BlogDale

There’s a reason why things have been quiet lately on my blogging. I’m laid up in hospital with a leg infection. This one is major,even by my standards. It’s a Streptococcal infection and has made a real mess of my left leg. Here’s the story.
C3P0 never had this kind of problem.

Click below for pics, but make sure you’ve had your breakfast. Squeamish people should not continue.
Day 3 - swollen to this level in about 5 hours. The black pen is the limit of the original “red path” from 2 days before leading from the swollen knee to the painful lymph node in my groin. Ouchie. It really hurts.
See! A pimple on my knee! How bad can this get? And those other pustules are nothing, d’you hear? Read on, and reach for the bucket… 2 days later. Festering boils all down my shin (the thighs were up to other, more gruesome, tricks). Below the skin was really tight and at one stage we (me and some visitors) actually watched a blister develop. I should have videoed it really. The big blob in the crook of my knee in this pic grew and grew over the next few days like the Hungry Caterpillar until it was a 125mm blister, full of goo. So big in fact that I was in fear of drowning if it burst in the night. (It did, I didn’t).
This lot took ages to heal. Festering pussy ickity around the ankle. It grew upwards too.

Around this time my kidneys objected to the high-powered penicillin I was on and said “No More”. They went on strike for a few days. More entertainment for the troops, I was fitted with an IV saline drip (in addition to the IV antibiotics) for Fluids Inwards, and a Catheter (”Nurse you can’t POSSIBLY stick that in th..WHAAA…”) for Fluids Out. I came to appreciate this arrangement as it meant I didn’t have to move at all. I pondered on the final evolution of a Lazy Git; peeing in a jar, being fed intravenously… it could have some advantages. Later I changed my mind but at this time I wasn’t even interested in eating fruit, neither had I eaten anything for days (unlikely though it may seem to those who know me).

I think, if my memory haze serves, that I went for a renal ultrasound scan around this time or soon after. My wife came with me and I felt a strange deja vu back to her pregnancy but with the tables strangely turned. In the scan room I discussed career paths withthe ultrasound doc just to make sure he was kosher, and I wondered if seeing my own blood flowing through my own kidneys in real time was as weird as my wife seeing a baby growing inside her with its own heartbeat and movement. Kidneys are way easier to make out than babies (I still can’t see the kids’ images on the ultrasound scans, I reckon it’s a conspiracy) and as I came out I told my wife that it was twins and I’d seen their arms move. She tutted and waited for somebody to wheel me back to my bed. On the way, a passing radiology nurse said “You’re Mr Jones aren’t you?”. A lucky guess this close to North Wales, but I admitted it. Turns out she was an ex-pupil and had recognised me. Quite how I know not; I don’t remember ever removing my shirt in school, nor wearing pyjamas whilst having a leg looking like it had slighted Beelzebub and got itself cursed. We had a good chat anyway and it still makes me feel good that kids who maybe struggle at school can still find their vocation.

3 more days. The Big Blister’s gone to leave tender skin underneath. It was sooo tempting to pluck away the loose skin (normally I can’t resist) but this infection looked like it meant business so I kept my hands well away and just let it ooze onto the pillow supporting my leg. To add more to my discomfort, the nurses tip my bed up so that I am head-down, just to keep the leg raised. Then they tell me that I need to stay sitting up so that I don’t get a chest infection. I comply and grumble to myself. The IV venflons into my arms keep healing up and prove too much for the pathetic Gemini pumps to cope with. Drastic measures are required since the Gemini beeps incessantly when it fails and keeps me , and those around me, awake. I move it to within arm’s reach so I can reset it myself but I get told off for this. On one occasion it beeped for 2 hours with nobody coming to reset it so I called for a nurse. I was told to stop calling for a nurse, they know it’s stopped because they can hear it. Even in my state of delirium this seemed like some kind of weird logic so I figured that if they were too overworked to come and reset the darn thing (and believe me, they were - an NHS ward is hardly overstaffed with nurses at the best of times, and if one or two don’t show up for a shift the whole thing goes to pot. And the NHS Trust is shedding 700 jobs this year in our area. More weird logic) then they were unlikely to find me pressing the buttons. Pressing buttons is what I do best and I got away with it until the next shift came on; then I got slapped (metaphorically). The nurses on these wards are saints.
Hurrah! Thank goodness for Necrotising fascii. While the thigh had been doing stuff like growing pustules (think of a cross between smallpox and chickenpox; bantampox I suppose) the tissue on my shin below the yellow pussy bits had been dying. In this pic you can see it at quite an advanced stage and consultant physicians were looking at it seriously, tutting and drawing breath between pursed lips, like used car salesmen when you ask how much they’d give in part-exchange for your ropey old motor, despite my “Tell me straight Doc; will I be able to dance like Astaire after this?” quips. (”I never could before” - old jokes live on).

