annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Stompy
Yesterday was a bit like this:
which was good because before then it had been fucking awful with ED getting taken into hospital, to A&E as the only way of getting anyone to look at the blood pouring out of her catheter, which they did, quickly, stopping it temporarily, also giving her a hefty dose of morphine and leaving us to sit squeezed into a corner cubicle waiting for a proper consultation while they dealt with the fucking mass of bleeding, weeping humanity that poured through the doors all day Monday. Man. It was like on the telly, but real. I mean, usually the telly is all hyped up and hectic but the real A&E is dull, tedious, endless waiting while nothing seems to be happening, but this was wild, manic, awful in the fucking extreme. Every time I went to the loo, or for a walkabout to stretch my legs it seemed there was a new person holding a wodge of white padding to a part of their body that had blood gushing out. Head, arm, thigh visible through torn trousers. Footsteps endlessly hurried past, clattering urgently along the corridor. Trolleys were swung creaking, in and out of bays. Voices cried out for painkillers, for their mothers, for help. Really it was horrid. But ED chilled out (morphine can have that effect), I did breathing exercises and held my daughter's gaze and chatted to the member of staff from the care home - they came in shifts, never leaving me alone to remember what the fuck people were telling me - and when the knackered doctor finally made it to us and asked a few questions and poked and prodded my girl about, he said it had been caused by [insert medical words here] and could be stopped by [more words] and he would just [you know] and lo, it was as he said and we all went home.
Well, we all went home after there'd been a big fuck up with the hoist. ED had arrived in an ambulance, on a stretcher-type-trolley and had been moved to what I'd thought was a bed but which turned out to be a brand new all-singing, all-dancing A&E trolley, which was totally incompatible with the brand new all-singing, all-dancing hoist. So we couldn't get her off it and into her wheelchair and she couldn't go back in an ambulance, so we all (me, M from the care home, a nurse, an orderly, a nursing auxiliary and the doctor) stood around trying and failing to find a way to get the hoist into a position that would allow ED's sling to be attached to the hooks until the bloke in the next cubicle stopped vomiting for long enough to suggest we get a proper bed from a ward, slide her onto that with the board and hoist from there to the chair. And that was what they did.
Since then there has been much knackeredness, for ED, for care home staff and for me. And grumpy, moany, bad temper. You know. I'd like to report that I deal with all this graciously and magnificently but truth is I don't. I've had enough now.
But I've kept going with the walking and the photos and trying to rub up against calm and mellow even if I can't quite incorporate it into my being. I fetched up here today, which looks pretty chilled, doesn't it?
But then, when I returned to my car I couldn't get out of this private set up and found myself driving in a loop though vile bungalows and imperious notices saying This is MINE! All MINE! All I could do was open the windows and turn the stereo up to 11. I wish I could say it was playing NWA but Led Zep did come on the radio, that one about 'we come from the land of ice and snow' - shit, just looked it up, it's called The Immigrant Song. why didn't I know that? Play LOUD:
When I finally got out I climbed up a hill to take a picture - not a big hill:
and since then it's been home, telly, fire. I'm doing well on wood-gathering - here's a selection of smaller pieces drying out:
with cat, obvs.
I am grateful for: making it through another day - my record of getting through bad days remains 100%; warm bed; the NHS; a beach to stomp around on; a car to drive round in circles in; not caring about ending sentences (or phrases) with a preposition
Sleep tight xxx
1:34 a.m. - 24.11.16
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