I arrived at the hospital at 8:18am to find Heather awake and having a breakfast of scrambled eggs and tea. This was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened this morning. She was washed by 9:31am and I opened the windows to the ward as it was beginning to get hot in there. She had a blood test at 10:22am and a glucose test at 11:29am. Exciting stuff, eh?
The physio people came along at 11:35am and told us that they would be doing more work with Heather tomorrow and should get her into a chair. It’s only been three days since they first said that.
At 11:50am, the speech therapist came by again and tried to get Heather to start making noises with her mouth. Although she can cough OK, she still can’t hum or talk. The speech therapist is going to refer her to an ENT specialist.
Just after midday, Heather asked for her phone. She was able to turn it on and read the text messages that had amassed there, but writing intelligible text messages is still a problem, as whatever she wrote made no sense.
It was during this period that another memory re-surfaced. She could remember back to the day when the ultrasound found her kidney stone. So more of her memory is returning.
Just as lunch arrived, so did the ambulance crew that was to take us to Weybridge for the MRI scan. I hurriedly got a bit of lunch into her before they transferred her onto a stretcher. We had nurse Tom as an escort, but the crew allowed me to come along as an additional escort. The journey to Weybridge seemed to take forever, but I think Heather was glad of a change to scene and appreciated some fresh air, even though it was still hot.
We arrived at Weybridge at 2:26pm and had a short wait before Heather went for her scan. The staff offered me a caffetiere of coffee, which we very nice of them.
The scan took little over an hour to complete and once we were settled into the ambulance, we headed back to Canterbury. The blues and twos came on as we went through Weybridge and I thought this was just to get us quickly to the M25. But, they stayed on for the whole trip. I’m pretty sure our speed topped 100mph during the ride back and I have to admit, I had sweaty palms during the ride.
After a superbly expert piece of high speed driving, we arrived back at the Kent and Canterbury at 5:41pm. Heather was taken back to her bed and we said cheerio to George and Amir, our ambulance crew, who kept us entertained during the previous few hours.
I spent a little time with Heather before leaving to make sure she was settled. In fact, she got hold of her phone again and actually started to call people. Don’t know if anyone managed to her here, but I’ve just spoken with her Dad who said that he, Margaret and Jake have spoken to her this evening. I think having to raise her voice to be heard in the ambulance may have progress her vocal skills slightly.
More progress today. Hoping for more tomorrow. I have to admit being a little jumpy about what the MRI scan results may hold.
I'm back at work tomorrow for the first time in three and a half weeks, so I'll have it on my mind as I try to cut through the backlog.
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