Oh yeah, and in this pic I had just returned from X-ray with confirmed chest infection to be greeted by the cheeriest of visitors (no really, they were taking things a lot more seriously than I was but still made me laugh) who did a better job than the catheter (think about it). I was wearing an oxygen mask and calling in the Lancasters for the Dambusters raid whenever nurses walked past. We felt that the combined voices of the Bed 2 chorale in a rendition of tThe Dambuster’s March helped raise morale a little. Maybe not.
Luckily, by now I was on a new type of antibiotic since giving such an ungrateful negative reaction to the last lot. Unluckily, I reacted to this new strain (clindamycin) by developing a rash all over my body to make me look as if I’d fallen off a roof into a nettle patch and disturbed a nest of hornets on “angry hour” whilst dragging myself to safety. I itch all over. The patterns on my skin were really entertaining until the dots joined up and became Just One Big Swell. Apart from my right foot, strangely, which still looked like a giraffe’s neck pattern in puce and pus.
Oh yeah, and then the consultant comes along with the surprise news that I’m going to the theatre that night (within the hour) for an operation to see how deep the infection went. This would be accomplished by digging holes in my leg. Bear in mind I’ve never even had a local anaesthetic that I remember apart from the pathetic ones the dentist pretends to give, so the prospect of a general fills me with some apprehension (for this read “barely contained terror”). Even now the scars look like I’ve been either shot through the calf by marauding Indians while I was attempting to save my comrades at Little Big Horn (favourite story for grandchildren) or sheesh kebabbed (I’ll keep that one quiet I think).

Secondmost Favourite Moment: nurse filling in the pre-med form asked “What do you call that leg?” - “Answer - “Dave”. She was used to this sort of idiot reply and wrote “left leg”.

Top Favourite Moment: lower down the form she asked “What do you like to be known as?” My helpful visitors answered variously “God”; “Sir - make him think he’s at work and nodded off”; I waited for them to finish and announced I wanted to be known as “King Montmorency J. Spookingdorf the Third” thinking it would look good on a headstone or the Telegraph Obituaries, but the suffering nurse gave me a withering look and told me that it was for waking me up gently. I told her I wanted to be known as “Darling” but she said “I’ll just put Dale”. All my dreams were dashed.

In theatre I chatted with the anaesthetist (Sean) and the nurse in the hope that they would prevent my organs from being harvested. I even helped them by holding the oxygen mask on my face when they didn’t have a spare hand, the rationale being that I needed all the oxygen I could get and I was going to hold my breath at the first sign of ether in the stream but I was foiled again - the old “we put it in your arm” ruse never fails. Nobody said “Count to ten” like they do in the films, you know - where the guy gets up to seven then he’s out like a light - they told me to take deep breaths. Strangely, I got up to seven and the lights went out.

Next morning after breakfast on the ward the nurses announced that my wife had rung to see if I was OK but they hadn’t told her I had been in intensive care. I did a double take - they hadn’t told ME I’d been in intensive care. Jeepers. Turns out that the chest infection had taken a turn for the worse and that dreamy Nirvana where I’d woken with oxygen mask and attendant cherubim hadn’t been the first bardo on the way to enlightenment but was the in fact ITU (I’d asked them what ITU stood for on the way down to theatre - “Intensive Care” I was told. After a sufficient pause, Mr Pedant presses the point with the hope of distracting his tormentors into a fight between themselves so he could quietly slip away and escape but it turns out it’s “Intensive Therapy Unit”. Curses. Foiled again).

Having informed my wife that despite all efforts to the contrary I was still alive (”…and your name was..?” she answered. That’s why I love her) I realised I felt really great. The surgeon with the potato peeler had done a great job on the leg, and the bandaging expert deserved all the compliments I could bestow. No, really, I felt superb but the nurses told me that everyone does. My wife gave the the concise medical explanation that “they wop you full of happy stuff” but I don’t know who to believe.

I still itch. I still look like a red Lhasa Apso.

