4/5/2016

3/5/16

 

Well this was unexpected.

 

  Eleven pm and I’ve just arrived in a bed at Poole hospital awaiting a bag of intravenous antibiotics. Turns out this taste of zombie that I am learning to cope with is not a good thing. It would appear that I have managed to pick up some kind of infection in my necrotic tongue and all the people that know best (consultants, doctors, nurses and my wife), suggest that I stay here a while until I can utilise my mouth muscle correctly and without pain again. I say just give me some penicillin and let me be on my way, they say lets just watch and see how well you respond to it.

  I was doing so well, my trachea accessory, the tube, came out so perfectly last Friday and the hole in my neck is healing really well, so the district nurses tell me, I personally have not yet seen the stoma site, I thought I should wait until it had closed up a little first before I go examining another scar on my body. My ability to sleep had greatly improved too, being able to turn your head from side to side, without having something sticking out the front of your neck waiting to collide with the edge of your pillow and making you cough, is something you tend to take for granted. It’s such a relief to be free from it however, there was mention of it earlier making a re-appearance but that was a worse case scenario.

  So why am I here? Yesterday I had a moment where all was not right, I felt faint at some point in the afternoon and I think I passed out. Fortunately I had the foresight to get to my bed. I came around over an hour later and still I felt wrong somehow.  Medication, food, drink and more medication followed but this time the relief from pain was all over far too soon and I found myself requiring more meds before my own medical chart would let me. (Yes, that’s right, my own medical chart. I’m not sure if it’s the engineer brain, my need to be logical or perhaps the fact that many believe I’m on the spectrum that made it happen, but I found myself making my own bespoke charts up to fill in daily so that I can keep track of my pain level, meds, blood pressure (I bought a machine), pulse, temperature, drinks, food, wee’s and pooh’s (utilizing the Bristol stool chart too) as I am finding it a lot harder to remember when all these things have been done or need doing.) This meant I would be waiting for the time when I could have more drugs, nearly 2 hours waiting, I know it’s not long but when the chart reads a pain score of 12 out of 10 for this long, you really do run out of things to do to try and keep your mind from it and invariably you tend to crack, break down and cry. Time arrives for the next dose and I eagerly consume the medicine as if taking it quickly is going to make it work quickly, 20 minutes pass and I feel the effects creep in, slowly and trying not to move (as I believe in this tender state of mind that moving somehow reduces the affect fullness of the dose) I slip off to sleep hoping that the medicines will last until the next allotted dosage time. Alas this was not to be and in the wee small hours of the morning I’m tossing and turning, full of pain and again a good 2 hours short of where I need to be. This is how all of today continued, yet the straw that broke this camels back was the inability to manoeuvre this evenings meal around between my teeth in that necessary action we like to call chewing and no chewing means no proper eating. This too, is not good.

  What is good is that I’ve just had my first I.V. antibiotics so let’s see how this very night pans out. It’s 0100hrs and I’m off for a wee, (I’ll tick the box on my chart) then I’ll try to sleep. See you in the morning.

 

Morning may the forth be with you, and me.

I guess that today I shall be mostly spending the day waiting. Waiting for my drip to be removed, waiting for the doctors to come round, waiting for the pharmacy to dish out some antibiotics for me to take home and waiting to be told I can go home. Then I’ll be waiting for a lift home. There is enough people in this country waiting for the NHS to sort them out and I feel like I am taking up the space that somebody else more in need should have. After all, there is not that much wrong with me.

 

This is me Steve Royal, on a slight set back waiting to get home and cut the grass.

 

Have a week.