Get thee to a hospital
As most of you already know, at the beginning of this month, I spent a week in hospital having my gallbladder removed. I’ve had gallstones for the past three years, but generally they only gave me a night of pain every few months or so and armed with tramadol (the next step down from morphine), I could handle it. Unfortunately, one night at the end of June, I got the gallstone pain again and it didn’t go away.
After three days, I was almost out of tramadol and got myself the next available doctors appointment. It was two days away so I had to beg drugs from my sister to get me through til then (fortunately her medicine cabinet was well stocked). The doctor gave me a heap more tramadol and sent me off for some blood tests the next morning. The day after the blood test, the doctor phoned me at home in the morning to tell me something was seriously wrong with my liver and I needed to get myself off to the hospital for some tests.
The hospital admission was pretty quick and painless – less than 5 minute wait in the emergency department, less than 10 minutes in the waiting room at the admission and planning unit (APU) and then I was handed a hospital gown and told to put my clothes in a brown paper bag. The hospital gown was the stereotypical one that doesn’t cover your arse, but once I was in bed, it didn’t really matter. There was lots of waiting around as various nurses and doctors came and spoke to me, and several people came with needles to suck my blood. Eventually they put a drip in my arm and left me alone for a little bit. When I say alone, I mean in a very noisy ward with 6 other patients and their visitors, nurses and doctors. Fortunately, I had a book and my cellphone to keep me amused until they came and wheeled me off (bed and all) to radiology for an ultrasound.
If I’d had the ability to twitter from my cellphone, I would’ve had a constant array of things to complain about. The guy next to me had his condition and medication regime explained to him three times (by the doctor, nurse and pharmacist) and claimed to understand what was going on. When his family showed up and asked him what was wrong he suddenly seemed to forget, insisting that he didn’t know what was wrong, that he hadn’t seen a doctor, and that nobody had told him anything except that he was going home and had some new pills.
They guy opposite me gave a very loud and detailed narration of his rectal bleeding, another woman had to have her blood sugar monitored every half hour, and the nurses came and took my pulse, blood pressure and temperature every hour. I felt great pity for the orderlies who had to wheel me around as my hospital bed had a mind of it’s own and wanted to go sideways rather than forwards. One orderly told me it was probably older than him and I combined. It was like being in a dodgem with the steering stuck – we basically just bounced of walls and doors and trolleys all the way to radiology and back.
It was about 4pm before a parade of specialists came with the news that they wanted to do a CT scan the next morning so I’d have to say overnight. On the plus side, they were finding me a bed upstairs so I didn’t have to stay downstairs with all the swine flu sufferers. Unfortunately, they didn’t move me until nearly midnight so I had the opportunity to try and go to the bathroom in a hospital gown and to experience the Loudest Snorer in the History of the World.
Rectal bleeding guy was bitching and moaning about the noise made by the nurses taking a history from the newly admitted woman next to him and went and sulked in the TV room for a bit, complaining it was too loud to sleep. He didn’t come back til about 10pm, so I managed to snooze a bit beforehand, but when he came back, we all found out what too loud to sleep really meant. I have never in my entire life heard anyone snore as loud as this guy. I swear everything in the room was moving towards him as he sucked in each breath with the noise of a jet engine. I tried covering my ears with the pillow but it didn’t do the slightest bit of good.
It was at this point that I’d better go to the toilet. Unfortunately, the toilet was out in the corridor. Not only did I have a gown that required me to hold it closed at the back so as not to reveal my arse to the world, I had a drip stand to manoeuvre with my other hand. I managed to negotiate my way to the loo without mooning anyone, but then I had to open the toilet door. It swung outwards, meaning I had to grab it and step back. Stepping back meant I had to hold onto the drip stand, and so my only option was to flash my arse to everyone in the vicinity. Fortunately APU isn’t particularly crowded at that time of night, but still, not one of my most dignified moments.
Because I was concentrating so much on not flashing my arse to strangers, I hadn’t noticed that my drip had actually stop dripping and was now actually running in reverse – the entire drip tube up to the bottom of the drip itself was now full of my blood. Fortunately on the way back to my bed, I ran into the nurse who told me it was normal and nothing to worry about, despite how scary it looked. Even more fortunately, the nurse had ear plugs for everyone – the industrial ones my brother uses when guiding helicopters and planes at Whenuapai. And even with those on I could still hear the Loudest Snorer in the History of the World(although it was muted enough that I could sleep).
Still, I was extremely happy when and orderly came and took me upstairs to the lovely quiet and peaceful gynaecology ward, where I got a new super-comfortable, non-squeaking, automatically adjustable bed. Yay!
To be continued.