Hospital Capers

10 June 2025. Quite a sad day for me. As described in my previous post, one of the few people in the ward I could talk to died in the wee small hours during last night. It's quite something though how discreetly they deal with a death in here.

And I should say right away that whilst I saw on a daily basis people either go home or transfer to a respite home for a short stay before going home, this was the only death that I saw, though one other chap came quite close and it was the chap in the bed opposite me. Again he had breathing difficulties and I became concerned enough to press my button to summon a nurse.

Anyway by the the time the ward was waking up he had been taken out and the bed was soon occupied by another, who was to have his own quirks to entertain the ward... Meanwhile the Shouter in the bed next to me who had ripped out his catheter the other night, did it again during the day and then protested vigourously that it "wasn't me!"

In one of the side rooms apparently a dish of porridge has mysteriously disappeared. The patient swears he hasn't eaten it and the nurses are all adamant that none of them has fed him. This gets referred to for a good 24 hours without the culprit being found slumped with distended stomach and traces of porridge on his chin...

11 June 2025. So yesterday afternoon I was hoisted into a chair for the day. All good until they hoisted me off to get back in bed and both legs started bleeding. But a step forward. I am in the chair again now. Going to have a scan of the veins in my legs as they are sticking out, looking like a map of the blood system like you see in Doctor' surgeries. I had been told I'd have to stand up which frankly petrified me. Now they have said they can do it on the bed. It's only an ultrasound so even so they will have to put jelly and then pressure with the reader so not really looking forward to it.

Today we have another new chap in the ward who arrived this morning. He tries to shout at The Shouter, who was screaming at being given a wash - "Shut up you silly man!" Well we all may think it but it doesn't do any good to say it. Meanwhile no word on the missing porridge...

12 June 2025. Yesterday tea time the chap opposite, just about the only one I could talk to transferred to a respite care home. It was his birthday and his family brought the most beautiful cake in to share. Anyway they moved my bed into his space so I now have a TV!

I went for the ultrasound on my legs today. This was originally supposed to be done with me standing and would take 30 minutes. Given that even sitting on the edge of the bed causes agonising pain and bleeding I was somewhat worried/petrified at the thought... the Physio team said it wasn't practical but the scanning team insisted and there was blood and my expression gave away the pain, so they eventually did it with my legs resting on the bed. A doc came round a bit ago to say there was nothing wrong with blood or veins and that no more tests or scans would be done on them. They now agree with what I've said all along, that it's the loss of flesh on the backs of my calves that is the cause. Not easy to cure whilst I'm lying on them in bed. They are going to formulate a plan. I hope it's a cunning plan!

The weather outside looks excellent but in the ward it is unbelievably hot. By early evening I suddenly felt sick, very hot and light-headed. The nurse on duty was the one I think of as a bull in a china shop, always a knee jerk reaction and then wants to be away. So I had a sick bowl given me with the all too familiar "Y'ok?" whilst already moving away. I asked for a fan and luckily he brought one and after a while I started to come round.

Meanwhile it was a quiet night for once. Except for the Shouter who this time pulled out his canula, the tube in the back of his wrist that allows a drip to be attached without need to insert another needle. He was in fine form as nursing staff had to repair whatever damage he was doing to himself, I kept hearing "Stop playing with it! Take your hands away from there!"

Another chap further down the ward was in one of those chairs with an alarm that sets off if you move too far forward. He kept nodding off though so it was going off all the time as he slumped forwards, until they could persuade him to get in bed. "It's not me setting it off - I'm not moving!" he kept insisting.

13 June 2025. A quick report on just ten minutes on the ward: the Shouter is having his mucky bits cleaned up: " AAAARGHH DON'T DO THAT!"
"We need to pull your pants up..."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The Swearer is yelling "FOFF" at anyone offering cornflakes or other cereals. Insert a space and extra text as required.

Another nurse is giving me so many pills it takes more than a full glass of water to take them, and another is peering over her shoulder asking if I want a wash.

The forecasted thunder is making us wait. It's almost unbearable in here, hot, sticky, stuck either in bed or in a chair that is even more constricting.

I started this a few days ago but have had to keep putting it down due to dozing and drawing long squiggly lines down the page! Anyway I think there's only one, oh perhaps two, oh sod it: three! that I haven't managed to disguise. This is the Loch Tummel Hotel where we stayed the other year up in the Trossachs region of Scotland. Ballpoint pen in the A5 sketchbook.

