How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 28

....Yawn! Oh all right if you insist, here’s the next episode...

Episode 28 – November 27 – Once my gout flare was under control I went to sleep quickly and slept soundly until 5:30. I did my first exercise set and then zonked out again for two more hours. When I awoke again at 7:30 my range of motion in my left ankle was the best it had been in a couple of weeks.

Layla was my day nurse again and she started the day right by checking my glucose level and scoring another 5.6.

Dr. Haaf came in just after breakfast and he to me my indocid for my gout was now listed on my chart as “As patient requires” so there will be no more problems if I have another flare up. We also discussed my physio treatments and he is going to discuss it with the surgeon about possibly moving the schedule up a few days.

Layla recruited Amy and Angie to help with my transfer into my wheelchair.

No sooner had I been seated, Dad and Betty walked in the door. Betty then reached into her purse and pulled out a McDonald’s milkshake. I thanked her and told her “I shouldn’t really be having this”. Her reply was that “Does that mean you don’t want a burger and fries” Me “not really” Her “Great because I’m starved” And she reached back into the purse and started munching on some French fries. Dad brought me some mandarin oranges and a couple of issues of Liverpool FC magazine. Add another thing to do for Dad; attend an LFC game at Anfield. We then swapped hospital war stories. They left just before lunch.

The only bad thing about lunch today was that everyone else in the room had two or three visitors so it got extremely noisy so I cranked up Ann and Nancy Wilson and tuned everything else out.

When they lifted me back in bed, they decided to weigh me first. There is built in scale on the bed so process involves zeroing the scale before I’m in the bed and then making sure that I’m completely back in bed and not supported at all by the sling. Amy read out the first reading and I commented that it couldn’t be right so we tried again and I made sure the hoist got me well off the bed. This reading was four kilos heavier but I still insisted it was way off and recommended that they not record it the chart. If it was a true reading it would have lost 45 kilos in a little over a week. I wish!!

Okay, it’s bitch time, first off, people should not bring young children to visit in the hospitals. I’m sure this place could be quite frightening for the child and it can be very irritating for other patients. If you must just bring them once to say “Hi Grandma, I hope you get better soon” and take outside and chain them to the bike rack outside the Admitting door. Although, I did notice that kids can also be used as an escape clause; “I’d love to stay longer, Ma, but as you can see Cindy is getting restless and it’s past her bedtime already.” The other good escape clause is bring in your parking stub and occasionally subtlety but noticeably check your watch.

For the second gripe of the day, I blame myself and Leslie. Today, I posted a picture of Harvey Milk’s bust in the San Francisco City Hall and Leslie posted a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now, I have the “I want to go back to San Francisco” bug. I’m itching for a road trip and Benadryl is not going to cure it.

The physios came back in today and told me Dana had convinced Dr. McConkey to change the order again to move my rehab forward a couple of days so I will begin getting 60° of range of motion starting Thursday. They did the 30° treatment and my knees felt great.

After my therapy, I decided to kick back and read a little. No sooner had got in a laid out position, I received another surprise visitor, Ed, one of my coworkers. He was on his way home from a job in West Van and decided to drop him. He caught me up on all the gossip and rumours at the PNE. It reminded me that as much as I miss everyone but I don’t miss the bullshit. Sadly, this situation is not unique in any work place but common in most.

It was time to be the demonstration dummy again. Layla brought another Vancouver Community College student, Jane, by a showed her the remains of my fracture blisters and replaced my dressings. The blisters are no longer cool because they are deep in the healing process and just look like large purple patches with a little loose skin on top.

I actually got something out of the ordinary for dinner, ham. Even the kitchen here couldn’t manage to screw up ham. The fun part about dinner was the vegetable, peas. I happen to like peas but they have to be one of the most things to eat in even under ideal conditions at a proper dinner table let alone having to reach up and out on an overbed table. The damn things are like little green ball bearings.

Felly was the night nurse so she loaded me up with Benadryl, Indocid for my ankle and that special little blue one. Rachel Maddow read me another bed time story and I was off to Never Never Land.

To be continued...