I was taking in the happenings of the recovery ward and slowly it became obvious that I wasn't going to move to the ward any time soon, instead I was moved to a corner, freeing up my more easily observed space for someone else.
If I wasn't going to a ward, I really needed to be more proactive about things. I hadn't had a drink since I woke up and so I asked for water. The cup of water I was given was about half the size of a small drinking glass so every time I saw a nurse I asked again. Someone ordered me a dinner tray with a juice and a cup of tea. I was starting to rehydrate.
I had expected to have a morphine pump but I didn't have one. Instead I had been given a nerve block in theatre, it should last 10 hours.
Overnight I started to get a fever, I thought I had reacted this way before. My feet started to hurt and I was given some panadol.
The doctor came on rounds in the morning and apologised profusely for the lack of a pain pump. He ordered one right away but by the time the pain team arrived to assess me I had been medication free for nearly 24 hours, I wasn't going to get one now and it didn't matter, I had discomfort but not pain. The day passed with fever, sleep and returning messages. It was after dark on day 2 before I got a place in the ward.
I fell asleep soon after I arrived but woke in the morning to hear the person next to me crying and the woman opposite explaining to the doctor that she didn't want insulin. Someone complained that they couldn't possibly eat the breakfast they were given because the only bread they eat is sourdough. I felt I was in some kind of alternate reality. The curtains were never open so I didn't meet my room mates but I heard them. I heard the diabetic recruiting one of the nurses for her bowls club, I heard the man in the corner tell his visiting friend to watch his language, I heard the sourdough eater beg for painkillers she wasn't allowed to have and I heard the middle aged man advocate for his mum who seemed to be non-verbal and maybe nearing the end of her life.
I had a couple of visitors and slept. The weekend passed quickly and I waited for the physio to come so I could learn to get out of bed. As it was, safety protocols demanded I have two nurses if I tried to get up so I mostly just didn't.
This is why I like a private room. I am a fan of quiet. So, did you see the stab wound? I do like hearing about your experiences in the hospital. You write well.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda. I didn't see the actual wound because of the dressing but yes, I got an eyeful of leg!
DeleteI also wanted to say that for all the noise, smell, lights and drama of a shared room it is my preference. The loneliest place in the world is a single room in hospital. I had one when my twins were born and it was ok because I had to babies to get to know but long hours alone and without distraction would not be great for me
DeleteThis reads almost dystopian to me Kylie, there's a surreal nightmare edge to it all. So sorry you had such pain and such carelessness in your care.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
WWW,
DeleteUntil I read the comments here I didn't really regard it as a problem although if I'd had real pain, I would have seen it differently.
I did find the other patients surreal.
Never having been a hospital patient, only a visitor, I found your account distressing and real. Recovery Ward is the place so many patients are in now, even as I write.
ReplyDeleteStrange to be given so little water before the late arrival of your dinner tray, juice and tea.
Neglect?
I heard stories like this in Glasgow hospitals decades ago.
Fever and painful feet, these things come at once.
You let us guess your inner state.
Panadol, but no pain pump. Apologies: what good are they?
Pain team arrive, too late.
Bruce Chatwin, who died of an Aids-related illness, intended to write a book about being sick, and his experience of the National Health Service.
I have often wondered what Chatwin's book would have been life, I who am frightened only of the thought of pain. Not that I have known any pain worse than toothache.
Clare Rayner's last wish was that governments protect her beloved NHS.
My GP before he retired told me the Tories don't believe in it.
Privatisation by stealth.
Someone said that the greatest gulf lies between those who are well and those who are sick.
Jack
I meant to write:
Delete*I have often wondered what Chatwin's book would have been LIKE.*
I imagine he would have interspersed his hospital stories with memories of his travels : Patagonia, Afghanistan, India, Australia for *The Songlines*.
In 1973 I talked to him at a Glasgow party, before he was famous.
He was interested in nomads and the desert even then.
JH
Jack, I have great faith that the majority of people in heqalth care are genuine in their wish to help and I can forgive an oversight like the water. I don't think it is usual for people in recovery to be given food or drink at all.
DeleteMy inner state was good. I had mentally prepared for a long and difficult recovery. It's just the same as how one's mental state on a long journey is better than on a short one that is delayed.
I'm sure the NHS has it's problems as our Medicare does but I would be surprised if Chatwin would have had big complaints, when there is a big problem, it's a relief just to get help and even better to be helped without expense.
Chatwin was well travelled and must have been interesting.
I am delighted to hear that your inner state was good, may it be always so.
DeleteDepression is another kind of pandemic, cruel and terrible.
I am fortunate. There is never enough time in the day for me.
My conversation with Bruce Chatwin was brief. We did not hit it off.
