Bitty Bsarbie Boob part 3

 

An EVENING WITH ANGELA

Please come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.

 

Across from me in bed 15 was Angela, aged 78, in for a knee cleaning - overweight, very loud and chatty. She greeted me with a huge smile and said she hoped I was staying for a long time and liked to talk. Next to her was Freda - broken leg, can’t go home although she is getting better because nobody is capable of caring for her. Her elderly husband came to visit each day.  And then Bess, aged 25, a wheelchair victim who was hit by a car and broke both legs. She cried a lot.  But she had a very faithful boyfriend. She hadn’t always been in a wheelchair probably because she talked about teaching yoga. 

 

I was very tired, having had virtually no sleep for five days, so i just wanted to relax and try my best to survive this night.

 

Here is a pretty fair representative of what I heard and thought. 

 

I don’t know your name, new lady? What is it? It is Caroline - or Penelope - or Susan? Please talk to me, tell me your name.  

 

LONG PAUSE

 

Where are you from Carla? Do you have a husband?   Where to do you go when you walk out the door? Do you go to the toilet? I don’t know where the toilet is?

 

LONG PAUSE

 

Help, HELP,  HELP

 

I need to wee. Help me somebody please help me. Dear God, where is everybody?

 

After ages a nurse came. ‘You must call your buzzer if you need help - not just shout.’ But she brought her a bed pan.  

 

10 minutes later

 

HELP HELP

 

Use your buzzer, said Freda.

 

I don’t have one.

 

Of course you do. It will be just by your bed.

 

HELP HELP

 

Eventually the nurse comes back.  ‘Have you done anything?’

 

I can’t remember its taken you so long.

 

Remember if you want to go again, you must press your buzzer.

 

I won’t repeat this over and over again, but it did go on all night. In the end, I pressed  my buzzer on her behalf Sometimes she just wanted to know what time it was. 

 

When they had come to turn off my buzzer, they were annoyed with me, for having used it.  Later when I went to the toilet, Angela was shouting as usual, and there was a nurse sitting just outside our door, in her nursing station - ignoring her.  But when she saw me, she did go in to find out what was wrong.

 

Somehow in the process, my curtain which I had drawn around my bed was pulled open.  And I would sometimes move a bit - and Angela packed up on it straight away.

 

I can see your awake, Caroline.  Talk to me. Come over to see me. I can make you nice coffee. I will pay you if you come over and talk to me 

 

Pause

 

You are so mean. I hate you. I am never going to come here again.

 

My conscience was bothering me.  She was lonely and ill - and I was the only mobile one in the room  Maybe if I had talked to her, she would have not disturbed the others.  But I couldn’t make myself do it.  I prayed for her - mainly for her to shut up - but just because I felt it might alleviate my selfishness a little bit. But my prayers ended up being, Please God, don’t ever let me get like her.  And that  sounds very like the pharisees and the publican. 

 

Luckily my brain tumour, if that is what it is, doesn’t seem to involve reasoning or memory too much.  

 

I was nicer to her in the daytime and did occasionally answer her.  But then she would look at me if she had no idea who I was or what I was talking about.  

 

She no doubt had reason to be complaining as she did have an infection in her knee bone which might have been painful.. But I was so pleased when my three day stay with Angela was over. 

 

Getting Discharged

 

What we wanted to know was what happened and why did it happen.  There were several theories.  I had been on a long term blood thinner with chemo, and some of that might still have been in my system, although I stopped using it 2 ½ months ago.  But even just the single heparin injection (which I had been told to take) might have caused the blood to flow.

 

I had two transfusions. After the surgery my HG was 140. When I went into the first hospital if was 75, After the first transfusion it went up to 78, but it is supposed to go up in 10 point chunks with each unit of blood.  So the next transfusion got it up to 95, and before I went home it was up to 105. 

 

Nobody knows if I had the bleeding problem before the fall - or whether the fall made the internal stitches burst.  Some thought maybe I had had a slight stroke - causing me to fall and lose memory. 

 

Two of the breast surgeons came to see me - on Saturday, the one who had pushed forward my cause to be admitted came. She was astounded that I had such awful bruising - and it did look sort of like a whole body tattoo - black with spider bits coming out of the ends.  She recommended arnica which helps the bruises to go away.

 

The main problem was that, as the very first surgeon who saw me wrote in his notes.  “Lost blood that pools will necrose, and that might lead to cystitis.Not a pleasant outcome.” I had sort of naively thought that maybe the blood could be reabsorbed and used as blood again, but not the case. 

 

The various doctors differed in the next stage of my treatment One wanted me to stay in another night and have  the leftovers operated on and  removed. Another wanted to wait and see - so that is what was decided. I was sent home and given an appointment to go back to the outpatients department to have a radio assisted scan with suction. Such Fun. 

 

The day after I got home, I felt awful, and guess what, I’ve got covid.