Morning sugars 6.9. Breakfast as usual – reduced sugar jam is very runny! It was all a bit hectic in the ward, so was slightly delayed in getting up, but as I didn’t need to go to the loo, that was fine.
*****too much info warning***
I have a sore groin where the catheter has been rubbing, and the mesh knickers are tight, so have been slavered in cream again.
***Ok now****
All washed and dressed, and for the first time I managed to wash my feet and legs myself (although in hindsight this might not have been such a good idea – see later). Transfer with frame to chair. Did some emailing etc. The friendly cleaning lady came in to do my room as I was on phone to Juli and Sian re a work issue, so she did my bathroom with the door shut and went out of the corridor room and came back later so as not to disturb me. We had a nice chat about families, housework etc, then she came back again later to do the “non daily” cleaning tasks – a stepladder to dust and spray the wall mounted tv, clock and top of the door frame. Discussion about health and safety (I told her about the issues we have with J&S and site visits, cherry pickers and ladders).
Pre lunch sugars 11.3 – lunch chicken casserole, mash potatoes and mashed swede/carrot; cheese and biscuits. Asked to go to the loo, and was taken by Paul who was impressed by my wheelchair steering skills! Whilst he was writing up the notes, we had a good discussion about NMO and the research project and then moved on to dementia (there are a number of patients that come through the rehab unit that have dementia and he has done some research for a project on dementia or his qualifications.) He has a book that he thinks I’d find interesting so will try to remember to bring it in.
Then the problem. I had a visit from the OT to discuss the issue of the hospital bed for home again. They don’t want to send me home without one. Juli had had a phone call to say it was being delivered tomorrow. He said oh no, it wasn’t – nobody had said anything about a hospital bed on the access visit. We are at impasse. The result is that we are having a family meeting here tomorrow. I am worried about this, both in terms of not being allowed home and how Julio is going to react. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I’m glad Sian is coming as well. One of the issues is the height of the bed for the carers. I said that I hadn’t had to be washed or changed on the bed for ages. Actually, I then remembered that we had done it today, (remember I mentioned this earlier) but that was of convenience and speed and at my request so that I could wash my feet easier. I wouldn’t do that at home.
Blood pressure 103/57. – still a bit low, surprising after the stress of the home bed situation.
Then I added to the stress and restarted the blue badge application on line. There didn’t appear to be any way of getting back to the saved application I’d started, so I rang Wiltshire Council and spoke to a nice lady who said that if I just started again, it should go to the last section I had completed. It didn’t, so I had to start again. Got to a section that was impossible to do – 4 questions that you had to answer by ticking either the “yes” or “no” box. All to do with getting out of breath – eg do you get out of breath walking with people of your own age. All irrelevant, but you couldn’t move on or add an “other” comment. I tried ringing the Wiltshire Council lady again but as I was talking to her and trying to explain my dilemma, the bloody thing locked me out again as it said invalid session. Nice lady said the easiest thing would be for her to send me a hard copy in the post, but it would be second class and would take a few days. But she then asked if I had an email address she could email it to. It arrived a few minutes later, so I asked Juli and Sian to print it off (couple of copies to be safe) and bring it in to me.
Pre supper sugars 15.9. Supper was egg mayo salad and an apple. Catering arithmetic interesting – the salads always have 3 quarters of a tomato and the egg salad has three half hard boiled eggs. What happens to the rest?! Nice cup of tea. It suddenly dawned on me (after a conversation with one of the care assistants yesterday) that I can have more exciting deserts as they do some of the puddings with sweetener (especially the bread and butter pudding) and do smaller portions for the diabetics amongst us, so there is probably no more sugar in having a salad and a diabetic portion of pudding and custard than having a pie. I may try this and see what happens to the sugars.
Visiting time approached, and I was trying to decide whether to go to the loo or not. This is always a dilemma for evening visiting depending on when supper finishes – if it’s after quarter past 6, is there time to ring the bell, it get answered and get to loo and then back to chair before visitors arrive? We have misjudged it a few times lately. In the end, Juli didn’t arrive before 6:45, and the care assistant arrived to ask me if I wanted to go, so I said yes. Just in the middle of transferring to bathroom when Juli arrived. While I was in loo, he and the care assistant talked about Yatesbury, a village between Marlborough and Calne where she lives and where we had been in discussion to provide broadband a few years ago.
Came out of loo, and went and sat outside where it was a nice evening. A lot of discussion about how we are going to handle the family meeting tomorrow. I am still nervous, but I think we have a strategy. We’ll see how it goes. At least I have been told by one of the staff nurses that I will be able to have outside trips, so the mini adventure can still go ahead as a home visit/day out if I’m not home by then. We just won’t say anything to anyone! Julio brought me in some knickers so I don’t have to use the mesh ones tomorrow. And he measured the height of my bed here (later texted me that he could wash and dress me on the bed at home without bending). This isn’t going to overcome the other issue of the OT thinking I may be too tired at the end of the day to be able to use the stair lift. Oh well.
After he left, I started the blue badge application form. Surprise – it’s not the same as the on line one!! No questions about being out of breath, and simpler. I suspect that the Wiltshire one has been developed to be simpler as they are the ones that have to process it. And we can email it back to them with scanned/photocopies of the necessary documents. Not sure how I get the photo or cheque to them, but as I suspect that this is not going to be straightforward, I think we’ll just email it to them and see what other info they need. The lady did seem very helpful, so I have my fingers crossed.
Then Bake off –crème started (actually I’d done most of the form in about 10 minutes as opposed to 40 minutes and only getting half way through for the on line one). One of the teams had a member named Sian, but it was pronounced See-Ann. It was driving me nuts.
Sherley, my nice Indian nurse came to say hello as she came on duty. She is the only nurse on duty tonight, although she has two care assistants and someone for the 1:1 for Mb and M (well I suppose that's 1:2, really). She says she’ll be fine – there’s always a doctor on call! She will be fine, too – she is a very competent caring nurse.
So that’s where we are. Watching the Europe programme on BBC2.
Actually looking forward to going to bed soon.
Goodnight!
No comments:
Post a Comment