The day of the complaint
Marie was on early shift today and she took the opportunity to lodge an informal complaint with the Head Nurse on the Ward about the level of Karen’s care.

According to Marie, the Head Nurse concerned was very attentive and sincerely wanted to make things better and assured us he would have words with the main individual. Since this, Marie and I both felt that the care for Karen has definately improved. Let’s hope it is a sustained improvement.

Visit from ICU Outreach Staff
The Intensive Care Unit have a group of nurses who go out onto the wards to follow the Critical Care Patients for a few weeks after they have been in ICU. They visited Karen today, and it was Karen’s opportunity (with Marie assisting) to explain how poor her care had been at Ward 3. At times, she got upset during the conversation. They will take this back to the ICU ward so we may see some results from that.

General Health
kp was still lethargic today and hasn’t eaten as well as she could have. When we try and encourage her to eat, she reasserts that she isn’t a 5 year old. I won’t be pushing on this front again and may need to speak to a doctor/nurse to get them to have a word.

One of Karen’s wounds on the bottom of her back is weeping badly. It needed to be redressed twice today. This will not have been helped by the lack of turns she has been given. A new bed is on order for kp which will help alleviate bed sores, by changing pressure points every so often. She had one of these in ICU and it worked very well.

Visitors
Kevin visited today. He is the driver of the car that Karen was in. Karen was very pleased to see Kevin and vice-versa from what Marie told me. He will be off work for a few more months as his collarbone and ribs fix themselves. Kevin has some photos of the cars involved in the crash. Hopefully on his next visit, he will bring these and if I can I will post them on the blogsite.

Jane and Guy (my sister and brother-in-law) visited also. Karen really enjoyed their company and they brought with them a video of their 3 year old daughter (my niece) saying “Hello Karen. Hope you get well soon. I love you.” It was a bit prompted but this made it all the more funny and good to watch. We got a few smiles from kp out of that.

Karen then wanted to call her great-niece and nephew, which she promptly did. They were thrilled to hear from her.

Loves from Michelle
Karen was in need of a few hugs today. She didn’t particularly get upset but just wanted hugs. Karen doesn’t do hugs as a rule, and she is very choosy who she hugs, and Michelle was the chosen one today.

Not really much else to say today. The big fear for Karen and myself was that she would have another night like last night. To preempt this, Karen was put on a stronger sleeping tablet (Diazopam). I reassured her that this should do the trick and there was no need to be frightened etc….I stayed until she fell asleep and for a bit after. She was very asleep when I left, so, fingers crossed, she will get a really good night’s sleep.

Request for Visitors
Today was a good day overall and one of the reasons for this was a different set of visitors. So, if you would like to visit Karen, please contact Marie on 01642-284812 or 07961-346149 to arrange a time. We would love to see you. If Marie doesn’t answer, leave a message saying who you are, what time etc….

Boggett
Whilst I was trying to get Karen off to sleep tonight, she asked me to talk to her about nice things. I did the dogs, the garden, holidays. She started to get very sleepy and became quieter in voice and asked for me to tell her some more nice things. So I came up with some more. She became even more asleep. One of the last things she asked for was

kp:- Tell me some things about the Boggett.

She meant the blog !

Soon after, she was VERY asleep and didn’t stir whilst I made a racket arranging her buzzer, water etc…

Sleep well my love

dp
xxxxx