Ups and downs

Great to get up to sunshine and warmth.  The warmth is having an impact on the garden and on my state of mind.  The dressing fell off in the shower again.  Spent some more time rebuilding my laptop after having to re-install windows after a registry corruption.  Appointment with the nurse was at the end of morning surgery in the emergency slots.  Was sat outside the nurses room at 12:15 for my 12:20 appointment.  The teenage girl there asked me what time my appointment was as hers was 12:10 and she was worried she had missed it.  At 12:20 an elderly gentleman turned up and sat down.  The nurse came out and he went straight in!  How do the appointment systems work in the NHS????

The nurse said the incision looks very clean and I am doing a great job of keeping it clean.  I asked her how long it would be kept open for and she said 14 days.  Bit of a shock as the hospital said 7.  The practice nurses said "Yes, the doctors always say that, but they don't do the treatment, sometimes it's 3 weeks".  So I have booked appointments at the surgery for every day this week  and next week, will have to book in the health centre for Saturday and Sunday.  Have also been in touch with radiotherapy as I don't want to waste their time and mine going to another appointment where the outcome is defer it.

The support from friends and family has been great again, thank you all.  I was in danger of having a downer, think it is the anti-biotics, but a couple of phone conversations with good old friends and lots of electronic support from so many others has got me back up again.  I am going to go mad sitting around doing nothing in this great weather.  At least fixing my laptop is giving me something to concentrate on and I have ordered a cheap Android tablet to explore next week.  I am having to duck out of a big school governors meeting this week as well, but I know it will all be fine. 

Back in my GPs care

Got an appointment to see my GP and the practice nurse today.  My Doctor was still feeling guilty for not getting back to me after I asked her about the swelling but was very pleased to see and here what had happened on Friday.  She also had good news, Fridays blood tests showed that my sugar levels are back down again and I haven't hit diabetic levels (yet).  She says not to worry about it until after radio therapy is over and then we can talk about lifestyle and stuff.  I am planning a life style change once radiotherapy is over anyway, not sure I want to go back to being a self employed training consultant anymore.  I want to carry on being a self employed motorsport instructor, and chauffer but you can't earn a living at that. At the moment I would like a nice little regular income that leaves me free to do the driving jobs.  I am getting too old for the stress and energy needed to run training courses, write reports and live in hotels.  I have been at it full time since 1989, a year now of doctors, hospitals and doing not much has given me time to do a lot of thinking.

Anyway, the nurse changed my dressing, after yesterday's fell off in the shower this morning.  The practice nurse has put a little sticky dressing on so I can shower in the morning and I will back in the surgery lunchtime.  Got my shorts on today, it was glorious this morning but it is cold and overcast now so I may have to get some proper clothes on.  The antibiotics are making me feel pretty awful, but anything that makes me better is good.

Dressing changed

I won't go into the gory details, and they are gory.  The hospital booked me an appointment at The Banbury Healthcentre for the nurse to change my dressing today.  Popped down, filled in the forms, got it changed and was home in 45 minutes or so.  The hospital had also left a message on the District nurse answerphone for them to do it tomorrow and I hadn't heard back so I left a message this morning.  The nurse at the healthcentre said the district nurse wouldn't do it if I could get to the surgery and when the district nurse rang the first thing she asked was "Can you get to the surgery?".  Had to be honest and say yes, so now it is my problem to sort out with the surgery tomorrow.  The district nurse did say if the surgery can't do it they will get someone to me.  So up early and on the phone then.

If I had swallowed a sweet the size of the antibiotics my mum would have told me off.

I'm out.

Well pharmacy let it all go wrong again today. Never get discharged from hospital at the weekend or on a bank holiday. Regular readers will remember the Boxing Day fiasco when it took 4 hours for some drugs. Today it took over 5 hours to get from prescription to my hand. But I have them and I am in Ian's car on the way home.

The ward staff have been fantastic, friendly and very helpful. I have been in Wytham ward, which used to be the private ward. So excellent facilities, free TV but still the same awful food. The seat next to the bed was an electric recliner but the individual apple pie I ordered was a lemon curd tart when it arrived.

The picture is one of those holiday postcards you send. My room is the second window on the first floor.

Supplied by hospital

Had a decent nights sleep. Nearly didn't get any breakfast as the 'Nil by Mouth' sign had not been taken down from yesterday. Eventually managed to get toast marmalade and coffee, took much hard work as, evidently, some people come into hospital and are mad enough to try and convince staff that they aren't 'nil by mouth' even though they are!

After surgery yesterday I woke up wearing something I wasn't wearing before I went down. Been given a clean one this morning. So Penny, NHS can achieve the same delivery time as M+S on support items.
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I'm back!

Well I could moan like Penny suggested, but once they start, they get on with it. Went down to theatre at 6:00 and was back on the ward by 8:45.

Haematoma drained, feeling good, not sure what will happen when the local wears off though, they mentioned morphine, so they must expect it to hurt. But hey ho, I'm alive and at the moment I feel better than I did this morning.

Onwards and upwards.
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Option 2 wins

Hi, this is Penny - Graham's sister. His phone battery is about to pack
up having spent all day waiting to find out what's happening.

I'm not happy, in fact I'm really fed up. M&S can manage to get
Graham's undies sorted overnight why can't the doctors get their act
together?

I have just spoken to Graham and found out that the haematoma infection
needs sorting "as an emergency". He has to stay in hospital
immediately, he will need a further operation to remove some infection
and will go onto IV antibiotics. We don't know how long this will be
for and the operation will be done as soon as possible when Graham's
name gets to the top of the "emergency list".

3 weeks ago Graham said things weren't right, he blogged that the nurses
and doctors told him it takes time to heal. I wish somebody had
listened then - maybe antibiotics 3 weeks ago would have prevented this
situation arising today. Graham takes everything in his stride, he
hasn't made a fuss about any of his treatments or hospital visits but I
think he would be justified to have a really good moan about today's news.

But in the spirit of PMA, please send Graham, Sharon and Lauren some
"infection busting" and stay strong thoughts and wishes. Graham's main
concerns this afternoon were - Sharon's trip home driving the
PoloBanger, mum's shopping list and M&S hanging on to his undies till he
is out of hospital!!!