No title (part one)
Last summer I noticed I was becoming ever more breathless after even minor exertion. The months of Autumn and early Winter become a long crescendo of busyness in my business and I just assumed my emphysema was taking its protracted course. By Christmas, when the gong sounds for close of play (until the January stragglers all order at once in the first ten days) and everything has to be finished I was needing help carrying parcels which was disconcerting but the job was more important. It's always stressful and difficult but this season I struggled more than ever.
Once the madness became stiller I mde a doctor appointment and was sent for an x-ray. The result was back in less than two days: they'd made an appointment for me to have a CT scan ten days later on 27th January. I'd been waiting for my mother's Will to pass Probate for 15 months and on Tuesday 18th January I finally collected the cheque which I took to the bank. The 10 minute walk from my car to the bank took 20 minutes and I was totally exhausted. I was getting worse each day and was seriously thinking I'd be dead before my scan appointment. I knew I had to see the GP and that he would send me straight to hospital. So I went and got a haircut and phoned the GP who agreed to see me the following morning and sent me straight to hospital where I was admitted very briskly after a brief triage. So far so good-ish, the system was w*rking.
I was admitted to a surgical ward and since no one had been able to make a clear diagnosis I defaulted to the to surgeon's list. He was due to pronounce on me the next day, Thursday 20thst. That evening I realised I was in the ward where my father died, of MRSA after successful heart surgery. I could hardly breathe and whenever I moved I felt a large something in my chest slip and slide about causing terrible discomfort. I'd only been able to eat light meals for a week or so before and so was not strong. The following morning a young doctor examined me and asked me all the questions the admission doctor had asked and some time later another came and did the same. When I asked if the answers were in my file he said they were and couldn't explain why he had to ask a third time. He did say the Senior Consultant surgeon, whom he described as "a man of few words" would be round soon and in due course the pompous ass hove into the ward with a flotilla of students, housemen and other random medics. Not only did he not address me at all, he didn't even look at me this the young docor read him my notes and the juniors looked on, making their own notes. He poked and prodded the bit that hurt most and ordered "Send him for a scan". A few of the minions asked me the same questions all over again, totally oblivious to the difficulty I was having speaking.
A scan was duly booked for Friday afternoon and a note put above my bed saying "clear liquids only". I was put on a drip and given oxygen, that did help but the oxygen was so dry it dehydrated me and I didn't know it could be humidified so I had to take the mask off to sleep. The next morning I was told the scan had been cancelled and later told it had been rearranged for Saturday. I was still on clear liquids only but there was no doctor to prescribe another drip so I was heading for my third day of fasting. At this point whatever was congesting my lungs was so bad I could barely swallow water and had to have painkillers injected. My breathing was so shallow I could hardly sit up yet lying prostrate made matters worse. I was close to panic, in the ward my father died in.
The night sister was sweet and looked after me very well, she gave me Tramadol to relieve the pain but a few minutes later I dry retched them up. There was a night nurse there, a very big man with cropped hair and a very loud voice with a strong London accent who shouted at the female nurses as if they were idiots and stomped around the rooms singing, at night. His name was Peter. He clearly intimidated all the staff like that. He was telling the sister, unnecessarily loudly, how something had not been done properly during the day and because of the risk of infection whoever did it should be on a disciplinary, even though such comment wasn't his job. I asked him to keep such conversations private as it upset me, my dad having died there. He sneered at me and carried on. Later that night, at 4am, my mouth felt so dry and foul I decided to go and clean my teeth. I thought "I can't sleep and I've got all night, I'll just move very slowly, it'll stop the boredom and fear and make me feel better". I was just finishing round the back of my lower molars when I heaved and went into a spasm of convulsions as the congestion semed to close off my windpipe, I rang the emergency bell.
Peter burst into the bathroom, saw me holding the toothbrush and said "I'd wait until you've finished heaving before cleaning your teeth if I was you buddy". I turned as best I could and slowly said "O shut up". He read that as patient abuse and left, taking the night sister with him. It took me 15 minutes to recover sufficiently to to go to the nurses' station where I wanted to tell him I retched because I was cleaning my teeth and wasn't cleaning my teeth after retching but he saw me approach and stomped off down a further corridor. I tried to explain to the nurse there who just shrugged.
The next morning I was given some evil clear liquid to drink prior to my scan. I was supposed to drink half a litre of it, I managed about 100ml. I was portered to the scan suite and done in a jiffy thought the contrast medium delivered intravenously burned and scared me it was ok really. Back on the ward I had some rather nice tomato soup but it didn't stay down long. Third day of no nourishment at all and no one to prescribe a drip because the junior doctors on duty didn't actually know a diagnosis.
Sunday came and went and I had quite a few visitors which lightened my spirits though physically I was in great distress. By late afternoon it occurred to me that I could probably manage sweetened lemon water and it would probably do me a power of good so I phoned CJ's mum and asked for a lemon, which she brought a short time later. Then the shift changed and Peter was strutting round like cock o' the ward. I needed sugar but didn't want to ask him, I felt so intimidated so the man in the next be pressed the button. Peter strode into the ward and my neighbour explained that I couldn't reach my button but I wanted some sugar. "What do you want sugar for?" demanded Peter, "to make lemon water" I answered. So he checked I was not diabetic (it would say above my bed and in my notes if I had been), returned to the ward and snatched my carefully squeezed drink, spilling some as he did. He came back moments later and had shovelled two heaped desertspoonfuls of sugar into my glass and slammed it down on my table, spilling more and this time it was sticky. There was a thick sludge of undissolved sugar at the bottom of the glass so I got another glass and decanted what I could and diluted it further. I did end up with two glassfuls of good lemon water which I sipped throughout the night.
