Bay Watch 11

Bulletin 11: Monday 3rd May 2010

Fantastic – cable free, I am able to visit the shower room to wash and shave, though it's too painful and tiring to take a shower yet. A departure tomorrow is looking likely.

Visiting time starts at 2.15pm. Nightmare. Why can't the great British public read and comply with the straightforward requests: two adults and no young ones? Ted at one stage had four adults and a two year-old crawling around (the two year-old was doing the crawling, not the adults, who were cooing with the child-worship all too prevalent these days.); he looked totally knackered once they had all departed. Perhaps they all want rid of him. Walking patients hoping to by-pass the chaos and escape to haven of the Day Room are foiled: it's full of kids running riot - kids who've been dumped there by their parents and told to be quiet. The Bass bed was the only compliant one during the whole of my stay. My favourite nurse, Sylvia, tells me that this is the norm, and that it's not been unknown for visitors even to change a baby's nappy on a patient's bed.

I am visited by Tracey, of the Wound Surveillance Team (I kid you not). She surveys my wounds, pronounces all well, and moves on. Another box ticked in my 'Clinical Pathway' documentation, which is not unlike a scheme of work, mapping out what has to be done when.

Tuesday 4th May
Actually showered and shaved myself this morning. Slow and tiring but a great sense of achievement when done. My last set of x-rays and blood tests have come back OK. The lovely Namita from Physiotherapy takes me on a gentle walk and explains what I have to do over the weeks ahead. She shows me how to walk up and down stairs, which I find I am able to cope with quite well.

After lunch I'm given a briefing by Sylvia, some paperwork and a month's supply of drugs. I'm wheeled out about 4.00pm and en route thank George for his cabaret during the course of my stay. We manage to drop in on Keith, who's got Heather with him. He's delighted that I'm out before him, but is bitterly disappointed still to be in. I hope we'll keep in touch.

What a very educational experience it's all been. The highlight of it all was the amazing staff and teamwork, from my consultant down through the lovely nurses to the John Barnes-lookalike cleaner who cleaned through the Bay several times daily. Many of them had been on the staff for more than five years, and some more than twenty, citing the usual reason: it's a nice place to work. I take my hat off to them all, but at the same time will be very happy not to have to see the inside of a hospital ever again.