Interesting times (the tale from my point of view) Part 1
I thought I'd post about my last two days,
But first I shall have to start with a brief
On friday 20th the director of the group of departments I am in mailed us about a meeting which all of our departments had to be in one of two locations by 11am on thursday 26th. This involved some of us traveling to Preston instead of going to Warrington (where I normally work).
This set off warning bells and sparked much discussion about what it could be.
On Saturday we went to lancaster to meet up with notdan,purposiveness and Jordan. Rashida did an astounding amount of walking for her (very slowly). Sophia presently walks at least twice as fast as Rashida though doesn't keep going for as long:)
On Sunday we had set the day aside for recovering as we thought Rashida would be in pain and having to spend most of the day in bed but she didn't in the end. She seem to be coping almost miraculously well. With Rashida's parents visiting we needed to do a lot of clearing and cleaning.
Monday at work was a bit stressful and after work was spend clearing and cleaning and finishing season 1 of Babylon 5 (recently bought the B5 complete collection).
On Tuesday Rashida's Parents came.
On Wednesday Rashida was feeling ok (and I think a little stir crazy with her parents around constantly) and decided to go to the cinema. Normally the cinema is less than five minutes walk for me but for Rashida it is a whole lot longer walk. Rashida was having to walk a little fast for her as Sophia was walking with them and there was no Simon to help guide where Sophia walked. When she got home she was feeling ok but a bit tired and sore. We had decided to go out to the cinema and I was really quite interested in seeing Push. However when we got to the cinema Rashida was feeling so cold and in pain that we decided to go home. Overnight, Rashida was really not doing to well and woke me up several times. In the end I got up at 4am because I couldn't stay in bed any longer.
Wow All that much for a setup? Considering how I normally don't write anything down that is quite a lot. I really just felt I had better get the last couple of days out of my head and onto paper LJ.
Now onto Thursday
By the time I arrived in Preston the expected job cuts in Carphone Warehouse were all over the news. I just had to wait until I got told officially what was going on. I must confess to not having my mind completely on my job that day as we had to wait until 12:45 for our meeting.
At 12:45 my department (MI) were in two rooms joined by a teleconferencing system. My department head told us quite frankly what was going on and why. He had gone through a presentation about 12 times by that point and decided not to go through it with us but to just talk to us. He did a really good job of explaining roughly who is "at risk" and what that actually was likely to mean and the reasons why. I'm really impressed at the way carphone is handling this. The end result is that I am not at risk but almost everybody else I know in the company who is not in my direct department (my department is only 7 people big) is. My department is likely to get 2 heads when all of this pans out. Unsurprisingly this left everyone a bit shell-shocked and I left a little early to try and beat the rush hour.
This did not work. I spent well over half an hour getting out of preston and another 20+ mins on the motorway. All in all what should be 30 mins according to googlemaps took 1hr 10 mins.
When I got home I found Rashida was in bed. She was sitting up and talking ok and suggesting we might go out to the Trafford Centre. I changed and sorted a few things out in preparation for going out. When I next went upstairs Rashida was semi-conscious and not making any sense. She also had a temperature. I sat with her for a while slowly bringing her back to the real world during which time I got her to take some Co-codamol. She was in quite a bit of pain and according to our very inaccurate thermometer (always seems to register low) she was at 39.4.
Over the next 30 mins her "waves" of pain got worse.
I rang NHS direct and got put on a ring back list (approx 20 mins)
The pain continued to get worse and Rashida stopped responding properly between waves.
I rang NHS direct and told the guy that I had rung before (he found that I was about 15mins from being called) but as I was re-ringing because the symptoms had got worse he managed to put through to a nurse. She took my details (hey only the third time) and passed them on to our practices on call doctor. She said they would ring within the hour. I questioned this as I did not really want to wait an hour for a phone call from a doctor who may/may not be able to do anything but decided to wait to see if they rang within 5mins or so.
After 5 mins Rashida was still screaming every 30 seconds to minute and I decided it was time to ring for an ambulance.
