Today I arrived at the hospital to find it as hot as ever. Heather didn’t get much sleep during the night due to the heat (I guess none of us did, but in hospital you can do nothing about it – no fans, no opening windows, no aircon, nothing). I bought in my electric travel fan and it was in use for most of the day.
Upon checking her possessions, I found that Barley (her new toy dog) had gone missing. I checked all over and couldn’t find her anywhere. However, she did eventually turn up. Heather was sleeping on top of her.
Heather told me she had had cereal for breakfast, but I’m not entirely convinced she did. Dr Potter came round at 9:40am for the ward rounds. He is still happy with her progress and confirmed the MRI scan tomorrow.
Shortly after the ward rounds, we were visited by Ruth the occupational therapist. She asked us questions about how Heather might cope when she got home, including questions about the layout of our house, whether it has banisters, if there are a lot of steps into the house. One thing is for sure; I’ll need to clear up a bit. Visitors to our home know that we have a lot of clutter around. As Heather may require some aids to help her move about, I’m going to need to clear our walkways of clutter so that Heather can walk around with minimal risk of tripping (I may have to tie Gizmo down)
After her wash, John and Nicky arrived. John had bought some apple juice along at Heather’s request for something different to drink. Nicky gave her sister a hair wash with dry shampoo and tried to comb her hair. However, weeks of having it scrunched up has put it in a tangle. After her hair was done, I got out the collection of get well soon cards that I’ve been amassing for the last few weeks. When we’ve read them to her in the past, she’s always burst into tears, but I felt the time was right to give them to her to open, now that she can open and read them herself. She had a bit of trouble with opening the envelopes, but her muscle strength isn’t that good right now.
After John and Nicky left, lunch came. Today we had ordered sausage Lyonnaise and vanilla ice cream. It doesn’t sound much, but at the moment it’s enough to satiate her hunger. At 2:10pm, Auntie Maureen made a surprise visit (well, surprise to Heather anyway; I knew she was coming). She stayed for a little while before my Mum and Margaret arrived. Both agreed about how hot it was in the ward and I have to say even as someone who is well, it was unbearable. How can people be expected to get better in an environment like that? No wonder Heather is dehydrated. Although she can drink on her own, she still isn’t drinking enough. When I want to rehydrate myself, I usually drink five mouthfuls of water every twenty minutes. Heather is barely taking a sip of juice every half an hour. I’m going to have to increase my nagging in that respect.
Mum left at 3:45pm and we met Martin in the canteen for a quick drink and recap. After I returned to Heather and Margaret, we had a visit from Dr Costar who confirmed the MRI scan was still on for tomorrow at 3pm and said that we would likely to be leaving sometime between 12:30pm and 1pm.
Margaret left at 5:15pm and I stayed with Heather for a little while longer before leaving about 6pm.
She was supposed to be sat in a chair today, as she hasn’t been out of bed for a week. But despite that arrival of a large chair, it never happened. Also, I’m still concerned about her fluid intake. She must increase them herself or I’ll have to suggest that she goes back on a drip. To me, day-to-day care in that ward is not as good as I want it to be. I’ll be bringing up some of these points at tomorrow’s ward rounds. I don’t want to have to kick butt again like I did last week, but I will if things don’t improve and I have the resources to get it done.
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