Please can you just hold my hand

This is the first post that I am writing in real time. I still have more of my story to add to get us to this point so this will be missing a hella lot of context but I am playing catch quite quickly so bare with.

Today has been a shit day

I use the term settling for rest now instead of going to bed or even more laughably sleep. At the moment I am in a side room with a nice window and breeze so have the luxury of not needing to use the lights in the room, I roll with the summer sun, rest when it sets and rise with it.

Yesterday – 8th July

Yesterday, I had another operation to attempt to clean and close my stomach wound once more. I spent most of yesterday morning sleeping on and off before heading to theatre and waking in recovery with a lovely nurse called Toto. My first thoughts on waking are, please call my mum, she must always know wherever I am. Toto already has the phone in his hand as I have said this to every human I have come across for the past 2 weeks. He proceeds to ask me, ‘Is there anything else I can do to make you comfortable?’ I only have one answer to this, ‘Please can you just hold my hand?’ and he did, I don’t know how long we sat there for but it was exactly what I needed.

I return to the ward shortly after and am told that I am able to eat and drink freely again. My throat is so dry that a cup of tea is the only way to start. Mum and Dad appear shortly after with a sandwich and an ice lolly (daily tradition), I start with the lolly and will get to the sandwich later.

All very lovely but I am now getting tired and grumpy so suggest maybe it is time to go home.

Once they have left at around 19:30 I start to feel uncomfortable and then realise that the gown and bed I am laid in is soaked with all variations of theatre goodness … I press my buzzer for the nurse to ask for my gown and sheets to be changed.

Nurse too much trouble (Nurse TMT) Uh, huh Sure …

I buzz again.

I buzz again.

At 22:15 I had lost my temper. I am cold, I am in pain and I am being ignored. I request they bring me the change of sheets and gown I need and will do it my damn self.

Hearing the commotion, another nurse (a very lovely student) appeared and just started to help. No problem at all.

Nurse TMT huffed and puffed and dramatised the whole thing.

At the same time, I informed Nurse TMT that my painkiller cannula was beginning to get painful, this has always ended with a change in cannula – concern is that this is the only way I receive Maurice the morphine drip, without him I have no pain killers as they are entirely self activated. Please can someone look at my cannula asap? Uh, huh sure … several more buzzes to be told I am not the only patient and that she is in fact very busy. 🤬

I do agree with this, they are stupidly busy, you watch the nurses and HCA’s run around all day and night long. But they are also aware that they are doing it for people who are sick and unable to do it for themselves. I am a successful Event Specialist and a keen solo traveller, there is nothing that I ‘cannot do’ or at least give a damn good try … so to have to ask for help sitting up a little more in bed is a massive punch in the guts to me each time.

Today – 9th July

It is now 08:00 I have been awake most of the night – as Maurice the Morphine God is self activated, if I am asleep I will receive no painkillers from him. Which leads me to waking up in complete agony and it taking hours to level out.

Even though I was not sleeping as regular people may, I was resting 😴 During the night I am on 2 hourly obs except when my oxygen is low, like last night so it becomes hourly. No bother, each hour a friendly little voice will call ‘Leeenie’ from the dark, ‘it is time to do your obs’ and it is never a problem and they will either do it in the dark or with bedside lamp …. Except for Nurse TMT who barges in, turns all the big lights on and huffs at you that she needs to do this hourly. And in addition to the ‘big light on’ uses a torch to shine in your face to ensure that the oxygen mask is on correctly.

Nurse TMT makes me mad anyway, but now it is morning and my cannula complaint that began all those hours ago will be handed over to day shift … Maurice is now unusable as he causes me so much pain when I press.

The doctor comes round to look at my wounds, I burst into tears, I just cannot be prodded and poked about without any painkillers. Doctor is suitably pissed by this and tells the mix of doctors and nurses around me that this is all counterproductive to my recovery and we all have to do better, she’s been through enough.

Thanks Doc!

He then proceeds to tell me off for 15 minutes for being a smoker … it is incredibly irresponsible with Crohn’s … at this point I have been diagnosed for 3 weeks and also not smoked in 3 weeks too.

Any way, my day of tantrums and tears ended well, I was turfed out of my side room with its nice breeze onto a stuffy ward … but the 3 ladies on the ward seem nice, Dad brought me an ice cream, Mum brought me a sausage sandwich and an Ice lolly, Smurfette brought the entire snack aisle and Uncle Mark sorted me out some breeze with a fan. the 3 HCA’s in this bay seem super sweet and very inclined to make tea.

On that note, I will leave it there. Maurice is starting to show his own hand …. X

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