An Interesting Twenty-Nine Hours

This is rather a long narrative, but as this journal is where I record my daily life and events, please feel free to ignore the rest of it. Today’s blip started off with a title of ‘An Interesting Twenty-Four Hours’, but then there were further events.


Yesterday afternoon at 1455 hours, Mr A moved slightly and was in absolute agony with his back; large doses of morphine did not have any effect. Our daughter came round and dialled 999 for an ambulance. A paramedic in a car arrived first saying that Mr A would have to sit in the car, or walk to Addenbrookes; I took an instant dislike to him even before he opened his mouth. However, he was followed quite quickly by a proper ambulance with ‘laying down’ facilities; this had been sent from London as being the closest ambulance available! They were also talking about heart doctors and the helicopter! After much Entonox they managed to get him down the stairs and into the ambulance where they waited for thirty minutes to stabilise him and drink the tea and coffee I made for them, before driving very slowly to Addenbrookes. Nicola went with him and I followed in my car so we could get home again, he was admitted into A and E at 1936 hours.

At first they were going to send him home until I pointed out that he could not sit in the car and how did they expect me to get him home? They finally admitted him to a ward at half past midnight, in a bed they had available in one of the transplant wards. Today after seeing a senior consultant whose name we do not currently have, he has put him on a higher dose of morphine as well as some other medication; they then sent him home again in a ‘laying down’ ambulance; he arrived home at 1830 hours. They are trying to bring the MRI forward as well as doing some other tests, the consultant today was amazed that they were making him wait, in his state, for almost six weeks for an MRI; his opinion was that surgery would be required.

Having said all that the first paramedic to arrive was actually very good, once he realised that he was dealing with someone with severe pain, rather than just someone with a minor back pain. He found that out because he bumped the bed as he went in; I will not repeat what Mr A said! The first paramedic then went in the ambulance to continue to administer Entonox and the ambulance personnel who should have been in the back of the ambulance drove the paramedic car.

This is where the twenty-four hours should have stopped, however, at 1900 hours this evening, the nurse who had looked after him today, telephoned to say they had not sent the new medicine home with him. To be fair the ambulance drivers who were bringing him home were hassling the nursing staff as they were at the end of their shift and wanted to get home. So this evening I drove back to Addenbrookes Hospital to collect the medicine, hence the new title of twenty-nine hours.

I took this picture this morning when I went to visit him; if I had been awake enough I might have taken it as I came home last night as it was already after midnight. The Grumpy Old Git will be back-blipping himself sometime tomorrow.