No news as such.

Just to let everyone know there is no news. The hospital is still in the dark about Mike's illness, although he has now developed a chest infection, possibly from aspirating some food. A very nice lady came from SALT (speech and language therapy) to assess Mike's swallow. She has put him onto a dysphagic diet until Monday when she will come back and reassess him.

Yesterday was generally not a good day. By 9:00 am Mike was so distressed by the lack of painkillers (he'd been asking since 4:00 am) that he called me and asked me to come and help him. Luckily I am only a 15 minute walk away, and by 9:30 am was installed in his room. I say installed, because there was no way I was going to leave and no way Mike wanted me to. Let's just say some of the staff are great and some less so. Mike was so incapacitated by his headache that he could hardly move. I was able to ask for iced water to rinse around his mouth, put the pillow cases back onto his pillows, wrap a jacket around his shoulders, they had put the drip in during the night when he didn't have a top on and he was getting cold. I pestered them for painkillers, which he eventually got at 11:30, probably because I said he wouldn't be able to have the lumbar puncture until his head was a little better. By 2:00 pm Mike's temperature was 38.5 (a fact that was not passed on to the sister in charge) and so when at 4:30 pm the nurse came in and I mentioned he seemed a little delirious from his temperature, she said what temperature. It was at this point that the chest infection was discovered and the antibiotics started.

I realise that all sounds like a really big moan, but the truth is that a week has passed, Mike is no better, in fact worse when the chest infection is considered. Every other day a different doctor comes and looks at him, asks him exactly the same questions, does exactly the same examination and says exactly the same thing, "we don't know what it is. "