The next person who says, ‘you look tired’ I will personally murder. Or course I look tired. I’ve been in this hospital for a week with three blood infections that have names I didn’t write down for fear I’ll look them up on The Iuternet and scare myself to death. My living will doesn’t cover throwing my hands up in vain and shouting OUH VEY . When I last checked this was not a beauty farm although it is the Harley Street Clinic and in the area there are hundreds of Botox and plastic surgeons. I’d give anything to be with one of them, but I’m here, looking tired. I’ve been on three different antibiotics and have a nebulizer, oxygen, and whatever is trying to make me look less tired and not succeeding. Also my hair is falling out in handfuls, slowly and torturously. Look tired, no, I look like a wreck going somewhere to happen.
The hospital is a kvetcher’s paradise. If you can’t find anything to kvetch about here you should give up you rights to complain. From the moment I put my foot in the door things to complain about flowed. No bath in my first bedroom and a large hospital chair sat in the middle of the shower. The first thing the officious nurse did was to rummage through my suitcase and take my drugs. Then the doctor on call ‘borrowed’ my drug list and went off with it never to be seen again; well it was only the first hour of the first night.
I won’t go on day by day, but one can complain in general.
1. Being woke up at 5 in the morning for antibiotics.
2. Having your blood pressure taken every hour or two. Does it change that much? This is the one I can’t understand. I think the robotics people at Imperial College London are working on a robot to do this. Hurry is all I can say.
3. Nurses that make the blood pressure cuff so tight you could easily scream and defiantly should scream.
4. Nurses who forgot half your medication and disagree when you tell them they’ve forgot.
5. Never enough blankets. Is this a developing country? Asking for an extra thin blanket is never easy especially when you really want two extra blankets.
6. Pills you are supposed to take left in small containers next to your bed and you come across them the next day.
7. Twenty five to thirty year olds who trained to be speech therapists and physical therapists by memorizing the book. They look like something out of “Mad Men/,” dressed to the height of office protocol. High heels, sensible dress (translate, boring) or suit, make up perfect, hair perfect you already hate them and they haven’t opened their mouth yet. One such speech therapist and I are going to come to serious blows. Instead of admitting that she never did a proper swallowing assessment, she surreptitiously showed up during lunch the next day, no doubt to watch me swallow. She kept insisting that I was perfectly all right. Fortunately, I have a more experienced speech therapist with some authority who sorted everyone out in no uncertain terms. I won’t go in to details.
8. Nebulizers that go over your nose and mouth are to be kvetched about. They are never given at the right time. The noise interferes with TV; it wakes you up just as you are drifting off, and greets you at 6.30 in the morning. AND nurses leave it on and say they will be back in ten minutes. Ha. They never come back unless you call them and it is difficult to figure out when it is finished. After several days I asked how you turn it off. Now after ten minutes, off it goes, I have to get out of bed to do it but it is worth it and after ten minutes of whirring I’m fully awake anyway. I tried to close it off a few days later and it exploded. (Maybe best I keep my hands off of it.)
9. Now this is personal. Disposable underpants. The ones they supply in the hospital are diapers. I don’t know how long it is since you’ve diapered anyone, but pampers are a long way back in my history. I was faced with a complex diaper, half asleep, and wondering when I could lie down again. I found a friend who found some proper disposable underpants that look like they are supposed to look.
10. Within sight I have Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel) with only 100 pages left to read and about 10 other books, DVD’s and my blog to write and I’ve felt too tired to do anything. It is worth complaining when you have no other symptoms besides tiredness. There is nothing to get your kvetch into like vomiting (well you know the list).
Now that I’ve had my Kvetch I feel better, Of course the staff here is very good and the care excellent, but I kvetch to visitors and to myself mostly. I think it is therapeutic. Since I have no voice only a whisper and English is not a big first language around here, I don’t do any real damage.
Anyway, Chemo is cancelled and I’ll be here another week. Today is the first day I’ve felt able to blog, so I will try to keep it up.
"Have any cards for someone who's just kvetching?"
Another Kvetch, they didn’t find my Advil PM supply. Like any good American I managed to get Advil brought in (it is illegal in the UK) and NO ONE WILL EVER GET MY ADVIL. (Don’t worry about addiction; it is just my security blanket.)
