I smiled, inwardly but not too obviously outwardly on Friday morning as the Welshman in the next bed ordered a fried breakfast, detailing how he'd like his bacon and each of the other components. In short, he detailed a full English but elected black pudding not Hogg's Pudd'n but what would you expect from Welshman? Finally he required two slices of dark white toast. The Welsh lilt has become rather familiar in recent years but the response to his request was that he could have toast and Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes or muesli. He wasn't a happy boyo, in fact he was just a tad aggrieved but the breakfast lady gently explained that this hospital didn't do fried breakfasts.
The fact that I found this so amusing was a source of great encouragement as it meant that I was once again in possession of a functioning brain cell that was able to find another functioning brain cell to engage with.
Friday had begun at dawn with a softly spoken nurse informing me that he had to do my obs. Automatically I presented my right arm and opened my mouth. I'd have offered the left arm as well but for the realisation that it was canulated and a conduit for a triplet of bags, saline, antibiotic and paracetamol. My BP was low, my pulse OK and my temperature was normal. Hooray!
Tuesday's Chemo #5 went well, I think. I met our next door neighbour on the way in which was a delight as he was engrossed in building a shed to disguise a container. He's a great shed builder and each morning I observe his Uber Shed and I melt with envy, the more so as my eyes lower to the tiny patch of concrete awaiting the results of my seriously behind schedule shed building project. At least it will never be as far behind as HS2 and I suspect it will be infinitely more useful.
A brief chat and I was in and swiftly sat in a chair, canulated at the third attempt and infused. Once again the antihistamine replacement for the steroid had me asleep in no time. Next thing I knew it as time to go home. Felt a bit drowsy but otherwise all was OK.
Home, tea, bed, sleep. All night but almost all Wednesday was slept through as well.
Thursday seemed worse. Breakfast was an opportunity to exercise dodderiness that was definitely more developed than usual. Got up at lunchtime to do lunch with some visiting friends. I wasn't very hungry but I tried and then retired to bed before lunch was done with. That's how bad I felt. The more so since I'd been looking forward so much to doing lunch with a couple who have been terrific to us during this past lifetime and with whom we have done breakfast for ages and always in delightful places with breakfasts that would have broken a Welshmans heart. Some nearly broke my stomach but now that my stomach is broke it'll take a while before we do breakfast again. Sadly.
Sleep came swiftly but I was awoken by the carer, thermometer in hand, then in mouth. Not good. 38 point something from which at 20 minute intervals it continued to rise. A phone call, instructions and within an hour I was bedded in Cherryade, canulated and dripped. It's all a bit of a blur but as usual my chronicler was able to answer every question put.
Cherryade closes at 1800 at which point I was the only patient there. I was still the only patient when collected and taken to AMU and put in a bed by the window.
The evening changeover was just about to start so before very long I was attended by nurses and then doctors. One, of Chinese origin, was brilliant. By now my escort had returned to her home port and was, I hoped, tasting the red. It was a forlorn hope as her hope was a phone call to come and get me. That was a forlorn hope as well.
This doctor quietly asked a whole string of questions the answers to which were probably gibberish but next morning he came with a consultant and told him all he needed to know. One of his questions had been the name of the drugs I was on. I hadn't a clue but next morning I could tell him it was Gemcytobeam and Capcitobeam or at least that's what they sounded like. He smiled and showed me the previous nights form. He was a very clever man. I suspect the questioning was to establish more about my mental state than physical, after all they had lots of numbers to work from. Mostly good numbers apart from the ones confirming the fact but not source of the infection or the ones suggesting that the liver wasn't playing fairly.
The previous night he had ordered an ECG, duly carried out and a chest x-ray done very late at night but I was already in bed so it didn't matter how late it was. Now I was to have a ultrasound scan to examine the liver drainage system. Sounded a bit geographical to me but in due course I was once again parked amid pregnant ladies.
