Somebody Get Me A Doctor Part 1

Have you ever laid in a hospital bed and listened to the chatter of the nurses? Its particularly interesting, especially if your room is right by the nurses station. As I sat by Paul’s bed, in a short space of time, I learnt that Amanda needs to swap shifts with someone because tomorrow afternoon, she needs to pick up her new car in Gosford. She leant her old car to a girlfriend who smashed it. Amanda was upset but she’s getting a new car out of it. Rohit has got date night tonight with his wife but he has no idea where to take her for dinner. Sonia is meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time on Friday night. She is super nervous because, from what she has heard, his mum has been super judgemental of all his exes. Paul slept through the whole nurses handover so I had nobody to gossip to. I went back to flipping through the TV channels trying to find something decent to watch on hospital TV that wasn’t the breastfeeding channel.

Only a few days before, at home, Paul was coughing and spluttering before he started hissing at me. He was not well. He temperature spiked to 37.9 degrees and his breathing wasn’t right. I couldn’t wait until the long weekend was over to call the doctor. I had no choice but to call an ambulance.

Pneumonia on the right lung likely from aspiration (fluid going down the trachea.) It was time to brace myself for another hospital battle. I am not having a dig at hospital staff here, but they just cannot compete with the superior care that Paul receives at home with 2 Support staff 24/7. They soon realised that Paul’s medication and feed regime was quite complex. The nurses needed a quick lesson in using Paul’s PEG tube. But even then, they were happy to allow me to do all the work. Lucky the support staff packed the entire house into a small duffle bag.

My tone with staff had become a little more curt as time passed. Perhaps because I kept having to repeat the same information to each new nurse and doctor that popped their head into Paul’s room. I handed them a copy of Paul’s medication and feed regime and bluntly said “Read that.” It was nearly midnight, I could feel Paul burning up and nobody was doing anything about it.

The fun had only just begun. From being refused to see my husband to a 24hr hospital lockdown, we were in for another awesome hospital holiday, pandemic style.

Vicki xoxox

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