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From Twitter 06-09-2010
Jun. 10th, 2010 03:01 amTweets copied by twittinesis.com
Jun. 10th, 2010
Well, I haven't really blogged for a while (the Twitter posts notwithstanding), so I suppose a short update is in order. On June 4th I was kicked out of the hospital with loads of antibiotics and other medications in a bag. HWMBO came to help me home; we took a taxicab as hospital transport is only for patients (short-sighted, that). I went home with the £10,000 vacuum pump still attached to my foot and my PICC line still in my arm.
Not much else has been happening as Professor Edmonds has forbidden me from walking around. I am allowed to "potter" around the house, though. The scene which greeted me when I got home was a bit daunting. HWMBO, with all his great qualities and I love him dearly, will become like the Collier Brothers when I go to the Grand Lodge Above. He piles stuff up anywhere, including my post, which I asked him to put next to my computer. The back garden is a tip, with lots of nettles and various other weeds poking up through the underbrush. I bought a new lawn mower, as the old one had crapped out, and got holy hell from HWMBO, but we are waiting for a few nice days to be able to put it together and tackle the back garden. I think we need a gardener (Fat chance of that, of course—). I don't fancy being a back-seat driver as HWMBO tries to mow the lawn, which is something he's never done before.
I have mastered the art of sleeping with the vacuum pump tube passed over my body to the pump housing which is stacked on the floor. I don't like it, but no choice unless HWMBO and I change sides in bed, which is not bloody likely.
The District Nurse (=US visiting nurse) has come every day except those days I go back to the Foot Clinic. I take a bottle of antibiotic which they infuse into my PICC line. However, on Tuesday the PICC line wasn't working…the plunger of the syringe wouldn't push the liquid into my vein. Panic. We call the Foot Clinic and the Professor says to give the antibiotic intramuscularly by injection and they would try to clear theline on Thursday. Well, no lignocaine with this injection so while the original prick didn't hurt at all, when I tried to sleep on my sides it felt like there was a needle in the bed poking into my hip. Wotta pain.
Today I went into the Foot Clinic by hospital transport. I have been forbidden to take the bus (I might have to stand waiting for it or stand while riding it) so I was told last night to be ready for 7 am. You guessed it…it didn't arrive until 8:30 am. Well, that was a pain. When I got there, I was seen by the Inpatient Wound Specialist who has been taking care of me in the hospital. She said that the wound was healing very well and thinks the vacuum pump will come off for half the week starting on Monday. However, my foot and leg are a bit swollen (probably because I can't walk on them very much but also don't elevate them enough. So I have a compression bandage on my foot and leg as well.
The nurse in the Foot Clinic cleared my PICC line, but the IV Nurse wants to have a word with me to PICC my brains about the line, which is a new kind they're trying out. I'll give her an earful. The line is too narrow and the closure clip too fiddly (as compared with the other one I had, which was wider with a better clip). The other one never clogged, and it was opaque, so if blood ever got into it I never knew it. This one is transparent, and I must say I freak out when blood wanders in from the vein. I find that blood is much more use inside me than inside the PICC line.
So I'm back home. I have to do my US taxes, as the deadline for out-of-country filers is June 15th (we get two extra months). I also have to do my friend Carol's, which is a chore I do only out of pity, really: she is a cancer survivor who is out of remission now and I don't have the heart to tell her that I really don't want to do it any more. She has a very complicated return (she has two properties in Hawaii which she rents out, as well as some Social Security, military pension, and the like). I am always totally exhausted when I've done it. Luckily mine is very simple for 2009: about £10,000 in wages and that is it. 2010 will be even better, as I am not earning anything and won't have to file a return.
Not much else has been happening as Professor Edmonds has forbidden me from walking around. I am allowed to "potter" around the house, though. The scene which greeted me when I got home was a bit daunting. HWMBO, with all his great qualities and I love him dearly, will become like the Collier Brothers when I go to the Grand Lodge Above. He piles stuff up anywhere, including my post, which I asked him to put next to my computer. The back garden is a tip, with lots of nettles and various other weeds poking up through the underbrush. I bought a new lawn mower, as the old one had crapped out, and got holy hell from HWMBO, but we are waiting for a few nice days to be able to put it together and tackle the back garden. I think we need a gardener (Fat chance of that, of course—). I don't fancy being a back-seat driver as HWMBO tries to mow the lawn, which is something he's never done before.
I have mastered the art of sleeping with the vacuum pump tube passed over my body to the pump housing which is stacked on the floor. I don't like it, but no choice unless HWMBO and I change sides in bed, which is not bloody likely.
The District Nurse (=US visiting nurse) has come every day except those days I go back to the Foot Clinic. I take a bottle of antibiotic which they infuse into my PICC line. However, on Tuesday the PICC line wasn't working…the plunger of the syringe wouldn't push the liquid into my vein. Panic. We call the Foot Clinic and the Professor says to give the antibiotic intramuscularly by injection and they would try to clear theline on Thursday. Well, no lignocaine with this injection so while the original prick didn't hurt at all, when I tried to sleep on my sides it felt like there was a needle in the bed poking into my hip. Wotta pain.
Today I went into the Foot Clinic by hospital transport. I have been forbidden to take the bus (I might have to stand waiting for it or stand while riding it) so I was told last night to be ready for 7 am. You guessed it…it didn't arrive until 8:30 am. Well, that was a pain. When I got there, I was seen by the Inpatient Wound Specialist who has been taking care of me in the hospital. She said that the wound was healing very well and thinks the vacuum pump will come off for half the week starting on Monday. However, my foot and leg are a bit swollen (probably because I can't walk on them very much but also don't elevate them enough. So I have a compression bandage on my foot and leg as well.
The nurse in the Foot Clinic cleared my PICC line, but the IV Nurse wants to have a word with me to PICC my brains about the line, which is a new kind they're trying out. I'll give her an earful. The line is too narrow and the closure clip too fiddly (as compared with the other one I had, which was wider with a better clip). The other one never clogged, and it was opaque, so if blood ever got into it I never knew it. This one is transparent, and I must say I freak out when blood wanders in from the vein. I find that blood is much more use inside me than inside the PICC line.
So I'm back home. I have to do my US taxes, as the deadline for out-of-country filers is June 15th (we get two extra months). I also have to do my friend Carol's, which is a chore I do only out of pity, really: she is a cancer survivor who is out of remission now and I don't have the heart to tell her that I really don't want to do it any more. She has a very complicated return (she has two properties in Hawaii which she rents out, as well as some Social Security, military pension, and the like). I am always totally exhausted when I've done it. Luckily mine is very simple for 2009: about £10,000 in wages and that is it. 2010 will be even better, as I am not earning anything and won't have to file a return.