I bet you're all wondering where I've been.

[blackburn_stevie]

Straight up front I'll say that I have NOT been doing any weeding. No, I've been in hospital as an in-patient since last wednesday morning until 13:17 today, thursday and, to be honest, that time spent in the care of nurses, auxillary nurses, trainee nurses, nurses assistants and doctors has shown me just what a non-caring, only in it for the wages, gang of uncaring ......... I don't know what to call them, maybe "Criminals" is as good a word as any. Don't just take my word for it. I'll tell you some of the things that happened in a 4-bedded ward, both to me and to the other patients. Only snag is that I'll have to wait a while before I can fill in the report so I'm leaving it now but I'll be back in about an hour.

Take care, one and all and I hope you never get hospitalised.

Cheers,

Steve.

ps ...... I had an internet connection while in my hospital bed but www.ebay.co.uk was a banned address. What do they know that we don't?

[bankhaunter]

ps ...... I had an internet connection while in my hospital bed but www.ebay.co.uk was a banned address. What do they know that we don't?

If you read SC and BC to any degree, you can see how badly dealing on Ebay affects your health, the death rate is appalling.

[right-then-petal]

waits for the gos

[mustard-tree]

It must depend on the hospital.

When I was in hospital for 12 days after breaking my ankle, I had first class care from all staff from students to doctors.

I doubt I would have got better care if I had gone private.

It was the same hospital where my late husband was for the last 2 days of his life.

When he passed, he was treated with dignity and all the staff were sympathetic and very helpful 

Couldnt fault them.

[tommy.irene]

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No i Didnt even notice you were gone again.

[electric*mayhem*band]

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@blackburn_stevie wrote:
Don't just take my word for it. I'll tell you some of the things that happened in a 4-bedded ward, both to me and to the other patients. Only snag is that I'll have to wait a while before I can fill in the report so I'm leaving it now but I'll be back in about an hour.

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Well Steve, all I can say is that the report must be coming via native bearer with a cleft stick. Nine hours ? Sheesh !

[blackburn_stevie]

Please accept my apologies for taking so long to get back to you. The truth of the matter is that I went to bed for a half an hour cat-nap and woke up just a few minutes ago. That is one of the issues that I'll get to later.

I was first taken to a kind of A&E ward and checked over for any damage. None was found but I was sent upstairs to an Assesment ward for further checks and kept there overnight with absolutely no tests, no prodding and poking and no medical examinations except when one senior nurse asked, "How are you feeling?" I told her that I felt perfectly fine and just the same as I had felt in the weeks prior to tripping up and banging my head on the newel post. The next day I was taken to Ward C10 and kept there until today. 

Let me put the problems in order for you ......

1 ... The first problem was the bed. I suppose that the beds are very comfortable for regular patients but for me, the bed was a nightmare. I could either lay flat or have a few combinations of head & legs up, bends and the like, just like a regular orthopedic bed, but that just didn't work for me. All that I needed for a bed to be perfect was a bog standard flat bed with 3 or 4 pillows so that I could position them to suport my spine. That is the only way that I can get a comfy night's sleep. So, at about 3 pm, I explained all this to the nurse that was in charge of the ward on the day shift and asked for some more pillows. Her reply? "The rules are one pillow per bed but you can alter the angle of the bed by pressing the levers." I explained that that didn't work in my case and that altering my body angle from the waist up rather than from the shoulders up just wasn't the same thing and I asked again for some more pillows. Her next answer was, "We don't have any extra pillows." .... I asked for more pillows several times and to different people from different shifts including doctors, nurses and even the trainee nurses with the same results. The upshot of all this was that I never had more than 2 hours kip and I was in constant pain. The pain issue brings us neatly on to problem 2.

2 ... People that constantly use pain killers will understand what I mean when I say that there are 2 kinks of pain killers and 2 ways to use them. You can either get pain and then take a quick acting pill to reduce the pain straight away, or you can take a slow release pill on a regular basis so that you never actually get a pain and it is kept in check. With me so far? OK then. I'm on a lot of pills for various things but the actual pain killer type pills are very strong. Just to give you a clue, here's a list. I also have injections in my neck and pain killing patches on my upper spine which are changed every 3 days. Anyway, here we go. Paracetemol. That's fairly simple but they are taken to the max of 8 per day. Then we have Di-hydrocodeine. These are very strong pain killers and I take 8 each day in batches of 2 at 6 hour intervals. Then we have Gabapentin. To be honest, I don't know how strong these are but, like the Paracetemol and the di-hydrocodeine, I take 8 per day in batches of 2 at 6 hourly intervals. Then we come to the big boys. I have 2 types of Oxycontin. 20mg for slow release pain relief that I take 2 of per day at 12 hourly intervals and then we have the 10 mg version which are quick acting pain relief and can reduce any pain within 5 minutes.

I'll explain more in 10 minutes.

[blackburn_stevie]

Anyway, back to the pain-killers. I've been taking these same pills for years and I know that taking them every 6 hours is right for me. That being so, I take all of them when I first get out of my pit and go downstairs in the am. 6 hours later I take them all again except for the Oxycodeine 20 mg pills. Then, after another 6 hours, I take the whole bunch again including the 20 mg pill. 6 hours later I take them all again bar the 20 mg pill. Using this method of time-keeping with regards to my pain killing regimin I have found that I actually never get any sharp pains and my actual pain level in lumbar region, upper back and neck remain constant but low level and I can happily live with that.