The paramedics got Rashida into the ambulance by giving her considerable amounts of Equanox (50% nitrous oxide, 50% oxygen). By the time she was down the stairs she had started giggling loudly. On the way to hospital in the ambulance we had "interesting" conversations with Rashida who was getting very happy on the laughing gas interspersed with very loud screaming, which was mildly disconcerting to say the least as she was conciderably less bothered by her screaming than I was.
I don't really want to give a blow by blow account of the time from then until morning but some of the points that stick in my mind are;
At six my alarm (on my phone which was switched off!) went off. I had a discussion with a very incoherent Rashida about what I was going to do and why and I made sure she got some more pain killers (more morphine).
I then went home (by taxi) and, while getting the kids ready to go to the childminders, talked Rashida's parents through what had been going on and was going to happen.
A quick side note here We have the best childminders in the world
I went back home and caught 3 hours worth of sleep.
Talked to my in-laws again and told them that the observation ward has visiting hour from 3-4pm. And off I went again. I picked up BK and ate it on the way to the hospital (first food I had had in nearly 24 hours except for 3.5 biscuits (other .5 went to Sophia). I found Rashida had a high temp again so talked to the nurse who gave her Co-codamol again. At this point I should point out that I had worked out that whenever Rashida started shivering because of real or simulated (due to fever) cold she started to seize up. This then triggered immense amounts of pain. So, as Co-codamol was taking about 20 mins or so to lower her temperature back down she started to get increasing amounts of pain.
Now the plan was to not give her more morphine but to put her on Tramadol if and when she needed it. However they couldn't give her Tramadol as it doesn't go with Co-codamol. Works with paracetomol but not Co-codamol.
At this point I am going to have to take a break as I need sleep!
Edit:
I should point out here that the time listed for this entry is the time I started writing it (21:47). It is now (23:45) and I'm going to bed
But first I shall have to start with a brief
On friday 20th the director of the group of departments I am in mailed us about a meeting which all of our departments had to be in one of two locations by 11am on thursday 26th. This involved some of us traveling to Preston instead of going to Warrington (where I normally work).
This set off warning bells and sparked much discussion about what it could be.
On Saturday we went to lancaster to meet up with notdan,purposiveness and Jordan. Rashida did an astounding amount of walking for her (very slowly). Sophia presently walks at least twice as fast as Rashida though doesn't keep going for as long:)
On Sunday we had set the day aside for recovering as we thought Rashida would be in pain and having to spend most of the day in bed but she didn't in the end. She seem to be coping almost miraculously well. With Rashida's parents visiting we needed to do a lot of clearing and cleaning.
Monday at work was a bit stressful and after work was spend clearing and cleaning and finishing season 1 of Babylon 5 (recently bought the B5 complete collection).
On Tuesday Rashida's Parents came.
On Wednesday Rashida was feeling ok (and I think a little stir crazy with her parents around constantly) and decided to go to the cinema. Normally the cinema is less than five minutes walk for me but for Rashida it is a whole lot longer walk. Rashida was having to walk a little fast for her as Sophia was walking with them and there was no Simon to help guide where Sophia walked. When she got home she was feeling ok but a bit tired and sore. We had decided to go out to the cinema and I was really quite interested in seeing Push. However when we got to the cinema Rashida was feeling so cold and in pain that we decided to go home. Overnight, Rashida was really not doing to well and woke me up several times. In the end I got up at 4am because I couldn't stay in bed any longer.
Wow All that much for a setup? Considering how I normally don't write anything down that is quite a lot. I really just felt I had better get the last couple of days out of my head and onto paper LJ.
Now onto Thursday
By the time I arrived in Preston the expected job cuts in Carphone Warehouse were all over the news. I just had to wait until I got told officially what was going on. I must confess to not having my mind completely on my job that day as we had to wait until 12:45 for our meeting.
