Saturday 11 June 2011

Hammer Horror

Another huge storm over night so no one got much sleep, all walking around like zombies this morning and that includes the staff. Would have tried catching up this afternoon if the church across the road hadn't decided to have a fete. Children screaming and dodgy bango playing are not the best receipe for a quiet nap.

I was being a bit optomistic saying I hadn't bruised. Today I look and feel as though I've been kicked by a horse. I'm blue from my shoulder down to my boob. As for the wound on my neck, well Dracula isn't in it. I could make a good living as an extra for Hammer Horror movies.

 Today was a big day for me as I was packed off to clean my line site myself. I'm still not allowed to shower so I started off with a nice bath, taking care not to get the dressing wet. I then dressed and put my bra on and gritted my teeth ready to take the dressing off. The procedure is quite fiddly and involves lots of handwashing with alcohol before you even start on the actual cleaning. I followed what I'd been taught to do as closely as I could remember it. The wound itself is healing well but is still very painful. The worst part for me was getting the old dressing off, because my skin is so tender and sore. To add to my troubles the dressing seemed to have welded itself to the line, I am not allowed to use anything sharp around the line in case I accidentally nick it so it took me forever to get it off, especially as I couldn't really pull on it. The most difficult part is putting the dressing back on. It is one of those occassions when you need at least three hands. One to fold the gauze over the line, one to loop the line so it doesn't hang down and get caught on anything and one to apply the sticky waterproof dressing. It's all a bit of a juggling act but after a couple of near disasters I managed to get it all sorted. I'm going to have to figure out a different way of looping the line though as the way I've done it today means the cap is sticking out of my bra and looks like a third nipple. And I just can't go out looking like that, I'll be causing accidents.

Just when I thought the food couldn't get any worse, it did. Lunch today claimed to be 'french onion soup' = muddy puddle water, 'jacket potato with tuna mayo' = shrivelled brown blob with a dollop of grey stuff in the middle smelling faintly of drains, 'chocolate mousse' = cow gum. So I hot footed it across to the shop and stacked up on jaffa cakes and pringles. Tomorrow they are offering a 'traditional Sunday roast', my stomach is churning at the thought. I moaned about the food on facebook and so far have had offers of a full fry up and some banana bread. One can but dream.

My companions continue to thin out and another one is off later this afternoon. Unfortunately I am left with the sleep singer, the farter and to add to the mix a persistant vomiter arrived late last night. Ain't life grand! I dug out my headphones and plugged myself into a bit of Pavarotti. Worked a treat until the flaming storm turned up.

Spent a happy half an hour chatting to Andrew via facebook. He has man flu and is feeling a bit bunged but is boasting about doing some washing. When asked how my tomatoes were looking he said 'alive'. Not one to waste words my youngest. 

2 comments:

  1. The three things that I learned to avoid on hospital menus were:
    Soup, fried fish, and any form of meat pie. I usually went for the salad and bread roll option, on the basis that it may arrive in an edible state.
    Is the cafeteria close enough to the ward for you to escape in search of some half decent food?

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you want some really good food, get someone to put you in the wheelchair and take you about 400m down Cale Street to Tom's Kitchen. :-))

    ReplyDelete