The next morning I felt much better than previously. By this time people had been reporting that I was near death and I had a constant stream of visitors throughout the day.
Once the madness became stiller I mde a doctor appointment and was sent for an x-ray. The result was back in less than two days: they'd made an appointment for me to have a CT scan ten days later on 27th January. I'd been waiting for my mother's Will to pass Probate for 15 months and on Tuesday 18th January I finally collected the cheque which I took to the bank. The 10 minute walk from my car to the bank took 20 minutes and I was totally exhausted. I was getting worse each day and was seriously thinking I'd be dead before my scan appointment. I knew I had to see the GP and that he would send me straight to hospital. So I went and got a haircut and phoned the GP who agreed to see me the following morning and sent me straight to hospital where I was admitted very briskly after a brief triage. So far so good-ish, the system was w*rking.
I was admitted to a surgical ward and since no one had been able to make a clear diagnosis I defaulted to the to surgeon's list. He was due to pronounce on me the next day, Thursday 20thst. That evening I realised I was in the ward where my father died, of MRSA after successful heart surgery. I could hardly breathe and whenever I moved I felt a large something in my chest slip and slide about causing terrible discomfort. I'd only been able to eat light meals for a week or so before and so was not strong. The following morning a young doctor examined me and asked me all the questions the admission doctor had asked and some time later another came and did the same. When I asked if the answers were in my file he said they were and couldn't explain why he had to ask a third time. He did say the Senior Consultant surgeon, whom he described as "a man of few words" would be round soon and in due course the pompous ass hove into the ward with a flotilla of students, housemen and other random medics. Not only did he not address me at all, he didn't even look at me this the young docor read him my notes and the juniors looked on, making their own notes. He poked and prodded the bit that hurt most and ordered "Send him for a scan". A few of the minions asked me the same questions all over again, totally oblivious to the difficulty I was having speaking.
A scan was duly booked for Friday afternoon and a note put above my bed saying "clear liquids only". I was put on a drip and given oxygen, that did help but the oxygen was so dry it dehydrated me and I didn't know it could be humidified so I had to take the mask off to sleep. The next morning I was told the scan had been cancelled and later told it had been rearranged for Saturday. I was still on clear liquids only but there was no doctor to prescribe another drip so I was heading for my third day of fasting. At this point whatever was congesting my lungs was so bad I could barely swallow water and had to have painkillers injected. My breathing was so shallow I could hardly sit up yet lying prostrate made matters worse. I was close to panic, in the ward my father died in.
The night sister was sweet and looked after me very well, she gave me Tramadol to relieve the pain but a few minutes later I dry retched them up. There was a night nurse there, a very big man with cropped hair and a very loud voice with a strong London accent who shouted at the female nurses as if they were idiots and stomped around the rooms singing, at night. His name was Peter. He clearly intimidated all the staff like that. He was telling the sister, unnecessarily loudly, how something had not been done properly during the day and because of the risk of infection whoever did it should be on a disciplinary, even though such comment wasn't his job. I asked him to keep such conversations private as it upset me, my dad having died there. He sneered at me and carried on. Later that night, at 4am, my mouth felt so dry and foul I decided to go and clean my teeth. I thought "I can't sleep and I've got all night, I'll just move very slowly, it'll stop the boredom and fear and make me feel better". I was just finishing round the back of my lower molars when I heaved and went into a spasm of convulsions as the congestion semed to close off my windpipe, I rang the emergency bell.
Peter burst into the bathroom, saw me holding the toothbrush and said "I'd wait until you've finished heaving before cleaning your teeth if I was you buddy". I turned as best I could and slowly said "O shut up". He read that as patient abuse and left, taking the night sister with him. It took me 15 minutes to recover sufficiently to to go to the nurses' station where I wanted to tell him I retched because I was cleaning my teeth and wasn't cleaning my teeth after retching but he saw me approach and stomped off down a further corridor. I tried to explain to the nurse there who just shrugged.
The next morning I was given some evil clear liquid to drink prior to my scan. I was supposed to drink half a litre of it, I managed about 100ml. I was portered to the scan suite and done in a jiffy thought the contrast medium delivered intravenously burned and scared me it was ok really. Back on the ward I had some rather nice tomato soup but it didn't stay down long. Third day of no nourishment at all and no one to prescribe a drip because the junior doctors on duty didn't actually know a diagnosis.
Sunday came and went and I had quite a few visitors which lightened my spirits though physically I was in great distress. By late afternoon it occurred to me that I could probably manage sweetened lemon water and it would probably do me a power of good so I phoned CJ's mum and asked for a lemon, which she brought a short time later. Then the shift changed and Peter was strutting round like cock o' the ward. I needed sugar but didn't want to ask him, I felt so intimidated so the man in the next be pressed the button. Peter strode into the ward and my neighbour explained that I couldn't reach my button but I wanted some sugar. "What do you want sugar for?" demanded Peter, "to make lemon water" I answered. So he checked I was not diabetic (it would say above my bed and in my notes if I had been), returned to the ward and snatched my carefully squeezed drink, spilling some as he did. He came back moments later and had shovelled two heaped desertspoonfuls of sugar into my glass and slammed it down on my table, spilling more and this time it was sticky. There was a thick sludge of undissolved sugar at the bottom of the glass so I got another glass and decanted what I could and diluted it further. I did end up with two glassfuls of good lemon water which I sipped throughout the night.
The next morning I felt much better than previously. By this time people had been reporting that I was near death and I had a constant stream of visitors throughout the day.