After a second night of no sleep my patience was fast waning, and I wasn’t impressed by some of the nurses I had met. One Gestapo wannabe actually told me off for warning her that The Screamer was trying to escape. Despite the fact that this time she’d managed to swing her legs all the way off the bed and had actually made contact with the floor, pulling out two of her IV lines in the process, I got told off. ‘What do you think we do when you’re not here missy?’ well actually nurse, as it took you 15 minutes to answer the call bell I pushed, I think she falls and sets back her healing even further, but thanks for asking. With only 2 trained nurses, and a handful of HCA’s for nearly 30 beds, calling the ward ‘stretched’ was a joke. Adequate care was almost a thing of the past and they were only just scraping through.
Doctor’s rounds brought no joy for me, only the prospect of yet another day sampling the not so hospitable joys of the NHS. It did mean musical beds again, and this time we lost Wheezy and Singy, and gained Dumb and Dumberer. Dumb was living in the past and would relive long gone conversations in between her breaks from shouting at the nurses and calling them names. The highlight of that day was hearing this frail looking little old lady call the nurse a motherfucking bitch troll from hell. She would turn the air blue with regularity.
Finally, at 7 pm, after a day of listening to the yelling, bleeping and hissing from the oxygen masks, and just as my visitor arrived, they finally found me a bed and the prospect of sleep was in sight again. I packed up my belongings and the porter started the short trek along the corridor to the new ward.
Once there, I was quickly settled and staring round me in stunned shock. Sure, there were still the odd bleeps and buzzes and the inevitable brrrr of a phone, but in comparison with the CDU it was blissfully quiet. I even started to feel more positive. My sister and her other half appeared to entertain me, and things really looked a ton brighter.
As we were chatting and catching up on life outside hospital, a student nurse appeared and asked if she could ask a few questions to admit me to the ward. She asked 2 questions, then announced that as I had guests, she’d come back later. I found it a tad strange as they’d been there when she appeared with her clipboard and it hadn’t bothered her then, but I kept my mouth shut, and just nodded like a good little patient. However, she didn’t come back and 2 hours later I saw her slip her coat on and head home. I still had no chart, and was waiting for the jug of water she had promised me.
When the drug round started, the chart magically appeared, and as soon as the nurses moved on, I did exactly what my mummy had taught me. I hauled that puppy up from the end of the bed and read every line in it. I may not have 7 years medical training, but I’ve spent enough time in hospitals, and around my mum, to pick up enough info to work out the gist of it if nothing else. I could see that I’d been having a high temperature off and on, and that my blood pressure was getting lower and lower. Then I turned a page and found the new bit that the student had started. I’m sure you can imagine my disgust when I realised that instead of coming back to ask her questions she’d gone ahead and made it up. I was now allergic to Penicillin, had been admitted with shortness of breath and had no history of dizziness or fainting in the last six weeks, or history of heart problems in the family.
So the fact that I was allergic to bisoprolol, not penicillin, and had been admitted with a blackout after dizziness was just a minor detail. Again, being my mother’s daughter, I wasn’t going to let that slide and as soon as I could snag a nurse (still no mean feat, cos they were just as short staffed on the new ward) I explained that one or two bits weren’t quite right. ‘No, they’re fine’ was the answer and no matter what I said, the staff nurse argued until she was blue in the face that I was wrong and she was right. Well, I was too knackered to fight and was ready to hit the sack so I left her ‘looking into it’ and curled up for the night, crossing my fingers and toes that sleep might actually, finally be in sight.
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