Saturday 3 April 2010

Easter Egg?

Finding a doctor in a haematology unit is like finding an Easter Egg in a piece of software. Everyone tells you it's there, but finding the right combination can be tricky!

It all started yesterday, well Thursday I suppose. Mike had his Pamidronate on Thursday and yet again it made him feel ill, by evening his legs had swollen and he was getting a lot of bone pain. He took some pain killers before bed, but was restless through out. I was aware that he was tossing and turning and did ask a couple of times if he needed anything, but I didn't wake up enough to realise how ill he was feeling. When morning came and I took his temperature it was 38.2. Oops, how did I let it get that bad! So I called the CHU, and after an eternity someone answered the phone.
"What's the problem?"
I explained.
"Can it wait until the day case staff arrive?"
I don't know you silly woman is what I was thinking!
"I'll call you when they arrive."
5 minutes later the phone rings.
"I've just realised it's a bank holiday and there are no day case staff. Can you take him to EAU?"

Now I'd never heard of EAU and thought she had meant AEU you know Casualty or ER.... I was wrong, there is something called an Emergency Admissions Unit. Wow you learn something new every day! The staff there were brilliant, by now Mike was completely spaced out and the question and answer session was mostly with me. It made me realise just how important it is to have someone with you when you are going through all this MM and treatment. Mike couldn't remember much more than his name never mind what treatment he was having and on which days!

They took him off for a chest x-ray, gave him fluids and IV antibiotics, anti-sickness drugs and a nice dose of Tramadol. The Tramadol just about finished him off and no sense was had from him til tea time, although he did manage to eat his lunch, poached fish in parsley sauce!

After about four hours in EAU Mike was taken up to the CHU, (just in time for his aforementioned lunch. ) Eventually the consultant on call, Dr SH turned up. Yet again I had to explain Mike's treatment. (Why weren't his notes available on the ward?) Yet again I got the impression I was talking a foreign language, worrying as I was talking to a haematologist! May be it is me!

Well I'm off to visit Mike now. They've already told him he won't be discharged today, so I face a second night alone, good practice for Mike's SCT. (If i was a suspicious person I might think that Mike is trying to tell me something, tomorrow was going to be a day off from work for him, with no appointments to interrupt our day! He's managed to get out of it!)