The Dog's Blog

Hi all!

Thought it was about time I let you all know how my life stands at the moment. Actually, this is the probably the first time in days that I’ve been able to sit down and concentrate on writing…

Quick Re-Cap: As most of you know, the last four weeks of my life have looked something like this:

• Admitted to hospital just over 4 weeks ago for a routine hip replacement operation.
• Operation carried out next day.
• Went home 4 days later.
• 32 hrs later, re-admitted to hospital with suspected Deep Vein Thrombosis.
• Went home 4 days later.
• 5 days later, re-admitted to hospital with suspected infection. Wash out of joint carried out later that day. For those that don’t know: A wash out involves re-opening the original wound and using pressurised water to clean out the entire joint. A nurse told me that it was a bit like watching someone using a high pressure hose on the side of a building!
• Kept in hospital for observation.
• 9 days later, further wash out carried out, as joint was again showing signs of infection.

It is now 6 days since the last wash out, things are – if anything – getting worse and, obviously, I’m still in hospital.

Since undergoing the first wash out I’ve had to receive 2 lots of blood due to a low red cell count; I’m hooked up – several times a day – to receive 2 different types of anti-biotic and, I take so many pills that I probably rattle!

Yesterday, it was decided that the artificial joint itself was perfectly sound. So, the next step is to examine my immune system to see if their is something physiological that is ‘objecting’ to the presence of the new joint.

Yesterday, I had to make a very scary and very personal decision. An immunologist advised my consultant to carry out tests for just about everything under the sun. If a test comes back negative, then cross it off the list.

This approach I don’t mind at all – I’m sick of the constant pain, discomfort and lack of freedom; thank goodness I can at least use my laptop now and again.

I don’t mind this approach for the very simple reason that I want this thing resolved. I want my new hip to work like they do for other people. I want, most of all, to be able to pull my boots on, throw some stuff into a rucksack and disappear with Coy for several hours.

I am, however, somewhat scared at what this approach may turn up. For instance, apart from things like diabetes and anaemia they’re also checking for blood tumours and such.

But for me, the really scary bit is that I had to give consent for them to test for other ‘nasties’. C’mon, don’t be dense; I’m talking about HIV, Hepatitis and other such things.

OK, it’ll be a relief to get the all-clear about these latter ‘discomforts’, but – and it’s a big but – what if…by some chance…by some freaky chance…one of them returns a positive result?

All well and good that it’s been discovered and the correct treatment can be given. What about the social aspects though? A dashing Casanova I am not, nor have I ever been remotely interested in sticking a needle into myself.

Extremely unlikely I know, but believe me, I won’t rest easy until these particular items are firmly crossed off the list.

Anyway, until things are sorted out and my life is given back to me, there will be spasmodic posts here at The Dog’s Blog. I’ll also be making flying visits to the forums and blogs that I follow.

Until I’ve something else to say, it’s goodbye from me and it’s ‘woof!‘ from Coy!

The Day Dawns

6.00 am: Alarm goes off but doesn’t wake me; it can’t do as I’ve been awake for hours – thinking of nothing but the events that would unfold later today. It all basically boiled down to three possible outcomes:

• I’d be found fit, and have the Hip Replacement sometime in the next 5 weeks.
• I wouldn’t be found fit, and would have to wait somewhat longer.
• They’d find something else, probably incurable, wrong with me. (You shouldn’t be surprised, remember my fears over ‘The Big C’ earlier this year?)

Time for idle thought was not for now though, things to do and all that. Threw the duvet back, leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom, sprinted….

Yeah, yeah…I wish! Slowly eased myself off the mattress, managed to stand with no major disasters and limped arthritically and painfully to the bathroom. Put tracksuit on and slipped into pair of wellies about 3 sizes too big for (they’re great…no hassles bending down, just slip your feet into them with no problem!), picked up Coy’s lead and…

…wait just a minute pal…where’s his lead; in fact…where the hell is Coy? Sudden firing of certain synapses reminded me that he’d gone to Iain and Christine’s the night before – to save me just this type of hassle. Oh well…perhaps they would find more wrong with me later, like a failing memory!

Threw back the curtains and, because it looked so lovely out, I left it out…causing Mrs C across the road to faint for the second time this week. Put on coffee, got evil ciggies and fired up laptop. Visited favourite forums and blogs, checked e-mail; pretty much the usual start to the day for us geeks.

Quick wash – whilst eyeing the bath longingly – into clothes, check watch: 7:50 am – perfect! Time for a quick ciggie before transport arrives.