At 12:45 my department (MI) were in two rooms joined by a teleconferencing system. My department head told us quite frankly what was going on and why. He had gone through a presentation about 12 times by that point and decided not to go through it with us but to just talk to us. He did a really good job of explaining roughly who is "at risk" and what that actually was likely to mean and the reasons why. I'm really impressed at the way carphone is handling this. The end result is that I am not at risk but almost everybody else I know in the company who is not in my direct department (my department is only 7 people big) is. My department is likely to get 2 heads when all of this pans out. Unsurprisingly this left everyone a bit shell-shocked and I left a little early to try and beat the rush hour.
This did not work. I spent well over half an hour getting out of preston and another 20+ mins on the motorway. All in all what should be 30 mins according to googlemaps took 1hr 10 mins.
When I got home I found Rashida was in bed. She was sitting up and talking ok and suggesting we might go out to the Trafford Centre. I changed and sorted a few things out in preparation for going out. When I next went upstairs Rashida was semi-conscious and not making any sense. She also had a temperature. I sat with her for a while slowly bringing her back to the real world during which time I got her to take some Co-codamol. She was in quite a bit of pain and according to our very inaccurate thermometer (always seems to register low) she was at 39.4.
Over the next 30 mins her "waves" of pain got worse.
I rang NHS direct and got put on a ring back list (approx 20 mins)
The pain continued to get worse and Rashida stopped responding properly between waves.
I rang NHS direct and told the guy that I had rung before (he found that I was about 15mins from being called) but as I was re-ringing because the symptoms had got worse he managed to put through to a nurse. She took my details (hey only the third time) and passed them on to our practices on call doctor. She said they would ring within the hour. I questioned this as I did not really want to wait an hour for a phone call from a doctor who may/may not be able to do anything but decided to wait to see if they rang within 5mins or so.
After 5 mins Rashida was still screaming every 30 seconds to minute and I decided it was time to ring for an ambulance.
The paramedics got Rashida into the ambulance by giving her considerable amounts of Equanox (50% nitrous oxide, 50% oxygen). By the time she was down the stairs she had started giggling loudly. On the way to hospital in the ambulance we had "interesting" conversations with Rashida who was getting very happy on the laughing gas interspersed with very loud screaming, which was mildly disconcerting to say the least as she was conciderably less bothered by her screaming than I was.
I don't really want to give a blow by blow account of the time from then until morning but some of the points that stick in my mind are;
- Rashida having extremely embarrassing (for me) conversations with the very nice paramedics.
- a nurse taking away her Equanox saying "that seems to have done the job"
- The nurse coming back in less than 2 minutes later to put it back in Rashida's mouth to stop her from screaming the place down
- Lots of waiting
- being moved to the observation ward
- Rashida given morphine for the pain (sounded like amorph a clear liquid) and Co-codamol for the fever
At six my alarm (on my phone which was switched off!) went off. I had a discussion with a very incoherent Rashida about what I was going to do and why and I made sure she got some more pain killers (more morphine).
I then went home (by taxi) and, while getting the kids ready to go to the childminders, talked Rashida's parents through what had been going on and was going to happen.
A quick side note here We have the best childminders in the world
I went back home and caught 3 hours worth of sleep.
Talked to my in-laws again and told them that the observation ward has visiting hour from 3-4pm. And off I went again. I picked up BK and ate it on the way to the hospital (first food I had had in nearly 24 hours except for 3.5 biscuits (other .5 went to Sophia). I found Rashida had a high temp again so talked to the nurse who gave her Co-codamol again. At this point I should point out that I had worked out that whenever Rashida started shivering because of real or simulated (due to fever) cold she started to seize up. This then triggered immense amounts of pain. So, as Co-codamol was taking about 20 mins or so to lower her temperature back down she started to get increasing amounts of pain.
Now the plan was to not give her more morphine but to put her on Tramadol if and when she needed it. However they couldn't give her Tramadol as it doesn't go with Co-codamol. Works with paracetomol but not Co-codamol.
At this point I am going to have to take a break as I need sleep!
Edit:
I should point out here that the time listed for this entry is the time I started writing it (21:47). It is now (23:45) and I'm going to bed