed to go to see the Matisse exhibition at the Tate on Saturday. It was packed, I was pushed around by the sheer volume of people (not looking where they were going), and I got back and had to rest for the remainded of the weekend-actually, for the next week or so. But I went anyway. Nuts, or what? The exhibition was great, so, nuts or not, I am glad I pushed myself to go. Now I need to start pushing myself harder to walk and see better, and ignore the fact that Dr. Dimples will be discharging me from neurology in two weeks. He told me last year that he would do that, since-he said-if I haven't made more progress by this year, I will have gone as far as I can go. Well-that is like waving a red flag at a bull, isn't it? A challenge if there ever was one.
That brings you up to date. This afternoon I will see the plastic surgeon about reconstruction. I haven't made up my mind yet- I need to have all the facts first. I have said probably not all this time-so if I decide to go ahead, it will be for myself, not for anyone else. Still hovering on the fence. You'll know when I know.
So now I am off to make a salad: real food, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce-you name it, I've been doing that since I got off the ward. Salad. A shot or two of Jack Daniel's-and, of course, a large bag of Kettle Chips!
Life is good.
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