Friday 30 May 2025. The stay in a nice quiet side room was short lived. I am back on the ward again but in a different bay and in a corner next to the wall. From the private room I could hear someone every night shouting the place down sounding as though he were in great pain. It turns out he does this at the slightest touch, having a wash or having his pyjamas changed. The poor chap has dementia, so it's not his fault.
But now I find he's in the bed next to mine and now getting any sleep is an issue. This morning I was told they were going to get me out of bed this afternoon and into the bedside chair - a huge affair that looks like I'd need a ladder to get into it.
Anyway I didn't get as far as testing that particular scare... I swung my legs over the side of the bed and the pain started to build quickly as gravity pulled blood into weakened arteries and veins. As my feet touched the floor I was gasping with pain and then heard a nurse match my gasp and when I looked down there was already a pool of blood two feet in diameter, leaking from both legs and spreading quickly. I've never been bundled back into a bed so quickly in all my life.
Afterwards I had a visit from one of the doctors who regularly gathered around the head consultant on his daily rounds. He said something about "that must have been a very scary experience for you," and then went on to say that their top "leg man" would come to see me.
I'm not totally sure if my memory is playing tricks on me now. This really happened but I'm not sure if it was on this day or later after another "event" once I'd been moved to a respite ward in Clifton Hospital a week or so later.
The leg man turned up with a very broad Glasgow accent. He looked at the left leg. "Aye that's quite nasty!" he said, then uncovered the right leg. "And that's *verra* nasty!"
"Have you ever had a mouth ulcer on your gum or inside your cheek?" he asked. "Well that," he nodded at the left leg, "is a hundred times worse. And that..." a nod at the right leg, "...is a thousand times worse!"
I'm not coming home just yet...
