You put your left leg in . . .
5th Sep 2007
You put your left leg in
You put your left leg out
In, out, in, out …. (The Hokey-Cokey)
Felt a bit like that this week with Mrs D in and out of Hospital.
The ‘Fun’ started Monday lunchtime when she started coughing up copious amounts of blood. When the blood started coming down her nose as well and she was struggling to breathe I called the Emergency services. A paramedic, and an ambulance arrived within minutes and she was whisked off to Hospital.
Shortly before midnight, her situation brought under control, Mrs D was discharged (Doctors wanted her to stay overnight for ‘observation’, but Mrs D wanted to go home)
Wednesday night it was back to hospital in an ambulance after she again started coughing up blood, and struggling to breathe. She was admitted to the same Emergency Assessment Ward she had been in on Monday. As she had her 2nd chemo session on Thursday afternoon, she went to the Oncology Dept from the ward and was brought back there after the chemo was over. There was a brief argument between Mrs D and the Consultant. She wanted to go home. He wanted her to stop overnight so he could arrange for her to have a camera passed down her throat and into her stomach on Friday morning to see if the bleeding was coming from there rather than from her lungs. Eventually, she agreed to stop in.
Following recovery from this procedure, she asked to be discharged. About 4 hours after returning home on Friday evening, Mrs D was readmitted to the same Emergency Assessment Ward after another bout of bleeding/difficulty in breathing. Finally, she bowed to the inevitable and agreed to stop in hospital over the weekend. The earlier procedure having ruled out the stomach as the source of the recurrent bleeding, the doctors were anxious to keep her under observation while they made arrangements for a second procedure on Monday to see if the bleeding was related to the operation she had had to remove part of her left lung or 
whether it was the cancer cells from her right lung breaking up.
(It’s probably as well that Mrs D finally acceded to the doctors wishes – I’m sure I overheard them discussing whether to break her legs to prevent her leaving again!)
Life with Mrs D 
For gawds sake, man! Can you slow those bleedin’ penguins down?
Take away their supply of cocaine or something, or I’ll come in there and break their flippers.
Hands off the penguins, they’re great; presumably doing a celebration dance for when MrsD saw reason/commonsense/writing on the wall in her own blood?
If only the NHS made Merlot available on the wards, Mrs D would have been much more willing to accede to doctor’s requests to stop in !!!
So? What are the penguins doing in this post?
Are you in and out of hospital now?
No, not in hospital, DF – Mrs D doesn’t want to end her days in a hospice.
I’m lucky in my employer in that he has allowed me to work from home the last few months so that I can look after Mrs D and enable her to die here at home as she wishes.
Yes, you are lucky in that regard.. though ‘lucky’ hardly seems the word.
Is she still drinking the glass of Merlot? or are you drinking for the both of you?
One of the side effects of the chemo and radiotherapy is that red wine now tastes foul to her.
Happily, white wine still tastes OK so she’s switched to drinking Chardonnay (leaves all the more red for me to drink 😆 )
Strictly speaking she shouldn’t be drinking alcohol when she’s on morphine to control the pain – but like she says ‘what the hell difference is it going to make now?’
Too fecking right, doctors,whatdo they know?