And here we are at the weekend again.......when the hospital becomes a ghost town. So much commotion and carry on within the ward yesterday. I saw a perfect example of what too many chiefs and not enough Indians looks like.......there were many sick children here yesterday and in order to cater for everyones needs the nurses decided to play musical beds - i.e lets make everyone pack up everything at 6pm and move. Haise and I, whilst thoroughly unimpressed with how it happened shared many a secret giggle watching nurses flap and flail around the ward trying to work out how to make it all work. There was one in particular who was really enjoying letting people know she was in charge. I think if she had put as much energy into actually getting the job done as she did into flapping her arms whilst lapping the ward, waving a piece of paper in everyones face....... it would have been more smooth for all involved. This event was not welcomed by us, Haise was feeling unwell all day, not eating and was feeling hot, cold and shivery...... I was becoming concerned as the day went on, we havent had this bunch of symptoms before. We finally had a neutrophil count yesterday......0.1... thats after three days of 0. After getting H into the shower at about 430pm to warm up we had a nurse say to us - Sorry, you are being moved to one of the rooms at the end of the hall (better if you read the nurses comments with a slightly high pitchy whiny voice - makes it more authentic...) to which I replied with Sorry, we are not moving into one of those rooms, we need a single room to minimise the risk of the dreaded golden staph (the rooms at the end are home to 4 families and there is one bathroom......dont think so...) Her response Well, no one told me that.. and I said You will need to read Harrisons notes then and I gave her a very plastic smile. This nurse has pressed my buttons before, she is the type of nurse you hear sniggering about families in the ward up at the nurses station as you walk past.(if anyone deserves a knitting needle to the ribs its her) Anyway, after what felt like ages, the in charge flappy nurse came back in and said you need to move now to the last single room on the right (her voice is lower pitched and more manly....) and now it was 6pm. Haise is sitting in his pjs in the wheelchair feeling unwell whilst I packed up 2 weeks worth of hospital stay and moved it all down the hall. The cleaner was working frantically to clean the new room - she was obviously due to finish work but then had about 7 rooms to clean. I would have to say I felt a tad concerned with her half a job. I packed everything up, put a heap of stuff on the bed ready to move the bed, moved the foldy outy bed thingy, emptied the fridge all the while Haise sat like a sad sack in the wheelchair in the hallway. I then tried to find someone to help move the bloody great bed, took 40 minutes, no lie, to get flappy arms nurse to help and she was not happy about it. By this stage H had a low grade fever so I was working like a mad woman to clear everything off the bed, go and grab clean sheets and then remake the bed so he could get in. In between all of this I tried to call Phill at home to vent about the situ.......I started trying to call at 5ish.....every time I tried the phone rang out .... mobiles were dead, even Ab wasnt answering face time on her Ipad. There were a few other stupid things going on within the ward at the time and we both thought we might scream. At about 8.30pm Haises temperature was a bit higher and I was concerned, simply as we have managed to get to this stage in his treatment without him getting a temp. Our night nurse was on and explained to me again that whilst unpleasant, temps are to be expected especially when white cells and neutrophils have been non existent for a few days, all the normal bad bacteria that sits in your body starts to party as there are no normal white cells to keep them at bay. It was coming up 9pm by this stage and I really was worried that I couldnt get onto Phill. Haise and I started to have those awful flippin mini movies as to what might have happened. Soooo, I decided to call our neighbour - Um, hello Warren, do you know if Phill is home??. Our neighbours Warren and Chris are the nicest people, so once I explained the situ, dear Chris hoofed it down to our place. Phill was going downstairs to put the dogs in the garage when he heard someone coming down the driveway with a torch Phill, Phill, Emma needs you to call!. Phill thought what on earth??!!! So, after Chris filled him in, he got in the car and drove down to our other neighbours mailbox, where Phill gets mobile reception and finally called me! OH.....MY......GOODNESS. Turns out a rat has chewed through some of the cables in the wall and chewed through the phone line. Dirty rat. So to me the phone just kept ringing and ringing but the phone wasnt ringing at home. Had we had a calm evening at the hospital I might not have become so anxious.......! Man alive!! I felt much better after talking with my beautiful husband. Bless, this morning he again drove halfway down the road to call to make sure we were ok overnight. We had a plan though that Phill would leave his phone out on the deck where he gets just enough reception to pick up a text and then he would drive down the road and call me!! And seriously guys we live 20 minutes from Calwell and 12 minutes from Queanbeyan! Haises temp came down overnight but he is still warm today. We had the plastics head surgeon visit this morning and thankfully was very happy the wound finally looks to be healing...she changed once again the dressing type to better manage it given we have another week of chemo ahead... we still have to watch it so carefully as she said it still has the potential to become yucky - so many things to keep an eye on. Haise is still on IV antibiotics, we heard a whisper that someone said his counts have come up, we havent been told yet what they are, but our nurse today said she knew the ward doctor was speaking with the head oncologist as to whether H can be changed to orals. This would be lovely for H as he would score a day not being hooked up to a drip before that all starts again on Monday. Haise and I had a long chat after the craziness of what was yesterday evening, he was feeling very, very flat yesterday. Having such low counts, a low grade temp and missing his peeps was really making him feel miserable. We reassured each other that we can continue to do this. I am blessed to have a very insightful, logical, practical and caring son who supports me as much as I support him. He continues to astound me each and every day with how he manages the barrage of treatments and how he has coped with a major hiccup in things over the last 2 weeks. I love seeing him become more confident in his interactions with the medical staff, he always looks directly at me as if to say is this ok and I just give him the smile and slight nod. He is dealing with so much yet he continues to laugh and find ways to fill in the time. My beautiful Ab is off to Wollongong with her super friends and their Mums. I am so grateful to have such caring friends - her friends Mums - who are taking Ab this weekend to the carnival. It breaks my heart that I cant see her play but I know she is in such good and loving hands. Thanks Shell a million. My other lads remain at home having a boys weekend - both Phill and E are exhausted. My husband is a totes legend, being Mum and Dad at the moment. Phill rings H and myself each morning at about 8.30am, just after dropping the kids at school. This was our conversation the other morning - Hi Love (me), Hi Love (him) how are you? (me), yeah ok, you?(him) yeah, ok (me) are we lying? (me) yep (him). So hopefully next update I report in with good counts! Enormous thanks to all the beautiful people who send such love and encouragement through the page. Em xxxxx
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 03:03:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015