In the meantime an Englishman had been wheeled by paramedics into the bed opposite. It transpired that he'd had a new chair at home to enable him to get up from it. Mum had one, it was great fun and we probably shouldn't have got rid of it so soon. Anyway, the previous night he'd been in it and thought he'd dropped his hanky so he pushed his hand down by the seat squab but unable to locate it he elected to get up and look for it. Pressing the remote control before removing his other hand he turned the cantlivers into a guillotine.
He wrapped another hanky around it and went to bed. Early that morning, unable to stop the bleeding he rang 999. The paramedic got him to where he was now. Still bleeding profusely. First they put on a new dressing and elevated his hand but he had neither the strength to keep it elevated nor could he stay awake long enough.
A Scottish consultant arrived and declared that he shouldn't be in hospital, this is a job for his local A&E or even his GP she insisted. I suspect that she has been so incredibly busy in her life ascending the ladder of success that she is a bit out of touch with local A&E's as well as GP's surgeries. At no time did he complain about her comments or the pain of her examination, he was never anything but polite and grateful to every attentive nurse who dealt with him.
Did I mention that he gave up playing tennis when he was 81 and that he was a solicitor who loved living in a village known to many, that he loved amateur dramatics and the annual village play? No? He did all the time. He initially reminded me of Mrs.Marple, the Joan Hickson one, of course but after a while I realised that he'd got to that age when the past had become the present.
There he was, dapper, shirt and pullover tucked into his leather belted trousers that obviously once fitted him well. The staff realised, too. They got all manner of agencies involved in a short time and were wonderfully engaged with his wellbeing way beyond the mere mechanics of stopping a finger from bleeding, which took nearly all day itself.
His smile was pretty constant, too but it may be that his facial muscles had defaulted to that position.
I was visited by a cancer nurse who asked questions and offered explanations which boiled down to the fact I had an infection, my liver markers were of concern and a consultant would be along shortly.
Next to the Englishman was a very, very Irishman. It appeared that his presence was due to a sudden deterioration in his health at home where he was being nursed through his terminal cancer. He could only take full cream milk so nurses ensured that his mug was always half full. His visitors were cancer team players who explained that if he was happy they would ensure his removal back home where Hospice staff would meet him and take over his care henceforth. I think he knew as he was pretty sharp.
The rest of his morning was taken up with numerous medics and palliative care specialists who set up a more discreet driver. He was on his mobile phone for a whole series of calls in which he set up a meeting with solicitors to ensure that considerable, although probably not excessive, bonds were passed on to his soul mate. It seems that Irish law and English differ in some very important areas. Early afternoon a pair of black suited solicitors arrived and business undertaken in this ward. Quite remarkable, really.
When his soul mate arrived he was able to assure her of her future and the future of others. She went home to await his arrival which was sadly delayed, firstly by a wrong prescription being written and then by a mix up over hospital transport.
He was still there when I left which was late afternoon. The cancer nurse and consultant arrived informing me of the fact that the ultrasound scan had unearthed nothing that was unexpected (whatever that means) and concluded that I was sufficiently reduced in temperature and competent in bodily function to be allowed home with two boxes of three a day oral antibiotics. The liver markers would be monitored by the already scheduled blood tests. Wonderful but it took a few hours to get one of the antibiotics so we waited.
Tea time came and went as did the Welshman, about whom I had learned a lot having made a song and dance about using the ward telephone to phone his daughter in law. It was suggested that he used his mobile but he insisted that he used the ward phone. Graciously they allowed him to do so and placed a chair at the foot of my bed from which he conversed. Loudly.
After tea time a porter came to take him to another ward. First he wanted to wait till someone returned his cheese and biscuits which had been cleared away with the rest of the tea things. The porter promised him a sandwich but he wanted to finish his mug of tea, the porter offered a fresh one on his new ward. The fussing continued but the gallant porter got him packed, sat and wheeled away still complaining about the bag the porter had put something in.
We were home by 1800.
I hope that if/when my past becomes my present I am as polite as the Englishman, that I would be as thoughtful and considerate as the Irishman, even if I'd never have his degree of competence when time is running out and that like the Welshman, I never completely lose my accent.
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