At last I’m promised some relief from itching. Some joker brings some calamine lotion. Now, things may have changed since I was a kid and mum used this for relief from insect bites but from what I remember this stuff gives relief for about five seconds and leaves a pink deposit that makes you look like a china doll. I enquire how to apply it but I get blank stares. All I want is some cotton wool, a piece of gauze, just anything but nothing is forthcoming. It is suggested that I just pour it into my hand and splash it all over, ‘Enry. Oh yeah, silly me. Is that using the hand with the venflon in that I daren’t move because it stops the Gemini pump and starts the infernal beeping and brings the wrath of the staff nurse on me (”You moved didn’t you?”) or the other hand? And in that case which one should I use to pour from the bottle? I feel like Tantalus, relief being so close and yet so far. At visiting time my wife rubs it all over (coincidentally she loves the great smell of Brut), and true to prediction it gives about five seconds’ relief from Mr. Itchy. So now I look like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. And I still itch all over. But I think my leg feels better. It’s due for a bandage change tomorrow; another trip to the theatre. I hope the show’s better this time; I slept through it last time. Apparently the general anaesthetic is necessary so that when they change the bandage my screams don’t disturb the next county.

Another day punctuated by ithing, blood tests, pills, oxygen mask slippage, meals I can’t face and making wee without effort. My urinary production is checked every hour and various ruses have been employed in the past to try to monitor my fluid intake. It was suggested that I write it down myself; good plan until somebody realises that the next nurse won’t find the record sheet where she expects it and might panic. I suggest a tally sheet next to the bed that I can record on and the nurse transfers the readings but that sounds too complicated (it has the disadvantage also that I have to move to do it and it sets the ruddy Gemini off again); we settle for the nurse asking me and I inform her verbally. This informal arrangement works as long as my memory holds out. So it’s random, then. But today is different since I’m going to theatre at about 1300 hrs so I’m ‘Nil By Mouth’ from 0600. Never mind, ought to be back for visiting time to see my sweet wife who has been an absolute rock throughout.

Lunch arrives but not for me. I nearly wangled some by keeping the lady who brings it talking but at the last minute she glances at my card and spots the ‘NBM’ moniker and sustenance is whisked away. My orange juice has been confiscated too, hours ago so they must be serious. Visiting time comes and goes, still no show from the theatre. Must be running late. Hours pass and I imagine that NHS time must be the yang to the yin of the New York Minute (where, Billy Joel says, “anything can change”). My mouth is so dry that my tongue cleaves the roof of my mouth in a lost-in-the-desert, biblical kind of way, and I can’t pronounce the word “frankincense” without a snigger from the next bed.

At 2230 I begin to wish I’d listened to the radio for reports of a multiple train pile up whose victims had been jumping my place in the queue, when the anaesthetist comes to take my details. He doesn’t look at all familiar, a totally different shape of a guy but claims to be the one who put me to sleep the last time. “Ian?” I ask but he corrects me “Sean”. Dammit, I’ve crossed him already. I feel my heart slipping away, my liver too. No opportunities for funny stuff this time, he’s already got the details from the last pre-med and all I need to do is sign the consent form. I scan it closely for any “if things look the slightest bit dodgy we remove your vital organs and sell them on eBay” clauses but really by this time I’m past caring. Ha, they’ll get a negative review if they try to sell the kidneys this time since nothing’s gone through them for nearly 18 hours. They must be drier than a communion wafer.

Another hour and I’m wheeled down to theatre. Same routine but someone else holds the mask this time. Now I’m lying flat I recognise Sean, and tell him so just before I pass out just to be on the safe side.

