Skip to main content

Home today?

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 door. I would rather spend a bit of money but save my energy for seeing the kids later. 

The kids have no idea that I might be coming home today; they still think that I'm having 14 days of antibiotics. Hubby and I decided not to tell them incase at any point the doctors changed their minds. We've learnt from mistakes we've made in the past that it's better to surprise the kids by coming home early than disappointing them by having to stay longer. The kids are with Hubby's parents today and I've been daydreaming about going round and surprising them. I can't wait to see the look on their faces. 

If I get home today I will have to come back either Saturday or Sunday to have blood taken from my Hickman line. This is to check that the antibiotics have done their job and all the nasty bugs have actually gone. And all being well I won't be back until my clinic appointment to see Dr2 in October. 

I did have to speak to the nurse in charge this morning though. Last night my pump alarmed saying there was air in the line. If air gets into your veins in a large amount it can be fatal so I buzzed the nurse. A student nurse that had been working on the ward came in and I asked her to inform the nurse. A few minutes later she returned and began to open the pump, taking the line out. Student nurses shouldn't handle IV's as you have to be a qualified nurse and complete another training course before you're able to put up drips, give IV medications etc. And lines such as Hickman and Picc's go straight into a vein into the heart so require even more training and careful handling so there's no way that she should have touched it. The nurse in charge was equally as horrified when I told her what had happened and couldn't stop apologising. Hopefully having spoken up will prevent her making a mistake with another patient that perhaps is too unwell or scared to challenge her. 

But before I go and pack my bags I had to share this photo with you. I love finding interesting and funny things in hospital and sharing them to make you smile. Hopefully this will do just that. This photo is taken inside the ensuite shower room that I've been lucky enough to have. 


Sensible request. Only trouble being... There is no door!


😄

NB x

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
1 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 sl...
1 comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more