One small step for Marie ...

... and one giant leap on the journey home.

Marie continues to do well but on Saturday the physiotherapists tried to get her walking but were unsuccessful. As you can imagine this left us a little deflated, but they don't give up so easily so on Sunday they returned with a better walking frame. One with wheels and aero bars. Success !!!

Marie was able to walk from her chair out to the middle of the corridor and back, a distance of about forty feet. She was exhausted by the effort. I was worn out just watching.

To say we were all pleased was an understatement. If there's so much improvement in one day, what might we be seeing by the end of the week. Latest news about coming home is "seven to ten days, assuming blood tests show the infection has gone".

So here's hoping.

Operation

Marie has now had her operation and sends a big "Thank You" to everyone for their good wishes. The operation went well, and Marie is doing fine. She spent a night in the ICCU which was wonderful. One nurse per two patients and no waiting for anything. Then back to the ward the following afternoon.

As you might expect she is tired and in need to sleep. She's also still attached to
a lot of tubes and wires which will hopefully be coming out soon.

Next on the agenda is a visit from the physiotherapist to see how much movement she currently has, and to see the best way to get mobile again. Then a visit from the dietician as the awful hospital food isn't great.

John

Relief !!

Marie has been given a new bed. One with a firmer mattress so she can finally get some sleep. It's only taken a week for them to realise that the soft mattress had given her a displaced disc.

Now that the bed is sorted, and the cold sore is under control Marie is feeling a lot happier. Operation has been rescheduled for Wednesday.



Finally Marie says a big "thank-you" to everyone for their good wishes.

Delayed by Delays

Marie’s operation has been postponed through a mixture of bureaucracy and downright incompetence.

Marie suffers from the occasional cold sore, especially is she is stressed, run down or in pain. As she is currently all three, it’s not surprising that the odd one will appear.

Sometimes she gets them close to her eyes, which is rather serious as untreated they can lead to loss of sight. When this happens Marie goes to the Eye Infirmary A & E dept. and simply gives them her case number. They prescribe Zovirax eye cream and all is well. The whole process takes less than two hours and the end result is just a little darkening round the eyes.

When you are in hospital that’s not the way it works. The cold sore was diagnosed straight away, and the staff even understood the importance of getting it seen to straight away. They accessed the records from the eye infirmary and ordered the correct medication from the pharmacy which was just one floor below.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened for almost thirty hours, so by the time the medication arrived Marie had an eye the size of a grapefruit with an enormous blister on the top lid. The surgeon can’t operate with it in such a state as there is too much risk of infection.

It’s probably going to take at least a week to clear up. So as you can image we’re not happy bunnies.

Long Term

First of all, many thanks to all of you who sent us your good wishes, by whatever means. It is really appreciated.

It looks like Marie is going to be in hospital for some time. The old hip joint has to come out and of course the area will have to be cleaned thoroughly as there is a lot of mess where it's been breaking up. I always thought titanium was a very inert metal but it appears not to be so. One of the doctors described it as a magnet for bacteria.

To combat the infection Marie is having intravenous antibiotics, plus saline to re-hydrate her because the infection prevented her keeping anything on her stomach.

The hip will come out and all being well, what the hospital call a temporary joint will go in, either on Tuesday or Thursday depending on when the parts arrive. Marie will be in hospital for about three more weeks and then there will be the recovery period at home. You can't bend your hip more then 45 degrees for six weeks. Neither can you drive or walk very far.

By now you're probably wondering what I mean by a temporary joint. This one will be there until all the infection has gone, then in four to six months, it's back in again for the proper one.

Knowing Marie, you can imagine that she isn't too pleased about being stuck in hospital for the next three or four weeks. On the plus side, she has a room to herself, with the luxury of her own bathroom. On the minus side, the food is terrible and the bed is very soft and as well as preventing sleep it's giving her terrible back pain. As well as her normal pain medication they are having to give her morphine for her back.

However, all things considered she's in very goods spirits. All she needs now is a decent nights sleep.

John

Metal Fatigue

Marie is suffering from metal fatigue.

Seriously. Regular readers will know that she has been suffering from a pressure sore for some time now. Everything was going very well until Thursday morning when I got a call at work to say her dressing had turned black and a smelly liquid was oozing out.

