Life changes….and sometimes these changes are dramatic and rapid.
The few people I have told about our Friday escapades all have said…’but I was only speaking to him on Thursday/Friday’
Or ‘he was in fine form on Thursday’…..which of course is true…he was.
Now things look very different.
He was admitted to the Coronary Care Unit at Blackpool on Friday….and I had not visited that day.
I was offered a lift to the hospital on Saturday, but when I spoke to himself, he told me ‘leave your skateboard in the garage’….again sounding in good form.
Yesterday morning he phoned me from his bedside phone and things sounded very different.
He was breathless and fractious(of course, he has every right to be so, he is being used as a human pin cushion right now).
I told him that I WAS going to visit him, regardless of what he said.
I told him that I would bring him clean pjs and underpants.
He said that he was not wearing anything other than a sheet.
He asked for some sparkling water, or better still a can of pop.
My son in law Greg phoned to say he was ready for a trip to the seaside around 12.30.
So we set off.
As is the usual with us, not knowing the way, we got lost….we put the wrong postcode in the satnav.(it was a sausage finger error)
So when the lady announced that we had reached our destination….and it was a bungalow in Lytham, well…we had done it again.
Satnav reprogrammed we eventually reached where we should have been…
Blackpool Vic..
Oh my Lord…what a place that is…..we took a while to find where the Coronary Care Unit was….I wish they had coloured lines on the corridors that gave you a clue as to where you should be going.
We hoofed to the end of a very long corridor to be told that we needed to go up a floor….we saw a lift and headed for that.
It was locked and designated for use by staff only….so we had to go almost the full length of the corridor back the way we came.
Up a floor, through a ward, to get to CCU.
On CCU all the patients are in single rooms so it was not easy to see where my old feller was.
I found a nurse and she told me he was in room 6.
What a sorry sight we were met with.
David was semi propped up connected to monitors, beeping and buzzing….and flashing coloured lights and vital sign values.
You know when the nurses tell you on the phone ‘he is comfortable’….well, he most certainly wasn’t comfortable by a long stretch.
He was too breathless to talk, he was on high output oxygen, yet his oxygen saturation was pitiful….no wonder he was restless and could find no comfortable position.
I spoke to a sister who looked about twelve years old…..she told me that my man had developed pneumonia from aspirating some vomit.
That he was ‘quite poorly’….that they has put a balloon into one of the blocked heart vessels, but there was concern about two other vessels that were severely compromised…that he is going to need a heart bypass operation and it might be sooner rather than later.
That there were no plans for him to be discharged home for the foreseeable future.
Hopes dashed.
While we were there, himself had a crisis and we were ushered out of the room while they worked on him to correct the issues.
All of it, very worrying and left me feeling that the reassurance I had gone to seek was not to be had.
I know this is going to sound cold, even callous perhaps, i came home planning a funeral in my head.
This was not at all how I expected it to be….or wanted it to be.
During the time that he has been in hospital I have felt rudderless.
Unable to settle to do anything that needs planning or brain function.
I thought I would take up the rugs in my living room, clean the wooden floors, move furniture, clean behind and under it….but I have not had the ability to do any of it.
I have not cooked anything of any note….I have not eaten anything that took any thought….yes I know…I KNOW!
I would be the first to be saying ‘you have to look after yourself first’ and you cannot pour from an empty cup’…but this advice, while sound, is not very easy to comply with.
As you can see from the time this is being written, sleep does not come easy either.
Oh, I sound like a sorry case, but I am not upset, I can’t even say I am stressed….I feel like whatever is for me, I can deal with.
I have the support of friends and My daughter and her husband too.
I am not in need of much….other than having my other half back with me.
Mended and getting under my feet, being grumpy, being tiresome….but most of all to fill the gap in my arms and my heart…because what breaks your man’s heart, breaks yours too.
I am going now because I am getting maudlin and I might just get another hour of sleep…if i am lucky.
The few people I have told about our Friday escapades all have said…’but I was only speaking to him on Thursday/Friday’
Or ‘he was in fine form on Thursday’…..which of course is true…he was.
Now things look very different.
He was admitted to the Coronary Care Unit at Blackpool on Friday….and I had not visited that day.
I was offered a lift to the hospital on Saturday, but when I spoke to himself, he told me ‘leave your skateboard in the garage’….again sounding in good form.
Yesterday morning he phoned me from his bedside phone and things sounded very different.
He was breathless and fractious(of course, he has every right to be so, he is being used as a human pin cushion right now).
I told him that I WAS going to visit him, regardless of what he said.
I told him that I would bring him clean pjs and underpants.
He said that he was not wearing anything other than a sheet.
He asked for some sparkling water, or better still a can of pop.
My son in law Greg phoned to say he was ready for a trip to the seaside around 12.30.
So we set off.
As is the usual with us, not knowing the way, we got lost….we put the wrong postcode in the satnav.(it was a sausage finger error)
So when the lady announced that we had reached our destination….and it was a bungalow in Lytham, well…we had done it again.
Satnav reprogrammed we eventually reached where we should have been…
Blackpool Vic..
Oh my Lord…what a place that is…..we took a while to find where the Coronary Care Unit was….I wish they had coloured lines on the corridors that gave you a clue as to where you should be going.
We hoofed to the end of a very long corridor to be told that we needed to go up a floor….we saw a lift and headed for that.
It was locked and designated for use by staff only….so we had to go almost the full length of the corridor back the way we came.
Up a floor, through a ward, to get to CCU.
On CCU all the patients are in single rooms so it was not easy to see where my old feller was.
I found a nurse and she told me he was in room 6.
What a sorry sight we were met with.
David was semi propped up connected to monitors, beeping and buzzing….and flashing coloured lights and vital sign values.
You know when the nurses tell you on the phone ‘he is comfortable’….well, he most certainly wasn’t comfortable by a long stretch.
He was too breathless to talk, he was on high output oxygen, yet his oxygen saturation was pitiful….no wonder he was restless and could find no comfortable position.
I spoke to a sister who looked about twelve years old…..she told me that my man had developed pneumonia from aspirating some vomit.
That he was ‘quite poorly’….that they has put a balloon into one of the blocked heart vessels, but there was concern about two other vessels that were severely compromised…that he is going to need a heart bypass operation and it might be sooner rather than later.
That there were no plans for him to be discharged home for the foreseeable future.
Hopes dashed.
While we were there, himself had a crisis and we were ushered out of the room while they worked on him to correct the issues.
All of it, very worrying and left me feeling that the reassurance I had gone to seek was not to be had.
I know this is going to sound cold, even callous perhaps, i came home planning a funeral in my head.
This was not at all how I expected it to be….or wanted it to be.
During the time that he has been in hospital I have felt rudderless.
Unable to settle to do anything that needs planning or brain function.
I thought I would take up the rugs in my living room, clean the wooden floors, move furniture, clean behind and under it….but I have not had the ability to do any of it.
I have not cooked anything of any note….I have not eaten anything that took any thought….yes I know…I KNOW!
I would be the first to be saying ‘you have to look after yourself first’ and you cannot pour from an empty cup’…but this advice, while sound, is not very easy to comply with.
As you can see from the time this is being written, sleep does not come easy either.
Oh, I sound like a sorry case, but I am not upset, I can’t even say I am stressed….I feel like whatever is for me, I can deal with.
I have the support of friends and My daughter and her husband too.
I am not in need of much….other than having my other half back with me.
Mended and getting under my feet, being grumpy, being tiresome….but most of all to fill the gap in my arms and my heart…because what breaks your man’s heart, breaks yours too.
I am going now because I am getting maudlin and I might just get another hour of sleep…if i am lucky.