Waking up to the beeping of one’s own failing Gemini pump is strangely reassuring. Again, I feel grrrrrreat and I reach for the water. There is none. I would cry if I had the moisture for tears. At least the leg feels good, and in the morning the consultants tell me that there’s no deep infection and give me looks like I’ve been rolling loaded dice with the devil and wonder how I’ve got away with it so far. Unfortunately my temperature’s still up a bit so they’ll still keep me in until that normalises. Well, it would be with The Itch still coursing through my veins and skin and everywhere else. I can endure it, I tell them, if it clears the leg up. I promise myself I’ll be out next Sunday (this is Thursday I think). My appetite is returning so something must be working right, and I find that the food in this hospital is absolutely fantastic. I weep to think of what I have been missing in the way of these fine meals.
The next few days are a rollercoaster of the usual blood syphoning and temperature probing but I’m clearly on the road to recovery. I’ve started to goad nurses by crying out “Don’t stick that in me” and “That’s a needle for a horse, nurse” whenever they close the curtains around me. I get refused biscuits for my cheek but little do they know about my good friends and their Red Cross parcels. Hob Nobs beat Rich Tea anytime. As my health improves so does my optimism for early release. I’m dying to see the kids again.
Karen brings the kids on Sunday, my expected release date. I barely recognise Rhi, she’s grown so much. We walk around awhile, me happy to be able to walk without pain and Rhi loving holding her Daddy’s hand. I’m wondering why I still have the catheter since readings aren’t being taken any more, and point this out to the nurses who promise to take it out at midnight. Unfortunately my temperature has been up again so I’m not going home but Monday had been suggested so I’m hopeful. Another night with the electric fan on full and holding a single sheet between my chattering teeth ought to do it. On Sunday night the catheter is removed and my temperature soars, and despite waking on Monday morning to the coldest of all-over washes I can’t get the temperature down far enough to convince the consultant that I’m fit to release. I don’t tell him that it’s got hard to take a pee too, that would just push the date back further. I did mention that my eyesight is out of kilter, that I need to cock my head on one side like an owl to line things up properly. Maybe it was a mistake to tell him this. I was sentenced to 48 hours of stable temperature or else. He did reassure me and justify his decision nicely by giving me the highly technical explanation of my prior condition that I had been “sicker than a Sick Thing” so they wanted to be sure I was OK. I just wish these doctors wouldn’t use jargon like that. What happened to bedside manner?

Tuesday was a day of windmill torment with the cold fan full on. It got easier to take a pee, I sat up in bed to fend off chest infection, I kept the leg elevated and stopped scratching. I took paracetamols to reduce my temperature and I tried to blag them from my compadres to further the temperature reduction but the eagle-eyed nurses stopped any illicit drug trading (I was getting low on Hob Nobs anyway).

Bandages were changed and things were Lookin’ Good for an early release.

Even the arrow holes were healing nicely.

I was hopeful. Taking a leak was no problem and I could spray as far up the wall as ever. I felt Lucky. Lucky Lucky Lucky, but I kept the fan on to be sure. Whenever the nurses did their observations I made sure I was last in the queue and they always temp-checked my windward ear which ought to have been colder. I was drinking loads but eating less to keep the temp down (does it? I don’t really know but it felt logical. Let’s face it, I was desperate to get out). On Wednesday my judge and gaoler (ahem, for that read “healer” and “saviour”) acquiesced and booted me out.

The tide of emotions that overtook me was wholly unexpected; was it because I’d been given the all clear? Or becauseI could rejoin my family and take part in their young lives again? Nearly three weeks on my back had taken its toll, but I was packed in 15 minutes (to give some perspective, packing for a day’s hillwalking can take me a week). I was almost frightened to call Karen to tell her the news in case they changed their minds, but managed to get the message through for her to “hitch up the wagon, Daddy’s coming home”. I got my paperwork sorted in record time, and met Karen downstairs with a choked tear in my eye. What a time to get emotional. Let’s get our lives back on track again.
Right then. Here’s the bottom lines.

1. There is NO WAY I’d have got through that without the care and expertise of the consultants, registrars, SHOs, doctors, sisters, nurses and HCAs at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Professionalism abounds in the NHS in sometimes difficult circumstances. I wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the case, and I cannot thank them enough.
2. Hospital Food. I don’t know what the budget per meal is at the RSH, but you’d pay upwards from £10 for meals of that quality in a pub or restaurant. My hat is off to the chef, and he’ll be hearing from me soon with my congratulations on a job well done.
3. Consultant surgeons. Do they have a private time dimension of which mortals are unaware? These guys do ward rounds talking to multiple people with multiple illnesses and putting them at their ease, they make quick and accurate diagnoses of conditions based on multiple facts and trends and they are still operating at midnight. How the heck does that work out if they are not superhuman? I hold them in complete awe.
4. Friends, family, colleagues and well-wishers. I am overwhelmed by the cards and visits I had from so many people. Every visit cheered me up, every card made me feel better. Emails, text messages, any contact with the outside world kept me fighting to get fit and get out. I thank you all.
5. Support crew. You know who you are. Those people who helped out at home, those who kept the home fires burning and selflessly supported my family while I was ill. Just when I think of how I can show my gratitude, I will.
6. Wife. How could she have “held it together” these past weeks? Just HOW? She’s managed the household, looked after the kids and the Domestic Wolf all with the worry that I was Sicker than a Sick Thing and whatever the culmination of that might be. I know that if the boot had been on the other foot there would have been a lot more wibbling around the place and I still thank whatever gods smiled on me the day I met her, and I don’t deserve to have her by my side. Karen Jones, you have hidden depths the like of which I shall never fathom and I love you dearly.