Looking into holes. Part eleven

 It’s been a week since my last blog. On Thursday I fell. Into quite an extreme fever. I had no idea where I was, wrapped in hot wet sweaty sheets and apparently foetal. The evening hadn’t started well; and a number of staff hadn’t turned turned up leaving a pretty inexperienced team to cope. Pretty much all tasks are writ in stone so if no emergencies then no issues. Things started to go wrong and the line of command collapsed immediately, junior staff less able to challenge or demand support. I was spotted by a senior consultant  by chance who said”get him out of there now and into ICU.

To me, ICU was  isolation, wires, machines that go ping and wait till you get worse or better. In reality it’s an intensive cosseting unit with one on one supervision. Total bed confinement and every minute dedicated to guiding my body out of the febrile hinterland that had trapped it. By day 3 I didn’t want to be anywhere else, they even had ice water in jugs, it was heaven. The consultant said “you’re fixed, you were broken and now we can send you back to the ward; well done”.

Back on the ward nothing much had changed except me. I was no longer recording abnormal temperatures but I was told that having been bed bound for a few days my muscles would take time to adjust. I sat up and swung my legs over the bed, moved to stand and my legs gave way beneath me as I fell into a faint. I had to be lifted back in and told I could not leave the bed until physios had deemed I was capable.

Being bed bound has implications. You pee into a bottle and you poo in a bedpan. I hadn’t produced number twos for a week but they came back as my appetite returned which meant me cling onto a bed bracket whilst a nurse wiped me clean. On the plus side bed baths; warm soapy water with the softest of sheaths and gentlest of towels; I’d pay for that.

I’m getting used to the boredom and, to be fair, it seems to have been a lot busier of late and I’m sleeping better. At this point having eviscerated every cell in my body the task is to revive them and target every nuanced cough or tickle as if it were a covert invasion. I think I’m in a good place now; a sort of Spa in Frankenstein’ s  castle

Comments

  1. Sophie S25 November 2021 at 06:24

    'a sort of Spa in Frankenstein’ s castle' - brilliant metaphor!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SimonP25 November 2021 at 08:38

    Well that was scary. Glad you're in a better part of the castle now.

    ReplyDelete

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