Skip to main content

4th in line

I was told that I would be having my line inserted today. I couldn't believe it. Apparently Dr7 was doing an extra theatre list as quite a few people needed lines and I was on the list. 

I didn't quite believe it but a little while later one of the nutrition nurses came to see me bearing gifts...


This box contains a brand new, shiny, infection free Hickman line. So if they've given me the line then I must be going down. 

I still didn't want to get my hopes up because I had heard from one of the nurses that there were 4 patients needing lines but only time for 3 to get done. All the ladies in the bay were certain that I would be one of the 3 given that I had the line at the bottom of the bed and the fact that Dr7 knew it was Big Fellas birthday this weekend. He knew I was desperate to get home as I had spent the last 2 of his birthdays in hospital. 

Just before 7pm I called my parents to take my mind off the fact that time was ticking on and there was no sign of me being called down. Then the kids facetimed me and it was 8pm before I knew it. 

I walked up to the nurses station and asked the charge nurse if I was going down. He didn't know so asked one of the student nurses to ring the interventional radiology suite to find out. The look on her face told me all I needed to know. 

"They've just finished for the night"

I walked off, back to my bed. 

I felt crushed. 

No explanation. No idea if it will happen tomorrow. Or next week. Or the one after. I've heard one man waited 6 weeks for his line. Whether that's true or just one of the stories doing the (ward) rounds I don't know. 

All I know is that I'm gutted. And this big bar of dairy milk chocolate was supposed to make me feel better. But it hasn't. So now I feel gutted and sick. 

NB x

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Caravan wankers

Over the last few years when I was stuck in hospital for long periods of time Hubby and I would talk about what we would do if I ever got ‘better’. During some of those times when I was so, so poorly the idea of just being at home for more than a few weeks at a time seemed like a far fetched dream. But I’m currently living that dream! And obviously I know I will never ‘get better’ but for these purposes ‘getting better’ meant being well enough to be at home, not in pain 24/7 and not in bed all day, every day. Not too much to ask now is it??  So in our talks, once I was at home and was well enough to do the real basic things like watch Big Fella play football, Big Girl play netball, go to Tesco, play with the dog, go to the cinema etc one thing kept cropping up. We would love to have a motor home and tour round the country. We talked about the places we would like to visit, how much Buddy the dog would love it and how it would give us a chance to reconnect with each other.  But...

Now I’m panicking

This morning I saw my consultant on the ward round. I was excited to find out the plan to get me home later this week but it looks like the plan is a little bit different to what I thought… The gastro consultant had spoken to the microbiology consultant who said I need two weeks of antibiotics from the first date I had them. Depending on which antibiotic we are counting from (as I’m currently on three different types) that takes me up to either the 18th or 19th December. So far this was what I was expecting and so in my head I was thinking that I would probably be home for the weekend, just in time for the annual tradition of Christmas bowling with Bestie and her kids on Saturday 21st December.  But then he told me that we need to leave it 24-48 hours with no antibiotics and then do another blood culture from my Hickman line. After taking the blood culture we then need to wait 2 days (minimum) to make sure no bugs grow on the culture and only when they are satisfied that the line i...

Trying to get vaccinated

When I was an inpatient recently I asked about getting the Covid vaccine because I’m classed as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (ECV). Apparently other patients on the ward had gotten theirs but I was told that it wouldn’t be possible and that I would have to get in touch with my GP. Apparently staff within the hospital had been using the system to book vaccinations for friends and family by saying that they were an inpatient and as a result they were now only vaccinating staff who could show their ID badge.  I can understand that people are worried about the people that they love but to think that people abused the system in that way makes my blood boil.  So when I was discharged I rang the GP surgery and was told that they had absolutely nothing to do with the vaccination programme and that I would need to get in touch with NHS England. So I called NHS England and spoke to an adviser who told me that according to the system I wasn’t eligible for a vaccination. I explain...