Marie was also feeling sick and shivering and sweating. As she had an appointment with the practice nurse that day I left work and took her in.

After a bit of prodding they summoned a doctor who told us to report to A & E at the hospital for blood tests and an x-ray. The doctor told us there was a possibility Marie may have to be admitted.

Eventually, at 5 pm Marie was admitted to a ward and by 7 pm we found out that her artificial hip was suffering from metal fatigue and would need to be replaced.

In the meantime it's antibiotics to control the infection and a good clean out of the wound. It would seem the black liquid was a reaction with the metal in the joint.

So there we are. Poor Marie is laid up in hospital for a while.

More news after visiting tonight.

John

Pure bliss

For the past 46 days I’ve been unable to have a bath or a shower because of my pressure sore.

As you can imagine I’m a little fed up with the water prohibition. Having a rub down with a flannel isn’t the same as soaking in a hot bath.

I mentioned this to my nurse who took pity on me and ordered some waterproof dressings to go on top of my original dressing.

Although I can’t have a bath I am able to have a shower.

Tonight I had my first shower in over seven weeks and it was wonderful.

I now feel clean !!!!

Marie

Equipment galore

It’s hard to believe that a six inch pressure sore would require so much stuff.

Starting at the back of the picture, going clockwise, there’s cotton wool pads, kitchen roll (extremely useful when my dressing develops a leak and John’s not around to change it. I simply make a pad and attach it to the dressing) and surgical spirit (used with the cotton wool pads to remove any dressings residue that’s stuck to my skin).

In front of the kitchen roll are sterile packs which have to be used every time the dressing is changed. Each pack contains gloves, a laminate sheet, a sterile sheet, a measure guide), gauze, a towel, a disposable bag and an apron.

Next comes the £47 a pack dressings, Intrasite dressings (it liquidises the dead skin) and extra non-sterile gauzes. Behind the Intrasite are disposable sterile scissors (to cut the Intrasite) and some waterproof plasters (again used when John’s not around to stick down the dressing when it starts to come away).

Finally at the front there’s saline water (used to clean in and around the pressure sore), a pack of extra sterile gauze, tape (used to stick the kitchen roll to the dressing when I have a ‘leak’) and sterile hand gel.

I also should have had a large yellow ‘sharp tools’ box to put the scissors in. I declined saying I had enough equipment…

Marie

Revealed

So what were the mystery objects ?

Well, here's the first clue.



And here's one of the little blighters peeking out from behind the steering wheel.



And here's its partner, sitting behind the steering wheel.



Got it yet. They're paddles used to change gear in a car with sequential transmissionr.

The cost, and remember, I had to buy a matching pair.

£128.14 plus vat EACH. Not far short of £300 the pair. That's the downside of owning an Alfa Romeo.

John

p.s. don't know where the reputation came from, but paddles are not at all "flappy".

Result

I had a phone call this afternoon from the Customer Service Manager at Social Services regarding my complaint letter.

She was appalled at the way I had been treated and promised that a full investigation would take place to find out the guilty people, and action would be taken against them.

She has arranged for the mattress to be collected on Thursday afternoon instead of a week today which was the earliest date the nasty little woman would give me.

The Customer Service Manager was also concerned about the length of time it took for the collection people to pick up the phone, so will be bringing that up with their manager as well.

She’s also going to investigate why the mattress which was supposed to be new, stunk of tobacco.

She even offered to come and visit me at home, along with the manager of the collection people, to discuss my complaint further and to inform me of the actions they have taken. I thanked her for the offer but said I was satisfied that my complaint was being dealt so a visit wasn’t necessary.

Another result for the Customer from Hell.

Marie

Can you tell what it is yet

I took delivery of some bits today.

Can you guess what they are, or what they’re used for. And can you hazard a guess at how much they cost.

John

The return of….

…the Customer from Hell.

After a long period away she’s back !!!

Today I was waiting for something to be collected. My nurse at the doctor had arranged for me to try a pressure sore mattress to see if that would help my wound. Unfortunately the mattress was too soft and it also smelt of tobacco.

I tried ringing the collection people all day last Monday but couldn’t get an answer. After several rings last Tuesday I finally got to speak to someone and arranged for the mattress to be collected today.

