The Carpentry and the Return
I was lucky enough to be required at the hospital at a reasonable time, long after the crack of dawn, to have a good friend to take me and to check I surfaced from the anaesthetic in a reasonable way before heading to her own home. Unlike the first two staff I’d encountered, staff in the theatre suite, irrespective of position was a refreshing group of people, who were smiley and appeared happy to be at work. Ensuing days produced more characters of both ilk among staff and patients including one, who after being moved into my room during the night then thought it perfectly OK to turn on her own TV on at 5.30am and jolted me awake. The registered nurse who was present hadn’t considered it necessary to stop her at any stage. It came to the patient’s notice that her neighbour was not happy about the noise so there was high drama with tears and repeated moving of bed and lockers. A day or so later she was replaced by a delightful, chirpy, elderly woman who lent me her magazines to read which I did between my regular “nanna naps”. If only I could remember I would know all the latest doings of today’s celebrities. I was lucky enough to be well away from occasional prolonged drawn out wailings which were no more than a distant backdrop to the normal hum of a ward.
My discharge date was a movable feast which was OK by me. The hospital appeared keen to receive feedback with someone running around with some kind of machine to record it. The person responsible wasn’t around prior to my departure and by that time I couldn’t be bothered. Nearly a lifetime of working in areas of nursing and rights creates a certain mindset which sees issues and room for improvement where others see nothing amiss. What Son Number 3 calls my negativity. On the whole it was a satisfactory experience and in many ways superior to days of old but with room for numerous areas of improvement. The ward resident was a competent, kindly soul for whom I have great expectations.
Jessie’s alimentary tract didn’t cope with long incarnations in the house during my hospitalization and she was soon ejected to an outside existence. Fortunately the weather had improved and the dogs coped with the slightly warmer nights. They continue to live outside at night as I don’t have the energy to be up and down to them nor the ability to clean up accidents. However, Phantom was sick yesterday and I had to find a way of cleaning it without, hopefully damaging my hip.
Son Number 2 visited yesterday as part of his “Checking on Mother” and “Playing with the Dogs” exercise. Since I am frightened of going down the back steps onto a hard surface I asked him to feed Floyd. It should have been a simple exercise of sticking an arm in the aviary and tipping the seed into the bowl. When I looked out the door he was on his haunches outside the aviary with Floyd on his back. Floyd had attacked and bitten his ear. Fortunately Floyd decided to fly back into the aviary rather than off into the wide blue yonder. I’d been told Floyd didn’t like him but never seen it in action before.
Today a couple of friends visited. We had a lovely picnic in the sun and then they did a few jobs, including the walking of Kerry and Phantom. Poor Phantom hadn’t walked far enough to relinquish the lead from his mouth before I’d had enough and returned home. He has a cute way of walking with his lead in his mouth until we get a fair distance and then he’s prepared to release it and put everything into investigating the aromas along his journey. It will be a long time before I am steady enough to walk him; need to concentrate on walking myself which is pretty boring.
Other people have helped me in various ways over the last weeks. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to making my life and that of the critters less difficult.