Guilty secret

Yesterday I did something that I can honestly say I never or should I say rarely do. From the picture its not hard to guess. I know it's not a crime to watch TV during the day but as Andy Murray was playing Rafael Nadal for a place in the quater finals of the Australian Open you can see why I couldn't resist. Had my hubby not rung me to remind me it was on I may well have missed what was a good match. I actually only got to see the first 4 sets because at that point the hospital rang to say that they were discharging my mother. I gathered later that Andy Murray lost the last set but I think he can be proud of his performance and am sure he will go on improving. Roll on Wimbledon.

Now back to the fiasco that we had in actually getting my mother discharged. My brother happened to be at my house having a spot of lunch (I inflicted the tennis on him he's more of a footie fan really) before a planned visit to see mum. We were so surprised to get the call because only two days previously we had been told she would be in for sometime as she still needed to see a haematologist. When I queried this I was told it could be done as an out-patient. So I quickly gathered up some warm clothes and we set off. There were no parking spaces so I left my brother in the car on double yellow lines while I went off to the ward. I was directed to the day room where my mother and several other ladies had been 'dumped' during the morning with all their belongings packed (if you can call it that) in suitcase and plastic bags. I later found that lids had not been secured on toiletries so you can imagine the mess. (Mum said the nurse had bundled everything in and the consultant had told her the bed was needed for someone who is very sick).

I got her dressed and after about 45 mins, when no one came near the day room to bring her tablets, I went to find a nurse and a Dr who happened to be sitting at the desk heard me asking how long was it likely to take to get the tablets. The Doc tells me 'I am just about to look at her file and write a prescription and then they have to take it to pharmacy to be dispensed and sent back to the ward'. All this time my brother had been out side well over an hour so I went out and updated him and he decided to go home before all the afternoon traffic built up. I went back and waited and waited. I managed to get one of the nurses to make the ladies in the day room a cup of tea, no one had thought to tell the person giving out the afternoon there were patients in the day room and all the water had been removed so they were left without fluids.

Mobile phones are not supposed to be used in hospitals but I decided we were being treated rather badly and I needed to organise transport so I contacted Mike to make arrangements. A physiotherapist then arrived and asked mum to go and practise doing the stairs before she went home, not sure what would have happened if she hadn't managed it as there was someone else in her bed by now. The physio showed a lack of interest in the home situation and I knew she was just going through the motions. Finally at about 5: 15 pm a nurse brought the tablets and a case of fortified drinks and a box of sachets for mixing.

Now the fun begins, 11 different boxes of tablets (to be taken at quite a few different times) the nurse explained times for taking the tablets, but couldn't tell us in detail what they were all for, luckily we did get a carbon copy. By now mum was exhausted this was the longest she had been out of bed for over three weeks, I was tired and thirsty but Mike arrived soon afterwards and we finally got home just before 6 pm. I won't go into all the drama I had trying to explain when tablets needed to be taken, I had to go on the internet today and find out exactly what each one did in order to impress upon my mother the importance of taking them correctly. We are still not quite there. She's shattered, I had carpet fitter booked for today and they arrived 8:45 am, then my brother arrived as he had not actually got to see mum yesterday. When mum went for a rest I went shopping and what with cooking and putting furniture back in place and helping re-hang the doors I did not get a sit down until 9 pm (is this my punishment for over two hours of daytime TV yesterday). Hence this very late post and I can hardly keep awake so my margin for errors is likely to be high.

I hope to catch up on my blog reading tomorrow but I'm not too hopeful.