I was in the kitchen this morning when I heard something being pushed through the letter box. Normally I don’t bother rushing to see what has come as it’s usually a pizza or Indian take-away menu. However for some reason I decided to go and take a look straight away.

It was a note from the little collection people to say they had called but no-one was in, and as they could not obtain an answer, I’d have to contact them to arrange a re-collection. I opened the front door to see if he was still there but he had gone.

The little man had not rang the door bell – and I know it working as the window cleaner had been for his payment today – and if he had knocked then it must have been so quiet that even a dog wouldn’t have heard it.

I rang the number on the slip, having waited for over two minutes for someone to pick up and explained very nicely what had happened.

The little woman was extremely snotty and insinuated that I was lying about not hearing the little man calling. She even claimed that I couldn't have looked out from the front door as the little man would have been driving a van and I couldn't have missed seeing it.

Those immortal words rang in my ears ‘don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry’. Guess who appeared. Yep, the Customer from Hell.

A ‘burn its way out of the envelope’ letter will be on it’s way to her manager. That’ll teach her to upset me…

Marie

Reporting in

As it’s been a few days since we’ve blogged I thought it best to put fingers to keyboard.

No appointment as yet from the hospital following my MRI scan. As it was two weeks since I had the scan, I rang the clinic on Thursday, like The Man Himself’s Sidekick told me to do if I hadn’t heard anything.

I was told that they had only received the results of the scan ‘yesterday’ and as The Man Himself was on holiday, his Sidekick consultant was looking after his patients. Once the Sidekick had looked at the scan, which I was told would be done shortly, an appointment would be sent out. I asked approximately when that would be and was told October at the earliest. It’s been nearly a year since I first saw my GP about my knee and I’m still no further forward.

My pressure sore is slowly getting better. Most of the dead skin has now gone, thanks to the dressing which liquefies it, and it’s not smelling or leaking as much as before, which is good news.

This afternoon we finally got round to photographing some of the clothes I’ve made, so the dining room became a photography studio. The model we used was very cooperative and didn’t have a hissy fit when there was no make-up artist or hairdresser to make her look beautiful. No, the model wasn’t me, it was Gertie, my tailors dummy. She has this wonderful facility of being able to lose inches from all parts of her body at a turn of a dial. Unfortunately I’m not adaptable…

Once we’ve tidied up the photos we’ll put them on our blog – and no, there won’t be any airbrushing !!!

Marie

Getting my money's worth

Because of the various cocktail of painkillers I have to take at the moment, it works out a lot cheaper to buy a pre-payment prescription card every three months.

When we had to visit the Minor Injuries Unit in Stratford last Sunday, the Nurse Practitioner raided the Skin Clinic for some dressings as she didn't have anything suitable for my pressure sore in her treatment room.

These dressings proved to be much better than the ones I usually used as they cushioned my sore and stuck to my skin (normal plaster dressings only last a couple of hours before having to be patched up as they always come away).

When I saw my nurse on Tuesday I explained about the dressings and she said she'd order some.

She rang me on Wednesday and said that she had ordered the dressing but only two as they were expensive. When I saw her on Thursday yet again my usual dressing was stuck down with various tape and anything we could get our hands on.

As soon as she applied the new dressing to my sore she realised that they did indeed stick to my skin, so decided to order some to be delivered to the treatment room and some for me to have at home and asked if I paid for my prescriptions so I told her about the pre-payment card.

This morning one of our local pharmacy stores delivered a package containing a box of my pressure sore gel dressings and two boxes of the new foam adhesive dressings with five dressings in each box.

I did a search on the internet to see how much the dressings were seeing as my nurse said they were expensive and it turns out that a box of five dressings costs £47.73. Wow !!!!

Now that's what I call getting my moneys worth....

Marie

Shoot, stab, strangle

This morning I received a phone call:

“Hello”, I said.
“It’s me”, replied my mam, “how do I get rid of you”.
“What do you mean get rid of me”.
“How do I get rid of you”, she repeated.
“Er, I don’t understand, why do you want to get rid of me”.
“I’ve just switched on my mobile and your number keeps coming up. How do I get rid of you”.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief that she didn’t actually wanted to do away with me, I said I’d take a look at her mobile later today.

