Hospital log #3

WEDNESDAY 12^TH FEBRUARY

I woke up full of energy, or at least hugely restless.

This may have been because I’d given up on the electric reclining chair, and made a bed on the floor with my yoga mat and as many pillows, blankets and sheets as I could filtch.

Also they had replaced the recliner with an armchair much more suited to Ferretfingers’s needs.

Fester and Thunderthighs came.  Fester stayed with Ferretfingers for a couple of hours, and Thunderthighs took me home on the Metro.

We emptied the spare bed in Ferretfingers’s room and shifted furniture in the front of the living room to accommodate it.  While Thunderthighs went off the Sainsburys I got the spare bed downstairs.  It’s metal so light but awkward.  
One of those jobs that is best tackled single handed so there’s plenty of swearing but no arguments.  It managed to get itself wedged against several bannisters but I persevered.  At one point I feared for the hall’s glass lampshade but, even though it swung and clanged, it didn’t smash.  Getting the mattress down was a doddle.

Middlesister phoned as I finished and Thunderthighs came home.  He heard me telling her about wrestling the bed down the stairs.

“You’ve taken a huge chunk or paint out there” he said pointing to the bottom balustrade.

I told him it was my bloody paintwork so I could do what I liked to it.

THURSDAY 13^TH FEBRUARY

I woke up well after 8, got washed and dressed and wondered whether we’d missed breakfast.  The Housekeeper popped her head around the door.

“I looked in earlier and couldn’t see you so I asked Staff if you’d gone home and she said you were sleeping on the floor.  So I came in and had a look down the other side of the bed and you were so sound asleep I hadn’t the heart to wake you.  Two slices of toas for Ferretfingers and a bowl of Crunchie Nuts for you?”

Yes please and thank you.

13 February at 15:37 · Facebook update
The catheter is out and he's weed in a bottle. Much relief all round. He kept refusing saying "Wee wee in the toilet over there" because he could see the sign on the door from his chair. So I kept saying "No, we can't get you to the toilet; wee we in the bottle."
He is up in a chair and is learning to use the rotunda (aka sack barrow for people) pulling himself up and being transferred from bed to chair to commode etc.
Rotunda and commode are being accessed from the local authority and a wheelchair should arrive from the Red Cross tomorrow.

14 February at 15:58 ·

Facebook update  

Ferretfingers's foot last night. 

I was a bit startled when I noticed it and hailed a passing nurse, who caught a medic. They both had a poke around and it's ok, it's just the bruising from the operation coming out.
Red Cross wheelchair has arrived. Awaiting everything else.

SATURDAY 15^TH FEBRUARY

Fester came in the morning so I could have more than a couple of hours at home.   

I was exhausted, had a long hot bath and went to bed at noon.  Felix cat climbed in and put his head on my shoulder.

Thunderthighs grilling his lunch set off the smoke alarm.  I lay and laughed.  Felix got up to see what was happening.

Silence resumed, Felix came back and laid his head on my shoulder.

It was still there three hours later when I woke up.

Neither of us had moved a hair’s breadth.