Hospital Log - Day 2

Hello there

Quick update before I tell you about my second day in hospital;

Time of writing: 2:54am this morning, after the FIFTH pain attack of the last 24 hours.

Writer’s location: My house (discharged to manage my way through it at home)

Stone Location: Still shy and nestled inside the host (although occasionally stomping about without warning.

Present mood: Worn down, antisocial and miserable.

Weather: Mostly Clear, 0 degrees (H:11, L: -1)

Right, let’s go back to Tuesday. Which does contain a bit of graphic injury (just not mine).

I actually had a relatively pain free evening, and was settled quick.  People look at me like I’m mad when I say I like being in hospital, but I really do.  Not the pain stuff, those bits aren’t welcome.  Not any embarrassing examinations or having to have blood tests like they’re going out of fashion.  The moments of being laid in a bed though, isolated, with all responsibility removed by necessity, absolute bliss for me.  Genuinely, that’s the word.  When the ward lights go off, and you’ve got the curtain drawn around you, usually dopey from whatever painkillers you’ve had to have, and the physical slump in the aftermath of the drama.  It just feels very cocooned and very safe. Even with the knowledge of the horrors to come as this stone sluggishly does a tour of my insides.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning though, that was something to worry about in the future, and I just lay myself back and drifted in and out of sleep.  I had plenty of entertainment in my waking moments, as the old man in the bed opposite was determined to insult every nurse that visited him.  I think, in his defence, he was trying to be funny, but it was coming off a little sharp.  He called one nurse a “vicious old bugger” for changing his canula, and accused another of enjoying “knocking crap out of us old fellas” because she came to take his blood pressure when he was asleep. The chap in the bed to my right (there were three in the ward), was swearing angrily every time the man opposite me spoke, and I maintained my presence as the calmest patient, as well as the most charming in my interactions with the staff.  Headphones with rain noises went on and I drifted away.

Unfortnately, noise-cancelling headphones mean you don’t hear anyone coming, and the tap on my foot that woke me with a start wasn’t the best start to the day.  It was also at 7am, and by a lady informing me she was there to do my bloods, which was an even worse start. I’d forgotten about that bit.  I barely managed to mutter about being bad with needles before she was jabbing into me, reeeeeally painfully, and I missed the nurse from the other week who did it so amazingly.

Trainspotting 3.  Again, apologies for Canula.  And yes, I am aware I was wearing that T-shirt at the screening on Sunday.  I left home in a rush, thank you.

First thing in the morning in hospital, if you’ve never experienced it, is like Blackpool on a hot day.  Loads of people rushing around, doing breakfasts and tests and changing sheets, and it’s so noisy. Pretty overwhelming.  All the more disorientating by the fact that there was now a completely different bloke in the bed opposite me. I assumed the worst, and was glad the other one had been narky to the end, before finding out he was just shifted into another ward in the middle of the night.  I bet he’d have loved that.

The new chap was a Tory Counsellor.  I know this because he was announcing it to every nurse that went near him.  Ok, he didn’t actually say he was Tory but I might have googled him. He was asking where they lived and then saying “I just wondered if I represent you”.  You know the sort of thing. Then reeling off his CV of what industries he’d worked in and all that. Just kind of showing off a lot, and I could hear the nurses losing patience with him.  And nurses should never lose patience (patients – great gag). Eventually, as he told his autobiography for the hundredth time, the nurse simply said “Oh.” He just carried on his tale.  Eventually she said “Well, it doesn’t sound very interesting.  I’d keep my head down…”

As she left the ward she saw me laughing and winked at me.

Here’s what I can tell you about the pain of kidney stones.  The counsellor fella was also in with kidney stones. I hoped he had also been through A&E and seen what these warriors are dealing with, rather than it being something written on a bit of paper on his desk.  So he knew.  I felt – perhaps unfairly, as I knew nothing about him other than his party – that he had responsibility for the tip.  Yet, when I saw him an hour later trying to get into a position in the bed that wasn’t agony, saw every spasm and wince, there was not one iota of satisfaction.  Not even a brief “yeah have some of that”.  I’m not hugely wired that way anyway, I don’t tend to take any joy in the misfortune of others, but I certainly couldn’t take joy in something that I know so well.  I know what that feels like, and it’s a time where the phrase “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy” comes into play.

That all said, I probably would wish it on my worst enemy.  I just need to work out who my worst enemy is.  There’s loads really.

