Tuesday, April 25, 2006
YOU GOTTA EAT, YOU GOTTA SLEEP, YOU GOTTA ..........
As you can imagine the first night’s sleep was heavily drug induced and full of interruptions.
This was to be the norm for my stay at the Alfred. Constant rolling over to have anti bedsore cream rubbed into my back, antibiotic injections, pills, etc.
All this was later accompanied by my room’s other occupant’s incredible snoring.
Now I know I can have a good snore, but this guy’s wet snore sounded like some savage jungle monster with emphysema. I figured it took him around a dozen snores to get to the point when his breathing stopped……….. and then it started all over again.
In the end I asked the nurses for some earplugs or to move me to another room. Seeing as they didn’t have any, I was moved for the rest of the night.
Thankfully, the next day mum brought in some earplugs.
The morning after was just an ongoing drug / sleep deprivation haze.
It was also another first for me………my first encounter with hospital food.
Now hospital food is very similar to aeroplane food. The main difference being that you have more room to attempt to consume it.
The hospital must employ some highly talented English chefs as the food was tasteless and overcooked………to the point that the veggies were just mushy and didn’t require chewing as such, more just squashing between the tongue and upper palate.
At one point my meal was served up and all I could do was to stare at it in disbelief and a hint of intrigue.
The ‘food’ was unidentifiable.
I sat there looking at it, more staring through it, and imagining I must look like someone who should be in the mentally defective ward.
I was almost expecting it to leap up and wrap itself around my face and try to mate with it, kind of like Alien movie style.
The longer I stared at it, the more it brought around a conflict of interests within my body.
My brain said, “Eat it! You need the energy!”
My tongue and stomach screamed “Don’t eat it! You don’t know what it is or where it’s been!”
I came to the conclusion that if I don’t kill it and eat it, it might do the same to me.
So survival instinct took over and the evil entity was disposed of ………in disgust.
I felt like a young child being forced to eat snails or something like that.
Luckily for me I had a steady stream of visitors to ferry edible food to me.
Mum was instrumental in this and I was overjoyed when my mates Brenton and Geoff brought in some Hungry Jacks.
Even though some would argue that Hungry Jacks is not really food, to me at the time it was like a sumptuous silver service dining experience compared to the soylent green being served daily.
I was also starting to build up a sizable and varied collection of chocolate.
I got to the point that I was giving the stuff away to visitors, nurses, anyone who’d take some away.
Not that I don’t like chocolate. Far from it, love the stuff, but by itself, and even more so when combined with morphine, it has the ability to block up your bowels tighter than a yuppie on the Easter Royal Children’s Hospital Appeal.
After nearly a week, I had my first bowel movement.
Never had I had to work so hard to deliver the goods! When I’d finished I was almost tempted to write to Little Johnny to apply for the government’s first child $3000 rebate.
Mind you, just getting onto the pan was bloody painful!
The nurses were obviously fresh out of training as they had about as much idea how to get the pan under me, as if they’d been presented with a scalpel and asked to perform open hart surgery.
After one rolled me onto my right side, the other proceeded to push the bedpan at my right buttock with wild abandon, with what seemed like all her might. This did wonders for my newly acquired fracture of the pelvis.
After informing the nurse of my discomfort ( read agonising pain ) in no uncertain terms, I tried to figure out who was in possession of less empathy, her or Josef Mengele?
Majority of the people working on me were amazingly kind, courteous, understanding and competent. There were however some exceptions, like the bedpan nurse. Another was an agency nurse who upon greeting me one morning threw her patients book on my legs. Once again I was forced to voice my pain and complete surprise at the nurse’s incompetence and carelessness.
She kindly removed the offending book off my legs and placed it on the bed railing and jammed its rather sharp, plastic corner into the bandaged wound in my lower right leg.
This was followed by more expletives, which I’m sure were heard across half the ward.
I guess you don't expect to be comfortable or pain free in hospital.
This was to be the norm for my stay at the Alfred. Constant rolling over to have anti bedsore cream rubbed into my back, antibiotic injections, pills, etc.
All this was later accompanied by my room’s other occupant’s incredible snoring.
Now I know I can have a good snore, but this guy’s wet snore sounded like some savage jungle monster with emphysema. I figured it took him around a dozen snores to get to the point when his breathing stopped……….. and then it started all over again.
In the end I asked the nurses for some earplugs or to move me to another room. Seeing as they didn’t have any, I was moved for the rest of the night.
Thankfully, the next day mum brought in some earplugs.
The morning after was just an ongoing drug / sleep deprivation haze.
It was also another first for me………my first encounter with hospital food.
Now hospital food is very similar to aeroplane food. The main difference being that you have more room to attempt to consume it.
The hospital must employ some highly talented English chefs as the food was tasteless and overcooked………to the point that the veggies were just mushy and didn’t require chewing as such, more just squashing between the tongue and upper palate.
At one point my meal was served up and all I could do was to stare at it in disbelief and a hint of intrigue.
The ‘food’ was unidentifiable.
I sat there looking at it, more staring through it, and imagining I must look like someone who should be in the mentally defective ward.
I was almost expecting it to leap up and wrap itself around my face and try to mate with it, kind of like Alien movie style.
The longer I stared at it, the more it brought around a conflict of interests within my body.
My brain said, “Eat it! You need the energy!”
My tongue and stomach screamed “Don’t eat it! You don’t know what it is or where it’s been!”
I came to the conclusion that if I don’t kill it and eat it, it might do the same to me.
So survival instinct took over and the evil entity was disposed of ………in disgust.
I felt like a young child being forced to eat snails or something like that.
Luckily for me I had a steady stream of visitors to ferry edible food to me.
Mum was instrumental in this and I was overjoyed when my mates Brenton and Geoff brought in some Hungry Jacks.
Even though some would argue that Hungry Jacks is not really food, to me at the time it was like a sumptuous silver service dining experience compared to the soylent green being served daily.
I was also starting to build up a sizable and varied collection of chocolate.
I got to the point that I was giving the stuff away to visitors, nurses, anyone who’d take some away.
Not that I don’t like chocolate. Far from it, love the stuff, but by itself, and even more so when combined with morphine, it has the ability to block up your bowels tighter than a yuppie on the Easter Royal Children’s Hospital Appeal.
After nearly a week, I had my first bowel movement.
Never had I had to work so hard to deliver the goods! When I’d finished I was almost tempted to write to Little Johnny to apply for the government’s first child $3000 rebate.
Mind you, just getting onto the pan was bloody painful!
The nurses were obviously fresh out of training as they had about as much idea how to get the pan under me, as if they’d been presented with a scalpel and asked to perform open hart surgery.
After one rolled me onto my right side, the other proceeded to push the bedpan at my right buttock with wild abandon, with what seemed like all her might. This did wonders for my newly acquired fracture of the pelvis.
After informing the nurse of my discomfort ( read agonising pain ) in no uncertain terms, I tried to figure out who was in possession of less empathy, her or Josef Mengele?
Majority of the people working on me were amazingly kind, courteous, understanding and competent. There were however some exceptions, like the bedpan nurse. Another was an agency nurse who upon greeting me one morning threw her patients book on my legs. Once again I was forced to voice my pain and complete surprise at the nurse’s incompetence and carelessness.
She kindly removed the offending book off my legs and placed it on the bed railing and jammed its rather sharp, plastic corner into the bandaged wound in my lower right leg.
This was followed by more expletives, which I’m sure were heard across half the ward.
I guess you don't expect to be comfortable or pain free in hospital.
