The Stench

I can’t get rid of the stench of the hospital.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been in a pretty bad place regarding my Mum; fighting a system that… Well, you’ll see what I’ve been fighting.

My mum was due home yesterday. After they’d finally put her (at my insistence) on antibiotics last week (I’d paid a lot of money to speak to a consultant who insisted it was the right move), she seemed to improve to the point where she was ready for discharge. Over the week, I hadn’t heard anybody mention confusion or delirium…

Until last night. Apparently, the delirium returned just before they were going to send her home. I don’t know why that is except they only gave her five days of antibiotic which ended on Saturday. Far be it for me to suggest the two things might be linked. They’ve also refused to put on the prophylaxis dose recommended by the consultant urologist because it might “upset her digestion”.

They have, however, treated her confusion with a drug that Wikipedia says had the side effect of “an increased chance of death”.

Figure that logic out for me and send it to me at my current location: the arse end of hope…

So, “no” to an antibiotic that has been proven to work…

But “yes” to a drug that can have some really awful side effects including making delirium worse.

As for my Mum: she was better than I’d expected, but not as well as I’d hoped. She looked hospital-sick, as in the process of going into hospital had taken more out of her than perhaps her underlying condition. She seemed over medicated (see above) and really drowsy. I felt awful for sending her in and I am now freshly determined to get her out.

They’d asked me in to talk about the way forward and a “care package”. I realise now that I was being railroaded. I don’t think I was every really listened to. I proved a helpful summary of the past few weeks which they said they’d find helpful but I guess will never be read (yes, like so much of what I write)…

Anyway, I’ve consulted widely among friends who were around online tonight and my sister and myself have decided that tomorrow we’ll try to get our Mum home as soon as possible. The confusion wasn’t as bad as it’s been in the past and I think she’d improve with proper home cooking (or as well as I can provide) and getting out of an environment which is clearly making her deeply unhappy. There’s no medical reason for her to be there and I’m sure they’ll be happy to free up a bed. I know this is going to involve far more caring commitment from me but I know there’s help available when or if I need it. The plan now is to get her home. This is not how anybody should have to dress to meet their mother for the first time in three weeks.

One thought on “The Stench”

  1. Crikey!, that’s not good, normally they can’t wait to get rid of patients.

    This is from a recent email from my sister about my 83 year old uncle.

    “had pneumonia & sepses of the lungs about 18 months ago he was in hospital for about 2 weeks
    I told them that he couldn’t be sent home without help as he was on his own & I couldn’t look after him, so they walked him up a set of stairs & sent him home anyway. Luckily
    I was going & checking on him because he couldn’t get up the stairs at home & he probably would have starved to death he was so weak.”

    Can you actually get her discharged?, from a legal point of view I mean?

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It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?

Really?

Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.

So this is satire, right?

Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.