Marie

A round up of the news

So what’s been happening in the BOGOF household.

I’m still in the wars with the pressure sore on my hip. I’m at the getting rid of the dead skin stage so it’s smelling revolting.

I also got a bit of as shock last week when John changed my dressing and I saw just how bad it was. Who would have though that something as simple as a tiny graze could turn into a horrendous wound.

At my doctors I’m a bit of a side show as they don’t get ‘walking’ pressure sore patients.

Still on all things medical last Thursday I went for my MRI scan on my knee. I was told the hospital would contact me within the next two weeks with a follow up appointment. Knowing Sunderland NHS Trust, I won’t hold my breath…

Friday was John’s birthday and the Birthday Bunny was very good to him. He didn’t have much time to ‘play with his presents’ though as we were off to Stratford upon Avon for a few days. It was the Sunderland air show last weekend and regular readers will know it’s a nightmare time for us residents when over a million people descend on us, so we decided to go away.

We had a lovely few days relaxing and chilling out. We did though have a visit to the Minor Injures Unit at Stratford Hospital. Because the weather was so hot my plaster dressings wouldn’t stick to my skin, so consequently we ran out of all the dressings we’d brought with us. We’d even resorted to using electricians tape to keep them in place…

On Sunday morning we went to the MIU to see if they could help us out. They were extremely friendly and couldn’t do enough for us.

So that’s what’s we’ve been up to.

Marie

Kerplunk

Up to last night we had 48 hours of non stop rain and strong winds. Still everything seemed to be fine until I went into the kitchen to say “Hello” to Marie when she came home. As I was standing there, I felt a sharp, cold sensational on the top of my head. Yes – it was a drip. And it was soon followed by its friends, then its friends friends.



I suspect the strong winds were driving the rain into the void above the kitchen. The rain would then have to make it’s way through the ceiling, and through a false ceiling before landing on top of the pine cladding that makes up the second false ceiling (Two false ceilings … yes that’s right. It’s a long story involving a previous owner and some very dodgy fake oak beams which we hid behind a layer of pine cladding).

The water was coming out a dirty brown colour, and smelled very strongly of pine, so it was out with the towels and buckets until it stopped, which was about 9 pm.



Still, it could have been worse. A couple of weeks ago we were away in Northampton looking at a hotel. Not a nice sight to come back to.

John

Newsround update

Saw the nurse at the doctors on Thursday about my pressure sore. She’s taken a swab from it just in case there’s any infection as it’s smelling a bit…

Friday morning was my Aunt Bet’s funeral. My mam was ok, but a little bit away with the fairies. When she’s like that she can’t make decisions so I kept getting ‘would this coat be ok or what about this one’ over and over again. The same thing happened about the burial in the cemetery and the gathering afterwards – she wanted to go, then she didn’t, then she did…. We ended up going to both.

I’ve got a loud squeaky hip. At best it sounds like a squeaking door. At worst it sounds like someone breaking wind….

When I was last at the hospital I mentioned the squeaky hip to the Man Himself’s sidekick consultant. He said it wasn’t anything to worry about.

At a Catholic requiem funeral there’s a lot of standing and sitting. My hip was in full vocal squeaking mode so all I could hear was ‘rrrrrrrr’. It was really embarrassing.

One thing I thought that was in a bit of bad taste was the council workers hadn’t removed the bright yellow digger from the cemetery while the burial took place. A few feet behind the grave was the digger, with a little workman sitting ready to fill in the hole the moment the mourners had gone.

I was back to see the nurse at the doctors this morning about my pressure sore. The results from the swab aren’t back yet. The nurse has put a different dressing on it and as I’ve got to keep it dry at all times, I’m not allowed to shower or take a bath. Thankfully I have to go back on Thursday so hopefully the water ban will be lifted then.

Having a rub down with a flannel isn’t quite the same as soaking in a hot bath….

Marie

Newsround

So what’s been happening these past few days in the BOGOF household.

I’m pleased, and relieved…, to say that the flies have gone from the kitchen.

