The Curate's Egg

The last 10 days, since 8th Sep, have been a mixed bag, like the curate's egg ... good in parts!

I had the op on my right knee at about 9am on the 8th and it went very well. Came to again about 11am. They'd put an extra shot of juice down the right leg so I had no pain on waking which was very good. The worst thing about hospital is the bed-pans! I don't know what brain donor designed them but they are excruciatingly painful as well as being scary ... you might tip up! they do nothing to encvourage you to drink or get your bowels moving again, both of which are viatl parts of healing.

That said the care was pretty good, only a couple of half-baked martinets attempting to bully me ... needless to say, they lost! the food however is atrocious. Cheap, cheap, cheap, not organic, badly cooked, tastless. Well no, even that's wrong! It mostly looks ad tastes as though it had been scrounged from the compost bin about 3 days back! Don't the admin powers realise that good food speeds healing? Stupid question, sorry, of course they don't.

Then there was the discovery that there are 9 managers supposedly looking after the ward I was on. There are only about 30 beds in the ward, for goodness sake! All the managers are earning at least twice what the nursing staff get for doing bugger all except clog the system. What a terminal waste of money. Could have been spent on more nusres, better food, a good chef who knows how to cook well within the budget, etc, etc.

Then there's the stupid practice the hopsital admin do ... they don't have enough nurses so, for the first half of the financial year, they hire in angency staff at twice the cost of NHS nurses. Then, come Sep, they realise the budget's shrunk a lot so they stop hiring agency staff anf there's a shortage of staff throughout the hospital. Can anyone tell me why brain-donors are the only one's who get these management jobs ??? Tick-box degrees and no joined-up thinking.

But the knee itself is great. the pain (toady) is NOT great, in fact it's bloody awful! I would cheerfully swallow a gallon of morphine but no chance of that. I'm just off to my first external physio in a minute, will report back. Physio, so far, is excellent if painfull. Am stuffed to the gills with codeine ... *g*

Knees, hospitat, Spinning & stuff !!!

Hospital today at 15.30, always difficult and a strain although they are mostly very nice in there. It's a new hospital, opened only abut 5 yrs ago, but the design is abysmal! there are lots of clinics that have no windows and only air conditioning, very enclosed, dark-feeling, generally unpleasant. Humans are not supposed to be troglodytes !!! My blood pressure usually goes up slightly when I have to go in.

But it all went pretty well. I don't have MRSA so they can operate, got lots of advice about exercising befreo the op to build up my quads ... and this includes spinning !!! Wheeeeeeeee !!! I have a double tredle Ashford wheel (the Kiwi - see pic on left) so both legs get exercised equally and it works the quads. I've also just been given 4 Shetland fleeces. and last Samhain Fion gave em a present of 2 more, one of which is a Shetland/Merino cross, absolutely fabulous. and there's an enormous load of white Ryland that needs spinning up for dyeing. Plenty to do *g*. My knees will hurt but we'll live, it'll be fun, I need the wool and it's good for my legs. The pic on the right is one of the Shetlands whose fleece I'll be spinning.

I went on to the diabetes clinic to see if they needed to tell me anything and to tell them when the first knee op is to be. MInor shock here - the senior nurse say they won't operate if my blood/sugar is out of control. I'm going to have to work really hard at my diet! Not too difficult right now as the garden is full of lovely stuff. No sugar !!! And try to stay down on the steroids but that will really be difficult if I'm spinning as well as gardening. the knees, especially the right, are so painful I want to shoot myself! I go for an HBA1C blood test on Wed, then to see the senior nurse asap after that. She's promised to help me get the B/S sorted.

I've also changed my desk-chair to a real orthopaedic one - feels very odd still but that's just about getting used to it. It is making me sit up better.

Stuff ... I'm now nervous in case the won't operate if the B/S isn't well enough under control !!! You have to laugh ... a few months back I was terrified to let them operate. However, it relaly does make a difference having a surgeon I feel complete trust in. Whatever ... I shall hoik the wheel out later and get carding that Ryland wool, then to get my spinning fingers back again :-) ... it's all go LOL