14 June 2025. Very little to report this morning but that's a good thing for me at least. The heat and humidity got to everyone yesterday and last night. Nearly all the ward was asleep all afternoon and it was a quiet night. I got woken a couple of times to be turned from one side to the other.

I didn't hear it, but Miss Franny said there was one large clap of thunder during the night. It must have been the other side of Poulton perhaps. The Swearer has been moved I think. I can't see properly now I'm on the same side of the ward. I will miss him. Like a bad migraine...

The Shouter meanwhile ushered in the day with a roar of imagined pain as the nurses tried to pull his hands away from his bum, which I gathered had been in action... The bloke in the next bed has developed the habit of turning each of his frequent coughs into an attempt to spit out phlegm from his toes upwards. Not exactly the best bed neighbour!

15 June 2025. I've had a quiet night again if you ignore being woken a couple of times to have blood pressure etc monitored.

I'm sitting in my bedside chair, which involves being hoisted in a contraption with straps under you and which you feel should be on the Pleasure Beach. But the nurses are very good at maneuvering it, despite my feet having to be held to stop them dangling down and causing a rush of blood and pain and in quick order them bleeding. Happily that didn't happen and I'm sitting here sketching Loch Lomond. From a brochure for a coach firm. How nice it would be to be sitting there on the banks - I should say the bonny bonny banks - of Loch Lomond.

I am looking forward to this afternoon and a visit from family. One of my favourite nurses, I suppose I shouldn't name her but she is from the Phillipines and is just a lovely person, had a look at the sketches in my sketchbook and said, "You have talented fingers."
"Well I have," I agreed, "but better not tell the wife..."

16 June 2025. I wore my Fathers Day present- a set of Spider-Man t-shirt and shorts and it set the nurses off into a big debate about whether Spidey or Buffy the Vampire Slayer was their favourite.

Then they brought this fearsome looking contraption like a sack truck with pads and footpads. I haven't been able to stand on my feet for about 4 weeks. Anyway with some apprehension I swung the legs out of bed, feet onto the footpads and shins pressed to the other pads. It felt a bit like one of those segway things where you lean forwards on a platform with two wheels to move forward and lean back to go backwards. It looked and felt as though it would topple and I was holding on for grim death whilst the pain in my legs was growing quickly 6,7,8 out of 10. But the nurse manoeuvred the thing so my back was up to the bedside chair just as the pain reached 9 which is where I can't help yelling and I was able to sit with some relief and then feeling proud that I had managed it.

The nurses had the whole ward applaud me and that was just a bit too much. I burst into tears. So many emotions in a short length of time... well, there were some tears of joy in there so I felt as though I had achieved quite an accomplishment and a huge step forward after not being able to even let my feet touch down for so many weeks.

At the end of the day I repeated the process to get back in bed. As my legs were redressed later it was obvious that the legs had bled quite a lot but the redressing was done with very little pain. I'm on the way back. It will take another few weeks but at last I feel as though I'm moving in the right direction.

17 June 2025. Wow, legs improving daily. The large wounds are starting to break up into lots of smaller wounds. After my success in withstanding the pain of being moved from bed to chair whilst being on my feet, I'm currently waiting for transport as I'm being discharged from hospital to a respite home. Unfortunately it's a 3 bus journey for Fran to visit so hoping for a short stay there so I can get home.

18 June 2025. Well yesterday we were told I was moving to Clifton Respite Home in St Annes. It would be on Ward 1 in a private side room. Later on Fran remembers Ward 4 being mentioned. There's a scurry of activity as all my stuff is bagged and nurses coming to hug me and say how much they would miss me. Well I'm afraid one won't...and the tale goes like this...

I've been a bit constipated for a couple of weeks and they've been giving me regular laxatives so approx every three days is a test of a bedpan capacity. So it was last night. The young male nurse removed the bowl, expressed his surprise and (I like to think) some admiration then as he carried it away... "AAAAGH! NO! OH NOOOooo...!" He came back later having changed into a rather vivid leaf green uniform and new shoes. "Well I will definitely remember you..." he said with a grin.

Tea came so I ate that like a good boy but after a few more hours I was wondering whether it would be that night or not. Anyway they came, I'm afraid I didn't get the time and I was pulled sideways off the bed onto a narrow trolley and wheeled outside where the transport ambulance was.