Can it be done every 6 hours while in hospital? Oh Nooooo!. You'll get your pills when we say you'll get them was the cry from the nurses. This usually meant that 3 guys out of the 4 in our little ward were writhing around in agony from waking up at 6am until 8:30 when the nurses came round to dish out the pills. On 2 mornings, Peter, one of the other guys in the ward, and myself hit on a plan. Now, please understand that we only did this because the nurse's station was right outside our door and, with the door wide open, we could hear a group of about 5 people out there talking about Facebook and Twitter. So anyway, our plan was that Peter would press his alarm button and when the nurse came to see what the problem was, he would say that he was in a lot of pain and needed his medication and that I was in the same boat. He was told that he would have to wait. Ten minutes later and with no sign of any pills being issued it was my turn to press the button. The nurse came, I said more or less what Peter had said and she gave me the same answer. But then she moved my alarm buzzer so that I couldn't reach it, then went over to Peter's bed and moved his out of reach too. It was still 8:30 before the pills were dished out and the buzzer buttons were replaced within Peter and myself, presumably so that a doctor didn't see what she had done.

More to follow later.

[tommy.irene]

I think you need to see another Doctor.. My Uncle was on 40 tablets a day and when he seen a new doctor he told him that he only needed to take 10 a day as there was new medicne out now.. Stevie 1 type of painkiller should do all.. Maybe thats why your in pain.. they are cutting each other out and doing no good..

[*.*..lola..*.*]

prior to tripping up and banging my head on the newel post.

Try taking more water with it next time, Stevie LOL

Hope you're on the mend now, hun 

[Anonymous]

Well join the queue Steve. There are some very dedicated nurses in hospitals, but I haven't seen that many over the years and no one I speak to who has had some time in a hospital hasn't either.

We all know that they are understaffed and underpaid, and we can all empathise with that to some level, but to leave people in pain is outrages.

My mum needed to be on a morhine drip after an ankle operation. She could press a button if and when she felt she needed some. My mum is a tough cookie and won't take any more painkillers than absolutely necessary, but she did need the morphine in this case. It seemed to do nothing for her, no matter how often she pushed the button, so she told a nurse, who just fobbed her off and told her just to keep pressing it. It was at night and the nurse didn't bother to inspect it further. My mum was in agony all night. Then in the morning a diferent nurse came and noticed that the needle wasn't put in her vein, so no morphine could get in, althoug it had gone under her skin and caused her arm to be black and blue. My mum is 82. Nice way to treat an old lady.

[Anonymous]

I need an edit button.

[electric*mayhem*band]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I need an edit button.

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Oh there is one Harriet, but you have to have eyes like a hawk to see it and the reflexes of a cobra otherwise, like the proverbial leprechaun, it's gone.

Also, unlike Russian Roulette, you don't get a second chance.

[Anonymous]

Can't be asked looking. If they can't make it clear and obvious, like a button near the post button, then I'm sure ebay must have a very good reason for it......LOL

[electric*mayhem*band]

Oh stop it, Harriet. That's silly.

Steve, not being picky, but what about the cleaners ? Was the place minging ? And the food ? Did you bin it the moment it was put in front of you, or lap it up like it was straight from the Dorchester's a la carte menu ? Was there a tele in the ward, so you could watch 'Doctors' ? With this awful weather, was it warm enough on the ward, or did you have to wear a woolley hat and scarf ?

[blackburn_stevie]

Embsie ..... I have no complaints about the cleandliness of the ward at all. Everything was spotless.

The food was pretty decent as well. As long as you understand that you are meant to be on a healthy diet, then there should be no complaints. Breakfast was a tub of Orange juice followed by a bowl of Weetabix (1) and a roll with butter and jam. Lunch started with a tub of juice, a dish of curry and rice followed by a trifle or a yoghurt. Tea was more or less the same as lunch and the two could be swapped around and you wouldn't notice. Tea and coffee were brought round every couple of hours. The food was tasty enough and hot enough to burn your hands if you dropped it.

Each person had a tele on a sort of clamp thing that came out of the wall behind each bed. The TV was free to watch (Ch1to Ch5) between the hours of 8am and 4pm but if you wanted to watch other Freeview channels, watch outside of those hours, watch films or get an internet connection, it cost you.

The temp in the wards was warm enough that even some guy from Ayers Rock wouldn't have asked for a jumper.

[kiss*my*pixel]

Sorry Stevie, hadn't wondered where you were, as I haven't been here either for absolutely ages!! 

So sorry to hear you've been unwell, hope you're now on the mend and back home.

Some hospitals are great, some are awful. Some nurses are absolutely brilliiant, some are completely useless. We've had experiences of both, over the years, with either ourselves or other family members. My Grandmother was an excellent nurse, as was my sister, so I applaud nurses in general, but I do know there are bad ones (having been on the receiving end of such treatment myself).

Wish you well, Stevie, and hope you're on the road to recovery

(Don't like these new smileys - had a bit of trouble, so forgive me if they've eneded up in the wrong places) x

[blackburn_stevie]

Feeling well enough now, Kiss*my*doofah, but here's a question for you and anybody else who may know the answer.

What do you call it when you take a step forward with your left foot and as your foot hits the ground, it starts to wobble?

[kiss*my*pixel]

Old age, I think!

[Anonymous]

Flapfoot?