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Hospital, again... Just when everything was going well we're hit with another problem. The weekend with Mark was great. We didn't do much, just slept and ate and I messed around on the internet. I felt great and happy and better than I have in such a long time. I honestly feel like a weight has been lifted from me and I'm looking forward to getting my hair cut in a few weeks time. I've set my mind on having it cut around my shoulders and maybe have a bit of layering depending on how it looks. I just want to stop the 'dragged through a hedge backwards' look I feel I'm getting. I think it's getting a bit too long and would prefer something a little funky and stylish. Not that I ever do funky or stylish all that well. Anyway, yes the weekend was good and we came home on the Sunday evening a little earlier than usual. The plan being for me to shower here instead of over there and as Mark was staying here until lunchtime today it wouldn't matter if he felt a little more tired than he usually did. When we got home we were told that Dawn had just been taken to hospital with pneumonia and pleurisy in her right lung. Her breathing was awful, her lips and fingers blue and her chest was rattling and wheezing away. I hadn't seen her since Friday night and although she had said she felt unwell she wasn't that bad, I felt guilty but I'm not sure why. After trying to reach my other sister, but to no avail – she's on holiday in Wales for the week – I left her a text message giving her a brief message and asked her to call. Mum assured me Dawn was in the best place and being on oxygen was starting to perk up even before they left her. Sunday night I felt awful, I just couldn't sleep, a combination of worry and heat keeping me awake and leaving me tossing and turning throughout the night. Poor old Mark didn't get much sleep with me beside him, at least he's on holiday! I went in to work Monday morning and told them what happened and was then told to just go home and see how she was and help mum out with things for her. I did as I was told although we didn't go in to see Dawn until that afternoon so I went to PC World with Mark so he could buy something for his mum's computer. Whilst out there I bought myself a new digital camera and accessories, although I didn't get to bring it home there and then so we are going back on Saturday to pick it up. I felt like a right little skivver but I know at work I would have just worried and not concentrated on the jobs I had to do. Plus I was so up to date with my work I'd have been staring out the window anyway. When we saw Dawn I was told she looked a lot better, she wasn't so pale and was sitting there with an oxygen mask constantly on. Sunday night the reading of her oxygen levels in her blood was 75 and not the usual 96 it should be, but she was back up to the right level and was to be basically weaned off the oxygen until she could maintain that level in her blood and move freely without losing her breath. She'll be kept in hospital until then. I went in to work this morning and booked the afternoon off. I couldn't stop yawning, I was so tired. I very nearly went in to two cars on my 5 minute trip to work in the morning, there was no way I could last a day. I guess it's all the worrying from Sunday night and possibly a bit of shock that's caught up with me. This afternoon I had a few naps and am feeling much better, however I will be having an early night just as soon as I've finished this entry. I saw Dawn this evening and she did look better. She had a lot more colour in her cheeks and was talking better, although she is still on oxygen for a lot of the time. All day she has been waiting to leave the Emergency Care Unit (A&E) to go to a ward and when we left she was still waiting although she'd been promised to go there sometime tonight. I'm hoping she's there now. The ward she was on is awful, the nurses don't really seem to care about the patients well-being. Mum and I have had to help Dawn wash and change her underwear and just general things you'd think a nurse would be doing, after all it is what they are paid for. This evening when we asked for another jug of water for her, because we didn't know where the drinking water was, I was just thrust the jug and told to “run along now like a good little girl and get your big sister and nice jug of water”! I couldn't believe it. I very nearly smacked the nurse for saying that. She was no older than me and I just don't think she should have spoken in the way she did. Being tired meant I was grumpy and she said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time and I very nearly blew my top (that was after seeing how she treated some of the other patients and bullied an elderly man) but I didn't because I knew Dawn would get worse treatment had I said anything. Instead I just moaned about the incompetence of the staff and how they obviously had nothing better to do than stand around the nurse's desk talking about magazines. I know a lot of nurses and medical staff work really hard, but this lot are unbelievable. I don't expect to go in to a hospital and have to do the work of the nurses for them, what next, shall I become the cleaner or offer everyone cups of tea? Grr, she just really got up my nose. Still, hopefully tomorrow we will see Dawn in a proper ward and being cared for and monitored like she is meant to be. She hasn't been given her medication half the time because of the staff. I'll send her a nice bunch of flowers, she already has cards, just to show I am thinking of her even if I do have to be at bloody work. Maybe, if I play with the camera, you might get some pictures too! Ohh, aren't you the lucky ones!! |