Also gone are the seagulls who were nesting on one of the rooftops near where we live. They’ve left earlier than they have done in previous years. It’s probably down to there only being two chicks to feed instead of the usual three.

I’ve received my appointment to go for the MRI scan on my knee on 23rd July. It’s not at my usual hospital in Sunderland but one in South Tyneside. Thankfully John’s off work that day so he can come with me, and should the parking be as bad as it is in Sunderland, he can just drop me off, park up somewhere outside the hospital grounds then wait until I call him to pick me up.

I’m in the wars again. Somehow I managed to graze my left hip. It was a tiny graze, a couple of millimeters, if that. It’s not any more… Because of my knee I have to sleep on my left side with my knee raised, (it’s the only way I can get comfortable during the night) so consequently due to the pressure on my hip, the tiny graze has now developed into a large, painful and ugly pressure sore.
Just to make sure it was ok I saw the treatment room district nurse at my doctors surgery last Tuesday. She said it looked ok but wasn’t sure if it was infected. Normally she would have put some antiseptic cream on it, but as she works at a different surgery, didn’t have the authorisation to do so.
All she could do was put a dressing on it and told me to come back on Friday when a nurse who was employed by the surgery could put some cream on it. That’s a blog in itself, however all I’m going to say is typical NHS ! ! !
I went back on Friday and although it doesn’t look very pleasant, the nurse doesn’t think it’s infected. She’s given me some foam plasters to put on my hip to try and cushion it when I’m lying on it in bed. I’m back to see the nurse on Thursday.

I had a phone call from my mam on Sunday morning to say my dad’s sister has died. My mam and her became close following my dad’s illness. Aunt Bet was there when he died and helped my mam enormously through her grief. When my uncle died in October it hit my mam hard but I’m expecting it to be more so this time.
My mam rang this morning to say her funeral is 10am on Friday, and as they are Catholics it’s going to be the full requiem mass.

Marie

Vin d’Ablution

As you know we do like our wine.

However there is one slight down side to that (other than the hangover if you’ve overindulged…) and that’s that it’s not very diet friendly.

While I was on the internet I happened to stumble across a company selling non-alcoholic wines, beers etc.

There used to be some really good non or low alcoholic beers on the market a few years ago so we thought we’d give the wine a try. If they were ok then we could still enjoy a bottle of wine without the guilt of excess calories or units of alcohol.

We ordered a half dozen selection of reds, whites and a sparkling so we’d get a variety of the different wines.

The first bottle we tried was one of the reds. It wasn’t very nice….

The second bottle we tried was a white. We decided to try this one after we’d had a bottle of real wine so we’d be slightly merry when we drank it and wouldn’t be too bothered how it tasted. To be fair it didn’t taste too bad.

The third bottle we tried was another red, but different from the first one. We again drank this one after a bottle of the real stuff. On it’s own it wasn’t that good so we decided to mix it with some lemonade to make sort of a sangria. It was ok but I couldn’t drink a lot of it.

We tried the fourth bottle, a white Riesling last night. Again it was after a bottle of the real thing. John tasted it first and had a pained look on his face… I didn’t get as fair as tasting it, the smell of enough !!!!! It smelt of wee.

None the non alcoholic wines we tried had the aroma that normally goes with real wine, however none of them was as vile as the Riesling.

The only way I could taste it was by holding my nose. It was pretty much how I imagine urine tastes. It was gross!!!

We still had two bottles left so decided to have a taste testing session in the kitchen last night.

The fifth bottle was another white. Thankfully it didn’t smell or taste of wee but didn’t taste very pleasant. John hit on the idea of trying some juice in them. Of the various varieties of juice we had, none of them made any difference to the horrible taste.

The sixth and final bottle was a fizzy. To be fair it didn’t smell that bad, well not compared to the others…

However the taste was pretty much like the previous ones that evening.

We still had some orange juice out from the previous tasting session so John made a ‘Bucks Fizz’. I’ve never tasted Bucks Fizz (I did have something similar at one of the Hull conferences - it was the one where we had to go to the Town Hall for a reception. The white wine was awful so we mixed it with orange juice) so couldn’t tell what it was meant to taste like. Somehow I think the real McCoy would taste better than what we had.

I guess it won’t come as any surprise that we won’t be buying any more….

Marie