How can I explain that first lungful of clean fresh air after 5 weeks in a ward with 6 other men, one of whom took such pride in his farts that he has a collection of them recorded on his phone...

It (the fresh air) was exquisite, I breathed in as much as I could whilst the ambulance was opened, then a half hour drive on deserted roads to Clifton where they took me to Ward 4. "We are not expecting anyone, we have no empty beds!"

Onto Ward 1. Same response. The ambulance crew phoned Ward 2. Success! So here I am in a ward with eight men at least one of whom is extremely cranky and impatient and demanding to see 'the manager' when the nurses try to help him.

Meanwhile I am awake after a decent sleep and I can see greens, trees and blue skies out of the window next to me.

Family Memories: Personal Index

Cancer: Ultrasound, CT and MRI Scans

This article describes my experiences of having these three different types of scan due to my cancer. The first two, Ultrasound and CT scans, were mainly used whilst I was being diagnosed. Once it was confirmed thet I had cancer (two seperate tumours in adjacent segments of my liver) MRI scans became the norm.

I'm no expert on all these techniques so my descriptions will be from a patient's point of view, not that of a trained radiologist, doctor or scientific bod...

Ultrasound Scans

Let's take them in the order of how they seem to make people worried, starting with the least worrying of all: the Ultrasound.

The Ultrasound scan is taken with a hand-held device, a round tube attached to a wire. Before the scan takes place the operator will ask you to bare the area being scanned and you will lie down for the scan. The operator will apply quite a liberal amount of gel from a tube and smear it over the area to be scanned with her hand. He or she will be wearing surgical gloves for this. The gel can feel quite cool and a bit sticky. The end of the scanning device is then pushed against your skin through the gel and moved around whilst the operator follows progress on a video screen.

How long the scan takes will depend on the area being scanned - lots of folds in the skin can make it more difficult for the operator or any moving bits inside of you (I've also had this scan on my heart - which of course moves by expanding and contracting quite a lot) can mean the operator has to take longer.

Once the scan is complete you will be given paper towels to dry off the gel from you body and you can get dressed and leave. You won't get any results at the scanning appointment itself, it will probably take a couple of weeks or so before you get any results.

CT Scans

The CT scanning machine looks like a huge Polo mint standing on its edge on top of a table. You lie on the table which moves you into and back out of the ring or Polo mint which contains the scanning mechanism. This isn't too frightening - the ring is narrow enough for you to be able to see out of it both above you and befow you. You are not normally going to be restrained in any way though you will be asked not to move and to lie still whilst the scan takes place. This takes X-Ray pictures of your insides and a computer will later put several X-Ray scan pictures and create a 3D image for the doctors to look at.

You will experience the table you are lying on slide along horizontally whilst you lie on it until the part of you being scanned is inside the ring. For me, with my liver being scanned it meant that my head was almost clear of the ring and I could look around and admire the plain white or grey walls of the room or by looking slightly down I could see that the inner surface of the ring had a clear panel and that bits of clever-looking machinery was spinning around at times whilst the machine did its thing. Not a frightening experience. You will probably be wondering why you were so apprehensive about it by the time you are being told you're finished.

Again you will not receive any results from the scan for a few weeks after the appointment.

MRI Scan

MRI means Magnetic Resonance Imaging - these machines use powerful magnets to create an image of your internal organs. They are very powerful. If you inadvertantly were to have anything made of iron or steel on you or implanted in you - watch, jewelerry, nose rings, metal plates in your skull - this machine could make them suddenly start whizzing off in any direction, including with you in the way, at something like 400 miles per hour. You shouldn't need me to give the kilometres per hour equivalent to know that this is something you might wish to avoid... But just in case it's around 643.738 kilometres per hour... It might make you wince a bit. For the final time...

Luckily before you even get to your appointment you will be sent a letter asking you about any conditions or implants that might affect your suitability for having such a scan.

Once you get to the hospital for your scan they will take your letter and go through each point with you to ensure that [1] you understand the importance of it; [2] you understand the individual questions and [3] you have answered it correctly. You will now have a canula inserted into a vein in the inside of your elbow. This is a tiny needle prick and once the needle is inside a vein a bendy plastic tube will be slid down it into the vein and the needle withdrawn. You don't need to be frightened about having to keep your elbow rigid as there will be no needle left inside to snap off.

