Ad meliora

I’m still at the Civic for another night and thoroughly enjoying my window.  It’s silly, isn’t it, just what a huge impact the window has on my mood.  Today I spent a lot of time sitting up and just people watching.  I know that I spent too long sitting because my back is spasming and the muscles are extremely painful, but, and I can’t emphasize this enough, there is a window and I could look outside at greenery!

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A room with a view

So I did.  There were people walking around, birds flying, and I think that there was at least one squirrel running along a branch.  After 3 full weeks of seeing only drab green curtains, I’m perfectly happy to sit and look at the tree!  And that even meant murmuring Wordsworth to myself for a bit.  

Apart from my tree watching, we removed the last of my extraneous tubing and pulled out the sub-clavian triple lumen central line.  I know more medical terminology than I’ve ever needed for everyday life, and I also recorded the tubing being removed.  I’m happy to share the video with anyone who would like to provide me with an idea of where and how to share it, as it’s too large for many email clients.  I’m not keen on publishing on YouTube, so… your creativity is welcome!

Judging from the hospital home page, visitors are again extremely limited, so I will just have to continue with blogging and responding to your messages as and when I can.   My new location will be at the General Hospital Rehabilitation Centre (aka TOHRC) in Ward B, room 2111-2, in case anyone wanted to send along emails or cards or messages via the website https://www.ottawahospital.on.ca/en/good-wishes-form/   Many thanks to everyone who made use of this service!! It’s so uplifting to have someone drop off an envelope with a note, and very cheering to read (and reread) the notes  I’ll have some fun later on doing scrapbooking— another project to occupy my mind for a while!

I’m hopeful that there will be a window there, but I’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.  I’m due to transfer just around lunch time.  I could not have Don visit me here, as their policy requires that visitors be pre-cleared and approved with some length of time, and there wasn’t enough to allow him to get through.  So we talked on video chat, while Jerry ostentatiously ignored me by concentrating all of his energy into keeping his ears from flickering when I spoke!  My nurse kindly braided my hair, so it’s all tidy tonight.  I feel calm and relaxed tonight as I had no pressure today.  The pain is still quite high when I move around and I’ve been using my pump a few times to manage it.  We’re not making any more changes to the medication tonight as I’m changing programs tomorrow, so we’ll keep everything stable and track from tomorrow. I actually got some sleep last night, so we are hopeful that it can be repeated tonight; it would be marvellous to have several solid hours of rest.

I think that I need to spend a few minutes to thank my medical team here.  In the over 3 weeks that I’ve been here I honestly have lost track of how many doctors, nurses, technicians and other personnel have seen and cared for me.  Some of them were more regular in visits than others, so it’s easier to recognize the pain management doctors from palliative care, for instance, than the anaesthesiologists who I met in the OR and then perhaps once after.  As I noted, I’ve met hordes of people wearing blue surgical masks and either safety goggles or face shields  who are all indistinguishable from one another.  The level of care, though, shines through the anonymizing factor of the mask.  

I’m still a little concerned at how challenging it can be to communicate with these people when you’re in pain, or when there are significant decisions to be made.  Most recently was the decision to go to rehab.  I’ve been honest about the conversations that I’ve had, and the difficulty I’ve had in feeling heard.  I’m sure that part of my challenge was that I was in pain, or sleepy, or otherwise not fully attentive, but there were definitely moments where I wanted to yell to ensure that I was heard.  In the end, I think that I was successful, but I developed the habit of repeating my concern to everyone who came near my bed on the grounds that one of them would be able to resolve my concern.  It’s not the most effective way of getting a message across, but there are times when whatever you do is right.  I have raised it with everyone again, and I hope that changes are made so that a patient gets some time to process significant news before being expected to commit to a treatment plan.  I think that I’m strong and coherent enough that I can make my point well, so that’s less a worry right now.  

Tomorrow’s battles will be enough for then.  Tonight I’m actually feeling quite sleepy so I think that I will end here.  I wish you all a good night, and we will deal with tomorrow’s worries then.  Good night!