Holiday
in Hospital
I spent Thursday 16 – Tues 21 July in Southampton General Hospital with what
turned out to be norovirus exacerbated by the underlying bowel cancer. It is known as the 'vomiting bug', but the action can occur at either - or both - ends of the digestive system.
Lucky I've got
cancer!
I could have been stuck
for several hours in A and E
suffering the same debilitating symptoms…
I was able to attend the relatively queue-free Acute Oncology unit, a ceiling monitor in which is shown here.
I took my degree in
PPE
so I’m pleased to see a study room is set aside,
implying that such knowledge
could be useful here.
I didn’t check, but
suppose it’s possible the reference was to Personal Protective Equipment rather
than Politics, Philosophy and Economics (which I studied at Oxford University, 1977-80)
Turns out I have norovirus
I'm not claiming to enjoy it,
but at least its highly infectious nature
means that I get my own separate room.
Although I'm pretty
positive
I'm negative about the two hours of jabbing
it took to fix me with a cannula.
Still, that's finished now.
A combination of bad
veins made worse by chemo and thick blood due to dehydration meant that a
succession of nurses and doctors struggled in vain (ha!) to insert a cannula
Of norovirus
people tell me ‘You don’t need that!’
I’m tempted to agree
but, then, who does?
Forty poos in sixty
hours
has felt a lot, but who’s counting?
Actually, Steph is counting as I text her,
and the doctors are keen to know.
Given that doctors always want to know the frequency and nature of bowel movements, we have long maintained a spreadsheet setting that out. When I'm away, we use Steph's maintenance of the record as a convenient, if unromantic, point of regular communication about that and any other matters.
The essence of
treatment
is to replenish
the 60% of me
that’s water.
In hospital
you get a lot of night,
and, waking every couple of hours,
there seems a lot of night to see.
The spousal support
is wonderful here:
visits, advocacy, data gathering, snacks, newspapers, clothes...
I'd recommend all hospitals follow the model.
Not only that
but Steph must add hoovering, ironing, doing the bins
and watering the garden in this record heat wave
to stop the stomach noise
from keeping me awake.
Hospital dinners are served surprisingly early in the evening. Some people swear by the intermittent fasting created by the resulting 15 hour gap, but I reckon you need to be in good health to follow that regimen.
I resent being woken
for observations -
especially when this
is the only thought with which I come around.
My nurses take blood pressure and temperature readings several times daily, with 02.00 being a popular time.
Five days now in this one room
At least the view out -
of the corridor I’m missing -
doesn’t increase my regret.
Perhaps I could have ended my holiday sooner, but doctors set the target of reducing diarrhoea incidents to my usual cancer-affected range of 4 - 6 per day before they thought it sensible to discharge me
Cancer life may not be long
but we’re on to our fifth Prime Minister
since I started out!
20 July: Boris Johnson was
responsible for the pre-diagnostic beginning of my cancer journey in 2022, soon
followed by Liz Truss (5 Sept – 24 Oct 2022), Rishi Sunak (25 Oct
2022 – 5 July 2024), Kier Starmer (6 July 2024 – 19 July 2026) and
now Andy Burnham (from 20 July 2026). Burnham is an outlier: the first of those
not to have studied at Oxford University and the only one I’ve advised in meetings (in 2009-10 when –
appropriately enough – he was Secretary of State for Health and I was Financial
Controller for Social Care at the Department of Health and Social Care).
Hand me the scissors!
No longer will I need to know
my name, address
and date of birth.
I was discharged after
a five night stay. It is standard procedure to ask patients to confirm those
details prior to any test of treatment, to make sure you are the right person. I
have partially redacted those details of personal data.
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