Monday, May 01, 2006
THE, GOOD, THE BAD AND THE REAL UGLY MOMENTS
Week 7
The last week has been a week of firsts for me and marks a bit of a turning point in this road to recovery that I’m on.
It was the first time I’ve been able to sit on the edge of the bed and do some leg exercises.
It was the first time I’ve been able to get onto and off the Arjo trolley by myself. This is a trolley that gets wheeled into the shower. The nurses wheel it next to the bed and through some movements I am able to wriggle across. To an onlooker it must look like someone having a fit whilst trying to impersonate a caterpillar.
It was the first time I’ve able to get on the pan, get off the pan and wipe my own arse! This was a big one for me for a number of reasons.
1) The bit of privacy gained by this ability has returned to me some of the dignity, which was so abruptly taken away.
2) I am able to actually ( read properly ) clean my butt, unlike some of the half hearted efforts by some of the nursing staff. Makes me wonder about their personal hygiene.
3) I haven’t had to be wiped since I was a wee young thing and the return to being able to this has increased my independence somewhat. This makes me feel a shitload better as you can imagine.
The whole process is quite interesting as I’ve never wiped with my left hand and I’ve never had to wipe whilst lying on my right side. Not that I’ve had to do that lying on my left side either, it’s just that my left arm / hand is my only operative one.
It was also the first time that I’ve had some relatively pain free days. This was really good even though I’m still on slow release morphine and paracetamol ( although I wonder if the paracetamol actually does anything ).
I’ve been trying to think of my worst experience so far and although there were a few candidates, there could only be one. There was the book thrown on the legs incident, the totally incompetent attempt to put me on my first pan, the roommate’s pan incident during lunch and a few others not mentioned.
The worst incident was over a period of a few days at the Alfred.
I had been kept awake by my roommate’s intolerable snoring. Added to this was an onset of fever. Still don’t know how this happened as I was on antibiotic injections, but never mind.
On the third night I was pretty darn tired and fed up with the snoring and fever, although the fever had settled down a bit.
I the middle of the night diarrhoea came to visit me. After the third time on the pan I started to feel the now familiar rumbling and movement in the guts.
I’d had about enough of this crap and decided I had to do something about.
There was this apple sitting on my bedside table, I figured a bit of fibre and something in the gut might help settle things down a bit.
After forcing myself to eat the apple I lay there, exhausted from the lack of sleep and felt that everything was finally beginning to sort itself out.
It did for a little time until the nurse brought a couple of paracetamol.
The effect these little pills had on my body was extreme. As soon as they hit the back of my throat they came back out, immediately followed by the apple and my dinner right on the apple’s tail. Before I could buzz the nurses I was wearing the entire contents of my stomach.
After the cleanup operation I was left in peace to try and get some sleep. Well almost, there was still the snoring………
I’m guessing it was still a few of hours till wake up time, but my roommate made sure I didn’t get anymore sleep.
I promise no more poo stories………unless of course something really outrageous happens.
The last week has been a week of firsts for me and marks a bit of a turning point in this road to recovery that I’m on.
It was the first time I’ve been able to sit on the edge of the bed and do some leg exercises.
It was the first time I’ve been able to get onto and off the Arjo trolley by myself. This is a trolley that gets wheeled into the shower. The nurses wheel it next to the bed and through some movements I am able to wriggle across. To an onlooker it must look like someone having a fit whilst trying to impersonate a caterpillar.
It was the first time I’ve able to get on the pan, get off the pan and wipe my own arse! This was a big one for me for a number of reasons.
1) The bit of privacy gained by this ability has returned to me some of the dignity, which was so abruptly taken away.
2) I am able to actually ( read properly ) clean my butt, unlike some of the half hearted efforts by some of the nursing staff. Makes me wonder about their personal hygiene.
3) I haven’t had to be wiped since I was a wee young thing and the return to being able to this has increased my independence somewhat. This makes me feel a shitload better as you can imagine.
The whole process is quite interesting as I’ve never wiped with my left hand and I’ve never had to wipe whilst lying on my right side. Not that I’ve had to do that lying on my left side either, it’s just that my left arm / hand is my only operative one.
It was also the first time that I’ve had some relatively pain free days. This was really good even though I’m still on slow release morphine and paracetamol ( although I wonder if the paracetamol actually does anything ).
I’ve been trying to think of my worst experience so far and although there were a few candidates, there could only be one. There was the book thrown on the legs incident, the totally incompetent attempt to put me on my first pan, the roommate’s pan incident during lunch and a few others not mentioned.
The worst incident was over a period of a few days at the Alfred.
I had been kept awake by my roommate’s intolerable snoring. Added to this was an onset of fever. Still don’t know how this happened as I was on antibiotic injections, but never mind.
On the third night I was pretty darn tired and fed up with the snoring and fever, although the fever had settled down a bit.
I the middle of the night diarrhoea came to visit me. After the third time on the pan I started to feel the now familiar rumbling and movement in the guts.
I’d had about enough of this crap and decided I had to do something about.
There was this apple sitting on my bedside table, I figured a bit of fibre and something in the gut might help settle things down a bit.
After forcing myself to eat the apple I lay there, exhausted from the lack of sleep and felt that everything was finally beginning to sort itself out.
It did for a little time until the nurse brought a couple of paracetamol.
The effect these little pills had on my body was extreme. As soon as they hit the back of my throat they came back out, immediately followed by the apple and my dinner right on the apple’s tail. Before I could buzz the nurses I was wearing the entire contents of my stomach.
After the cleanup operation I was left in peace to try and get some sleep. Well almost, there was still the snoring………
I’m guessing it was still a few of hours till wake up time, but my roommate made sure I didn’t get anymore sleep.
I promise no more poo stories………unless of course something really outrageous happens.