At that party I was more interested in an English social worker who lived in Edinburgh, a woman with short blonde hair, a few years my senior.
Spurning my attempts to chat her up, she left the party suddenly.
'Bruce is in the other room, talking about nomads, go in' she said kindly.
When I looked in, Chatwin was sitting on the floor, with a circle of acolytes around him. Not feeling like an acolyte, I left, and soon left the party.
When we had spoken I told him I believed in roots.
Chatwin said curtly that roots did not interest him. His manner was cold.
'Oh, you are like Graham Greene,' I suggested, 'Greene said that his roots were in rootlessness.'
Just for a moment, that interested him.
'Graham Greene said that? I feel that way too.'
He had got himself a job at Sotheby's, knew someone in the Edinburgh office.
There was no suggestion he was homosexual in any of his words or mannerisms.
He said he wanted to be buried in the desert, and that his bones should be taken by wild animals. Romantic guff? He meant it.
Jack
Buried in the desert and bones taken by animals sounds to me like a suitable way to end up: earth to earth and all that.....
DeleteI hope your experiences aren't commonplace.
ReplyDeleteAside from recovery (in which people only tend to stay for a few hours) and intensive care (in which most patients have little awareness of their surroundings) I'm unaware of any American hospitals that still have wards. Of course, Covid could change that because hospitals in many parts of America are running out of places to put people.
Panadol isn't a brand that I had heard of, so I had to look it up. For those who also aren't familiar with it, it's a combination of aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffeine, ingredients that are sold here under other brand names.
Snow, Someone told me some time ago that there are no shared rooms in American hospitals. I find it nearly impossible to believe that so many can't access care but those who do never share a room. Here, the only people who get a single room are infectious or very very ill.
Delete"Someone told me some time ago that there are no shared rooms in American hospitals. I find it nearly impossible to believe that so many can't access care but those who do never share a room."
DeleteAs you might know, thee problem isn't space but money. Medical expenses here are the number one cause of bankruptcy here.
I meant to ask you to what you attribute your poor nursing care. Would you say that the nurses were indifferent to patient welfare, or simply too overworked to give everyone adequate care?
In all honesty, I never for a second thought I received poor care. I'm sure the lack of water in recovery came about because the food service people don't generally service recovery.
DeleteI would have liked a shower but didn't want to ask, knowing what an effort it would be and how flustered people looked if I wanted to get out of bed.
In retrospect, improvements are possible but it was so busy and the genuinely important things all happened smoothly
Kylie, I'm astounded that you consider yourself to have had a good post-op experience. I'm up to, I would guess, twenty surgeries by now, and my experience has always been that a nurse was either directly at, or near to, my side, and that all of my needs and wishes were met quickly. If what happened to you had happened to me, I would have written letters of complaint to everyone involved and also to everyone who was over everyone involved. And had I only been able to get water from a food service worker, I would have complained mightily about that, and I would have written a letter of commendation to the food service supervisor, because although I am a veteran complainer, I write far more commendations than complaints.
DeleteOh Kylie. You transported me back to visiting my partner in hospital. In so many wards - though they would never let me in to Recovery.
ReplyDeleteEC, we asked very nicely to get visitors into recovery. I think they felt it was the least they could do with the delay. I hope transporting you back wasn't traumatic. I was well and happy to be there, which is very different to being sick and possibly being afraid.
DeleteChild, visitors aren't allowed in recovery here either, possibly because recovery rooms are open wards which are filled with people who are moaning and puking as they exist anesthesia and enter a world of pain.
DeleteLike Elephant's Child, I'm reminded of visiting my parents when they were in hospital - sadly, your experience seems to be commonplace, and I'm talking pre-covid.
ReplyDeleteI remember my mum waiting for a pain pump - it beggars belief.
Sx
Ms Scarlet, I'm not sure how these things happen. I think it's important to keep a close eye on things when loved ones are not easily able to do it for themselves and I would not hesitate to use a paid health care advocate if I found it neccessary.
DeleteI never had a ward experience but can relate to your other experiences some of which I had too. I wonder if you have read my post on a comic experience that I had. https://www.rummuser.com/hospital-story/
ReplyDeleteI don't rememebr this story! I'm not sure where anyone would find a brain to replace yours!
DeleteBeing in hospital is often a time when one's senses are heightened - assuming of course that you are conscious!
ReplyDeleteYes, well if one is well, as I was, there's plenty of time to pay attention to the information the sense bring in
DeleteI've done quite a few stints in hospital. It's a strange experience and it's always a relief to get the hell out of there. But I am grateful for the wonderful medical staff.
ReplyDeleteI usually don't much mind hospital per se but of course I always want to get back to my life, as changed as it might be after whatever took me there.
Delete