Transport arrives…at 09:25 am and we’re off. Stand outside Golden Jubilee National Hospital (Glasgow) and admire architecture. Up to outpatients – not bad, only 10 minutes late and no-one seemed to mind, so decide not to castrate driver with a blunt spoon. I dunno, I’m becoming such a softie in my old age…

Park bum on seat and resign myself to a long wait. They’ll do it on purpose just out of spite, I know they wi…..jump to attention when my name is called and follow lady in indicated direction. Into room stand on scales and – wow! – I’m impressed; 81.6Kg (about 12st 8lbs in real money) – lost some weight last few months. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was under 13 stone! Must be all the worry…

Height measured…strange, I’ve also lost 0.5 of an inch since I was in the Forces…low overhead ceilings I guess…

Get swabbed up nostrils in case I’m carrying MRSA into the hospital. Another one of my fears, so I was really happy to see it being taken seriously.

Actually, the Golden Jubilee takes the matter very seriously indeed; you can’t walk more than about 15-20 feet down a corridor without finding one of those alochol-laced gel dispenser type thingies. And, they’re there for everybody to use. I used them myself a few times, mainly ‘cos they are accompanied by big, frightening letters that just, well, seem to dare you not to use them.

Anyway, where was I….? Oh yeah. Led to toilet, handed sealed tin-foil tray and told to come back with piddle in it…or not to come back at all. Also handed sterile swab kit and told not to come back without swabs of both sides of my bollo……..errr…genitals. (I promised someone that I wouldn’t use rude words in this one…well, not too rude anyway.)

Managed both tasks without getting damp patch on front of jeans or getting swab stuck in embarrassing – and no doubt, extremely painful, position.

And then….then I was taken….well, to be blunt…I was taken to the Golden Jubilee’s equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.

Young nurse came in, introduced herself to me and told me she was a student and started laying out the leads for an ECG machine. As she worked we chatted about how she was enjoying nursing and was impressed by the enthusiasm with which she talked about her chosen career.

I later realised that she was, of course, playing ‘good nurse’. Let’s call her ‘speakswithforkedtongue‘…’Nursey’. A minute later, her senior colleague…’supernursey’ came in and started to interrogate me about my medical past.

“You had this in 2006 – why didn’t you declare it?”

“Sorry, I forgot…”

“Forgot?!?!? Try to think harder or things will be very difficult for you!”

The last was said as ‘nursey’ started donning vicious spike-covered surgical gloves…I gulped.

“You broke your humerus in 1964. Again, you failed to mention it.” (At this point, ’supernursey’ slowly, deliberately and menacingly removed a plastic funnel, a length of plastic tubing and a 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke from under her desk.)

“Gis a break” I screamed, “I was only bloody six years old…”

At this point I turned my head and started eyeing the leads of the ECG machine in a totally different light.

“Und now…ve vill Now, we shall take some blood from you.”

“Look, couldn’t I just post it to you” I answered desperately?

‘Supernursey’ then started prodding at the veins in my right inner arm with a kind of manic gleam in her eye. Busying herself with various things, she asked ‘nursey’ if she could identify any ‘juicy‘ veins. Juicy!! Aahh….c’mon….

‘nursey’ confirms that she has found not one, but 2 two juicy veins. ‘Supernursey’ nods her head and congratulates her. Prodding one of them she declares ‘Yes, but this one’s nice and bouncy as well!’.

The rest of the session went OK…until in desperation, I ripped the ECG leads off my own chest thinking I would deny ‘nursey’ the satisfaction of giving me a waxing – y’kow something? It hurts like bloody hell when you do it yourself!!

Those of you that know me, know that I generally only take the mickey out of people that I’ve really liked being in company with. Both the nurses were wonderfully cheerful, professional and, thank god, not above the odd joke or two!

When I said I’d blog my experiences tonight, the student (obviously, there is no way that I’m going to use real names – but they know who they are) told me that she’d show her child how famous her mum was. So, I’ve had to tone it down….

The rest of the day went very smoothly: X-rays, the surgeon and the ward doctor were all exceptionally good at putting me at my ease and answering all my daft questions.

I can’t wait to go in for my operation – but will totally understand if my notebook and pen are confiscated by staff!!

Thank you all for being so informative, professional, polite and smiling through it all!

See ya soon!

This has been a very trying time for me. Those of you who may have read a recent post will know what I’m talking about. But my predicament positively pales into insignificance at the things I’ve been reading this past few days.

For the past 2 or 3 days I’ve been unable to get about as much as I normally can. Coy is away with friends as I can’t look after him or take him for his walks. What have I been doing?

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