An interrupted night’s sleep ‘cos of bowel issues.

There is a certain patient on the ward who is always up and about and does things like picking up the ward telephone, shuffling through staff and patient’s notes and wandering into peoples rooms. If you say to the lady that she needs to stop something and head back to her room, she invariably does. She is a lovely lady meaning no harm by what she does and well liked on the ward.

Karen told me that in the middle of the night, this lady had come into her room. kp was half asleep at the time. She started playing with karen’s sheets.

kp:- X, you need to go back to your room.
Lady:- Why ?

kp got a little frightened (unnerved is probably a better word, but there was some fear in there) at this as she normally does what you ask of her. kp buzzed the nurses.

kp:- Because I am trying to sleep and you are wanted back in your room.

At this point the nurses came in and ushered the lady back to her room. I think this left kp a little unsettled at the time, but we were smiling about it this morning.

A very tired kp today and basically she just slept all morning having no energy for chat or bedbaths. Lots more bowel issues this morning meaning she again had interrupted sleep.

Fingers crossed for a better afternoon.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I forgot to mention that the “blood” lady came today to try and take some blood from Karen. She only managed to get a couple of teaspoons, which wasn’t enough.

A hectic afternoon for kp.

kp had a visit from the orthopedic consultant who did the surgery on Monday who assessed kp’s wound and the work he had done to see if it had improved. Unfortunately things have deteriorated. He was hoping to see less infection, but there is more, so kp needs another operation tomorrow. He had hinted that she may need a further op later in the week but not for this reason.

The need to get blood from kp is becoming an issue. Without blood, they can’t deduce what the infection is exactly, and without that knowledge they can’t fire the right missiles at the right bugs.

kp’s main stroke consultant accompanied the orthopedic consultant and after the latter had done his thing, the stroke consultant tried to get some blood from kp. He tried on numerous occasions to get blood but for “humane reasons” (his words) he left it. kp has the smallest veins in the world. We must get that in the Guiness Book of Records !

They still need blood from kp, so I think they are going to fit a central line, probably whilst she is asleep in the operation tomorrow. This is a line that goes into a major vein in the neck, but as regular bloggers may recall from Weeks 1-4, it can take a few hours to find these in karen. So tomorrow is going to be a long day.

kp was mostly ok this afternoon, but is getting more and more confused. We are sure this is because of her temperature, which has been as high as 39′C today. It seems to come down with Paracetamol but when that wears off it shoots up again. She couldn’t understand why Marie was here when she woke up this afternoon and “Where’s David ?”.

kp:- Am I in my room ?
Marie :- Yes
kp:- Are you sure ?
Marie :- Yes, definately your room

When Marie, Jane and Adele left tonight, they all said goodbyes and got hugs etc. 5 minutes after they had left, kp started a conversation about which I can’t recall, but I thought it was a bit of a strange conversation to have with me. And after a long monologue, she said

kp:- Don’t you think Marie ?
dp:- Marie’s gone love, she went a while ago.

Another strange thing tonight was kp’s eyes went to sleep, but she was awake. Let me try and explain. Her eyes were doing the Rapid Eye Movement associated with dreaming. Her eyelids were sometimes a bit open, sometimes closed (which is typical of kp’s sleep at the moment), so I could see them going from left to right, up and down etc. But she was holding my hand and we were doing Morse Code to each other with our hands. She would squeeze my hand twice, I would do the same back and things like that. Very strange !

The last thing she said to me tonight was

kp:- Thanks for staying with me tonight.

She knows I am not very good at visiting when there is no action going on. Tonight I just held her hand for 90mins. It’s as if she was awake the whole time.

This got to me as I was leaving the hospital and I had a few tears. On the way out, I told one of the nurses that I was concerned about Karen tonight. This is the first time I have had to say such a thing to the staff of Ward 22.

I feel like this moment could be a turning point. I hope (and if I were religious I would pray) it’s a dip in the hilly road kp has been battling so well, but I fear that it may be something more sinister. But, that’s the way I deal with things. I always have the worst in my mind, so I am not too shocked if it comes true. I am sure it’s just a case of me preparing myself for the worst as I have had to do so many times on this journey and kp will show us how much of a star she is.

Love you kp.

Thinking of you.

dp
xxxxx