More than just a bag lady

I feel as though I'm on an emotional rollercoaster which has been triggered in part by this latest admission. I thought I would try to summarise what's keeping me awake at night and what I'm having trouble with at the minute. I could probably write a blog post on each of these but I don't have the time and you would probably get fed up of reading them! So here goes. Listed in no particular order we start with... Differences between hospitals  I stupidly and naively thought that the techniques and practices that St Marks use and teach their TPN patients were widely adopted throughout the rest of the UK hospitals.  St Marks is the only dedicated bowel hospital in the UK and trains medical practicioners from all over the world so you would expect them to know what they're doing, right? Well obviously their ideas haven't made it up the M1. The team here at  QMC in Nottingham also think their way is right and while I'm sure it is ok, it's not the St Marks wa...

Guess where I am?  Yep, back in the bloody hospital. I went home on Friday afternoon looking forward to a weekend of quality family time. What I got instead was vomiting, severe fatigue and a body that ached and hurt to even be touched. Hubby also had a mystery pain in his side that appeared on Friday night and got progressively worse as the weekend went on. I thought it might be appendicitis but luckily it wasn't. The whole weekend just passed us by. I have no idea what the weather was like as I  was tucked up in bed with my hot water bottle, Hubby was lying on another bed nursing his side and the kids were babysat by Sky and Apple.  Is it just me or do other people give in and let their kids zone out on iPads or watching tv just to get some peace and quiet? If they're on their 'devices' there's no arguments, fighting and he-said-she-said debates. But with the quiet comes the guilt- should I let them spend their weekends hooked to technology or should they be out p...

The antibiotics have finished now and last night my Hickman line was used for the first time. So far it seems to be working fine and if the doctors are happy with it when they do the rounds later this morning I will be able to go home. Today! Yay! Of course I'm excited to perhaps be going home but I'm also relieved as my poor veins have just about had it. I never really have any decent veins in my hands and arms and the few that can be used have been well and truely pricked to death. It's got so bad that I'm now having cannulas put in my feet. And yes, it did hurt.  Hopefully later I will be packing my bag and going home to Hubby and the kids.Unfortunately everyone is at work today so if, no, when I get discharged later I will have to make my own way home. Nottingham has a really good transport system, including a tram stop at the hospital but I don't think I'm up to using public transport today. I'm going to splash out on a cab that will take me door to doo...

I've seen my consultant. And I have good news!  Dr2 was reviewing my obs- do you know they do all those electronically now? No, I'm not talking about the blood pressure machine and electric thermometer. They have what looks like an iPhone and they put all the details into that. I have to admit that the first night I was in one of the healthcare workers was doing my obs but then got their phone out of their pocket and started tapping away. I couldn't believe it. I would have expected it from a young 'un but this lady must have been in her 50's. But then as the days continued I noticed that they were all doing it. The bloody cheek of it! And then it came to me- they were entering all the details into it. That explained the lack of notes at the end of the bed (which Hubby was upset about as he used to like to sit and read them and pretend he was a doctor and could understand them!)  Anyway, I've gone off at a tangent. Whilst talking, Dr2 asked what the regime was f...

This week I had an appointment to see the pain physiotherapist at UCLH, London. I have waited months for the appointment and now I've had to cancel it as I'm stuck in hospital in Nottingham. Being honest, I'm not really sure what a pain physio is or what they do so I was looking forward to finding out. This appointment also forms part of the process that you have to go through before you can be signed onto their pain management programme. This is a 12 week programme designed to help patients learn how to live with their pain, accept their pain and work towards a point where you control the pain rather than the other way round. I had bend hoping to join the programme on the September intake but that looks unlikely to happen now.  I had also used the appointment as an excuse to spend a week 'down South' and catch up with friends. The kids had been really looking forward to this and are both angry and upset that we can't go. I had planned a catch up with different ...

I had an appointment to meet with the Gastro consultant in Nottingham in a few weeks time. It would be nice to meet him as Dr7 had spoken highly of him and reassured me of how good the Gastro team was at the QMC. The appointment would also offer an opportunity to discuss how shared care would work. But I wasn't going to have to wait that long bevause as an in-patient I would meet him on the ward round.  I was lying in bed watching TV when my door opened and the doctors all swanned in. (At this point I have to mention  that to watch the small bedside TV it had cost £20 for 3 days! Complete rip off) There were 5 doctors and a senior nurse present and nobody other than the consultant introduced themselves. For the purpose of the blog he will be forever known as Dr2. He was a real old fashioned type of consultant, even wearing a bow tie.  We began talking about my current treatment and then we got onto the topic of shared care. My understanding was that St Marks would remain ...

It was inevitable that this run of good health (and good luck!) would come to an end sometime. And that sometime was last night when I was admitted into Nottingham's Queens Medical Centre Hospital (QMC for short) In the early hours of Tuesday morning I woke up feeling absolutely freezing. I thought that the open window was to blame for that and the aches I felt in my body. I got up and put on my thick bed jumper along with a blanket. With my hustling and bustling Hubby woke up and told me that it was not cold and that I didn't need a jumper but I just ignored him and snuggled down to go back to sleep.  When I woke up Mum, Dad and Hubby had all left for work. I could barely get out of bed because my head was pounding and my body ached so badly. I finally went downstairs to find the kids watching TV. I stuck some waffles in the toaster for their breakfast and then told them that I was going back to bed and not to open the door to anyone. It didn't take long though for them to...

There are two hospitals in Nottingham: Queens Medical Centre and City Hospital. Today I was visiting City to have my first appointment with the pain team here. My Dad offered to take me but I was pretty sure I knew where I was going and that I would be ok on my own so I turned him down. Big mistake.  I had a vague recollection of the hospital campus but the last time I was there was over 15 years ago. It'll be ok, I thought. The appointment letter gave brief directions and when I confirmed the appointment yesterday the lady on the phone also gave me some so I was feeling confident. But what I'm experiencing now I'm back in Nottingham is that I know where I want to go but I can't quite remember how to get there. And so much of the road system has changed- new one way systems, pedestrian areas and speed cameras everywhere!  So the  fact that I couldn't work out how to get to the hospital and I had to set google maps going to get there from my house this morning was a ...