Why do people think that hospitals are restful places? Where does the ‘angel of mercy’ nursing stereotype come from? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve met some amazing nurses, and my mother and several good friends are in the profession, but like all professions, healthcare has its unwanted relations, who give everyone a bad name.
After waiting on a very uncomfortable gurney in A+E for 9 hours (yes, you did read that number correctly!) I was finally moved to what is known as the Clinical Decisions Unit, CDU for short, or as I have come to call it, The Tenth Circle of Hell. It’s a bit like a holding pen for casualty, or that room that Royal Mail have for the letters whose authors were dumb enough to forget the post code on their envelope. Chaos wouldn’t even come close to describing this place.
Buzzers sounding, alarms wailing and beds being trundled past by igor-like porters, and that was only the first 5 minutes! I was placed in a bay with 6 beds and within minutes, after staring around the room, I knew that as usual, I had drawn the short straw with my roommates.
To my immediate right was a young girl who had recently had her appendix removed and managed to catch a post op infection. Ok, so far, so good. I looked left and started to get disheartened. The lady in that bed seemed pleasant enough, but was sporting a chest drain that rattled and gurgled like a leaky old gutter. Casting my eyes across to the opposite beds, my heart gave up on sinking and plummeted to my boots. It was like some twisted version of Snow-White’s dwarves. To add to Sweaty and Wheezy, in the left corner we had Singy, the centre bed was Tiny (ok, admittedly, she was pretty nice) and finally, to the far right was the Screamer.
Singy liked gospel and in particular ‘Oh Happy Day. She also liked singing at top volume, slightly off key and with numerous repeats. When I say numerous, imagine a CD on repeat..repeat..repeat. Tiny was a lovely lady, but really rather ill, and her monitors would go off with amazing regularity which would lead to a stampede of medical staff thundering into the room and barking staccato orders in stentorian voices, generally just as I’d start to doze off. Then there was the Screamer who started out ok, with more of a moan than a scream, but gradually her muttered ‘oi’ would rise like a soprano reaching for that glass -shattering high ‘c’. Much to my horror, around midnight, she decided to change her repertoire. As her agitation built, she would start trying to climb out of her bed, and with all the wires and tubes she was trailing, my palpitations went into overdrive!
With this motley crew, I wasn’t expecting the best night’s sleep but I was still vaguely hopeful. When the lights were still shining brightly at 1.30 am, my hope was waning, but I dutifully lowered my bed (by remote! I so need one of these babies at home. It’s the only good thing about being stuck here.) turned off my light, pulled all of my four blankets over me and closed my eyes.
There is only so much you can do about trying to sleep. I used to brag that I could sleep anywhere, and as I had in fact fallen asleep under the main speaker in a busy nightclub, it wasn’t just telling tales. However, that was a few years ago, before the stresses of being a teacher and the joys of Betablockers came into my life. Now sleep is my most treasured commodity and I guard it like a leprechaun with his pot ‘o’ gold. Thanks to a change in tablets before Christmas, I hadn’t been sleeping much...well at all really. Since Christmas Eve, I hadn’t managed much more than an hour or so a night. 5 weeks later, after being admitted to hospital, I was more than ready for a good 12 hour marathon kip, but like that pot ‘o’ gold, it was always just out of reach.
Tuesday brought another game of musical beds, and we lost Sweaty to the surgical ward. She was replaced by a girl my own age who was in the throws of a rather massive asthma attack. She was gasping and sucking at the air around and just not taking any of it in. While they eventually calmed her down a bit, her fear of all things medical was verging on a severe phobia and the slightest thing would set her off. Things such as The Screamer’s escape attempts, which were now coming every ten minutes like clockwork. Bless the nurses, I have no idea how they kept their patience, cos I was ready to pop an air bubble in her IV after an hour and apparently she’d been there for days.
Days start early on the ward, with the nurses starting the blood pressure/temperature obs at 5.30 am. I eventually saw the cardiologist about 10 o’clock and listened with resigned ears as he told me about the tests they would be doing today...and tomorrow. My 24 hours was stretching and I was far from amused. The only bright sign was that he wanted me moved up to another ward which specialised in cardiac/respiratory patients. It was just a matter of waiting for a bed.
Naturally, being as tired as I was, I was not a happy patient, though I tried hard to be a good one. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a pretty active person. I’m a doer, a worker, a ‘the devil makes work for idle hands’ kinda gal. I’m getting better at leaving work at work and have spent more time on my hobbies in the last few months, but I am still training hard to win an Olympic gold in multi-tasking. Simply put, I don’t do bored.
To my horror, one unfortunate symptom of this as yet unknown heart/possible exhaustion/we don’t know what the hell is wrong condition, was being unable to focus on one thing for very long. I couldn’t knit more than 2 rows before having to put it down, or read more than 3 pages before casting the book aside to lie listlessly in bed. I was climbing the walls! Luckily Cheeky Charlie came to the rescue again and brought me my laptop and a selection of dvd’s. It was only after she left that I discovered that my laptop didn’t play dvd’s. With no sign of a bed in the other ward, I was fast approaching breaking point, and facing night 2 in hell, I started planning my escape.
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