The canula attached to the tube is a much thicker (but I'm only talking about 1/2 an inch or 1 cm or so) tube that is basically a syringe. You may have to have a dye solution pumped in halfway through the scan - I'll talk about that in a bit. You will also be asked a few simple questions about your health.

The next step will be to make sure you are not carrying anything in pockets or in parts of a belt or in clothing or on your person that might be attracted by the machine's magnetic bits. Depending on the area to be scanned you may be asked to undress and wear a gown provided by the hospital. (You don't want bits of your fly zip or bra strap to start off at 400 mph do you?)

Now you will be taken to the scanning room. The nursing techinicians will lie you onto the table of the machine which will be taking you into and out of the machine - a tube quite a bit longer that the Polo mint of a CT. My drawing of an MRI machine above gives you some idea. You will be inside this tube for some time. I can only speak for myself. Scanning my liver involved having a fairly heavy plate placed over my stomach area for the duration of the scan. I've also had scans of my head/brain where I had to have a brace or mask made of plastic placed over my head to ensure it didn't move. It was more of a cage than a mesh so there was plenty of opportunity to see through it.

If you look for images of MRI units online they look a lot shorter than I have experienced and always have a cheerful nurse doing something and smiling reassuringly. In reality they will make sure you are in position on the table and will give you a rubber squeezy bulb in one hand which is a panic button to press if you can't cope. Note that I said "can't cope" and not "feel as if you can't cope". It is in your own best interests to go through with the scan until the end. They will then leave the room and go to monitor you and the progress of the scan from a safe place. You don't want their fly zips and bra straps flying at you either... At intervals they will ask you how you are doing and will reassure you during the scanning process.

My own pet phobia is of being in a constricted space and therefore before my first scan I was wondering how I would cope. When it came to being inside I did want to squeeze the bulb about halfway through (bearing in mind that for me (again I have to stress that point) for me the scan took somewhere between 20-30 minutes inside the machine. Which is incredibly noisy. You will have ear plugs and headphones placed into and over your ears but even so... Anyway, if you squeeze the bulb you will come out but you are going to have to try again from the start at some time. With that thought I managed to control myself enough to carry on. I'll be honest, I might have whimpered a bit once or twice but then just shut my eyes and braved it out. There's nothing to see anyway except the inside of the tube unless you really strain your eyes upward to see out of the top end.

You may have to have a dye injected into you via the canula in your wrist about halfway through the scan. This helps show up certain areas being scanned. It might feel cold and you might actually feel like you are urinating, but you won't be. All this will be explained to you before the scan and you will be told when the dye is going to be introduced.

It felt like a cool breeze was being blown by a fan down from the top end of the tube and that helped. The machine gives out a lot of very loud noise: clicks, gratering sounds (which are many clicks in quick succession I suppose)... At one point a pulse started in my forehead in time with a a particular beat from the machine. I actually thought water was dripping on my head but no.

At times during my scan I had to hold my breath to stop my lungs from moving the liver about. By default most MRIs ask you to breathe out and hold your breath. I can't do that. As a life-long asthmatic breathing out was always more difficult than breathing in, so when my lungs were empty I was in sore need of filling them again. I asked the technicians and they were happy to change the messages from the machine to ask me to breathe in and hold my breath.

I got through that first MRI. By now both due to the cancer and other side effects I've had around 30 of those scans and familiarity breeds acceptance. They don't worry me anymore. By the third one I was "Ok, so let's get this done and over with shall we?"

Once the scan is done, the operators will come back into the room, slide you out on the table, make sure you are not feeling dizzy or anything before sitting you up to get off the table and sitting you down on a chair before taking out the canula and making sure you are not going to bleed all over the place. I take blood thinners so require quite a lot of pressure on the spot when a needle or canula is removed.

So I hope that helps by knowing what such a visit to a scan might entail. Remember that these are my own particular experiences, yours may be slightly different. But it is definitely more frightening before experiencing it than it is when you are having it done.

Results will take a few weeks - four at least, though I am currently awaiting the results of my 31st MRI that was carried out six weeks ago... If I have anything else to tell you it is this: Be brave and go through with it. Far better to have it done so that any treatment can start that much more quickly. As always I wish you Good Luck with your treatment.

Cancer and Leg Ulcers Index
Family Memories: Personal Index