Skip to main content

Curtain-gate

It's all kicking off on the ward tonight. Down in D bay one of the girls wants to pull her curtains round her bed (which you'd think is not an unreasonable request) but the woman next to her won't let her. She's claiming that she's claustrophobic and if the curtains are drawn round she'll have a panic attack. 

She may well have claustrophobia but she's also known as one of the crazy regulars on the ward, having been here since October. She likes to think she can rule the roost and intimidate the other patients to get her own way. She's even put a sign on the windows in the bay saying that no-one is allowed to close the windows because she gets too hot.

Talking about curtains made me think back to one of my stays at QE2 hospital a few years ago. I was in a side room and this was the curtain up at the window...


I'm not sure if was NHS cost savings that meant the curtain was too small for the window, less material = cheaper curtain or if there was another reason for it. 

Whatever the reason, this is one picture that never fails to make me smile. At the time I took this picture I was very poorly but seeing the pathetic curtain up at the window had me in fits of giggles. Strange the things that we remember isn't it?

Anyway, lets hope the nurses sort out D bay tonight before curtain-gate gets out of hand and fists start flying as well as insults!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Light at the end of tunnel

I’m sat writing this blog post in St Marks, the specialist bowel hospital in London. So much has happened in the last few weeks; it’s all been a bit of a whirlwind. But I finally feel like there is some hope at the end of the tunnel. Let me tell you why.  At the beginning of June I was admitted yet again to QMC in Nottingham with huge amounts of pain, my bowels not working properly and just feeling generally unwell. I had only been home a couple of weeks since the admission in May but I had been feeling so rubbish most of my time had been spent in bed. I had tried everything I could to stay at home but the pain had become so bad I was barely able to stand or take a few steps on my own.  I had expected to maybe be in for a week or two to get stronger pain meds and get back on my feet but I ended up being in for almost a month. They put me on morphine injections and ketamine but then stopped them when my heart rate dropped to 30 beats per minute and my breathing to 7 breaths a minute. Th
Post a Comment
Read more

The light at the end of the tunnel is a train

Last week was a busy and pretty crappy week for me health wise. I had to go and have blood tests done with the nutrition nurses and I had two hospital appointments; one with the gallbladder surgeon in Nottingham and the other with colorectal surgeon at St Marks. I was hoping to have at least one surgery date to write in the diary following these appointments but I came home empty handed on both occasions. Here’s what happened.  I began noticing over the last few weeks that I’ve started feeling really crappy. I’m feel lucky to have been at home for the last 6 months and I have been the most well I have been for years but it felt like things had shifted slightly recently but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But years of being sick means I know my body and I can tell when something isn’t right. I have been feeling permanently exhausted and having way more bad days than good. I’ve gone back to spending 2, 3 or more consecutive days in bed, unable to do anything but watch tv and sleep.
Post a Comment
Read more

The wrong size line

I’m on the M1 heading back to Nottingham after a road trip to St Marks to get my line repaired. But this is me, and as usual it wasn’t a smooth ride. More like a bloody shit show. So what happened? Let me tell you… After being admitted to QMC in Nottingham on Sunday with a broken Hickman line I was taken down to Interventional Radiology on Monday afternoon to get my line repaired. Firstly, I couldn’t believe it was happening so quickly and secondly I didn’t want to get too excited because, well it’s me, and usually things don’t go according to plan. And sadly I right to rein in the excitement.  When the doctor came to consent me for the procedure it was for a replacement, not a repair. I assumed he had made a mistake so I told him I was there to get my line repaired and was definitely not there for a new one. He looked at me and said “I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” and that’s a sentence that never bodes well. He then went on to say that they didn’t have any repair kits and that
1 comment
Read more