As it turned out, I had a few chats with Counsellor Tory through the day, and a few good-natured arguments too.  It was actually as easy as debating with Dodds. At worst he was just a bit of a wally, but generally a perfectly nice man in conversation.

I had a bit of a gaze out of the window beside my bed, and was comforted that I could see my car from it.

Not sure why it was a comfort really. I think just the idea that part of my team was with me.

So, the urologist arrived pretty early and went through what was going on with me.  There was no mention of surgery, which was different to the last time I went in (the week before the premiere).  Actually, there was no mention of kindey stones at all to begin with, because he introduced himself and then suddenly said “Is that an iPad Pro!?” before grilling me on what I used it for and demanding to see my work.  I showed him some of my art stuff and he kept saying “No! Really?  Did you do that? No!” whilst his accompanying student nurse looked on baffled.

Eventually, after he’d told me about his YouTube channel (I am not even joking), we got onto my downstairs disturbances.  He said the notes said it was a 5mm stone, but he thought it might be slightly smaller than that, which was good news.  We still have to wait to find out who was right about it, if it ever reveals itself to the outside world. He put me on Tamsulosin immediately, which I rolled my eyes at, and he asked what my problem was with it.

You might have heard me speak about this before.  It’s a bit gross and definitely too much information.

Tamsulosin, basically widens all your tubes down below.  It’s used for kidney stones, to ease passage, as it were. One of the side effects though, not that this could be further from my mind at present, is it also causes retrograde ejaculation. This means that when you…finish…there is no receipt.  Nothing comes out.  It’s diverted into the bladder for some ungodly reason, and deposited when the bladder does its job in the toilet department.  I’ll hopefully only be on Tamsulosin for a week or two tops this time (please, please), but once I was on it for three months.  That’s when the disconcerting side effect came into play, if you’ll pardon the wording. To this day I am grateful that I bothered to read the leaflet in the pack (and googled what it meant) before I experienced it.  Had it just happened with no prior knowledge, I would have been convinced I’d finally broken it.

The long and short of my urologist consultation was he was confident that I’d pass it myself without intervention.  He also asked if I would consider doing some logos for his YouTube channel.  Again, I am not even joking.

The bloke in the bed to the right of me got moved to another ward in the early afternoon.  Just as I was typing that, it occurred to me that both blokes who were there when I arrived got moved.  Might they have requested that?  It didn’t occur to me at the time, but maybe it was something to do with me…

He was quickly replaced with a young lad who had a bad cut on his hand.  I heard him explain to a nurse that he worked in a slaughterhouse and had been doing some of his butchery left-handed, even though he was right handed, and he had basically – this is the graphic bit – sliced through his right hand.  Right across the top of all his fingers.  I was gearing up to tell my great story about the time I worked in a butchers shop in my teens and put my thumb into the bacon slicer because I was flirting with a lass, but when I found out the extent of what he had done, I decided to not mention it. He was gonna be having emergency surgery to reattach tendons, so they were rushing through all the admissions questions, as well as fawning all over him because he was a strapping young posh boy.  I wasn’t jealous or anything, but knew my days of being the nurses charmer were over.  Not like it’s the first time I’ve been pushed to the side for a strapping young posh boy is it?

So they’re asking him all these questions, and I’m like four foot away, so had no choice but to hear.  I did have a choice not to chip in though, which turned out to be beyond me.  At one point she asked him if he had any problem swallowing, and no sooner had he said “No”, before I did a loud “Ooooooh”. I’d done it before I even realised what I’d done.  I will also add that, despite him going through that horror, and having to suddenly have an operation to save his dexterity, his blood pressure was still significantly lower than mine.

That’s posh kids though innit?  Don’t know they’re born.

The rest of the evening was spent, perhaps as karmic punishment, with a couple of pain attacks for me.  All well dealt with and managed by the nurses, and I was a very brave boy too.

I also spoke out loud to my own arse in the bathroom, when the blocking effects of morphine had become very apparent.  “Look, there’s enough things going wrong here without you twatting about as well”.  Top of my voice that was.  Out loud.  As I said, you just have to lose every bit of dignity in hospital.

And perhaps sanity.

Really hope you are doing all good there.  Apologies for no WTMDS yet, but obviously recording has been a long shot.  I'm mentally shredded enough without having to make head nor tails of that nonsense.  I promise it shall arrive as soon as possible though.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Much love

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