When the spirit jumping

 I have to confess that I was not upholding my principles yesterday.  This won’t work well if I pretend that I’m perfect or something close to it.  And yesterday was a test that I recognize means that I’m still a work in progress.  Please judge me harshly but fairly!

My routine is that in the morning I’m moved from lying flat in bed to sitting up in a chair a few times.  So yesterday morning, my nurse and I agreed that I’d get to the chair (a large, upright, medical looking, not particularly comfortable, armchair) placed off on the side of my cubicle.  It’s just 3 steps, but right now that may as well be a double marathon, given my state. I would remain there for about an hour, have breakfast, get my spa time (sponge bath) and then back to bed until my first physio session.  So far, so froody.  I had breakfast (the gods were kind, it was a cheese omelette that was road trip worthy!)  and got my bath from my mildly ditzy but entertaining PCA. It was a surprisingly busy morning as I was changing neighbours (a discharge, wonderful news, and I wish her a full recovery with her family and extra blessings on her son who never left her for the 5 days she was here, translating for her, comforting her, etc.  He’s been one of the mirrors of charitable behaviour held up for me to see!  Remind me to tell you the story about that family and my silly question.). So yes, she was going home, there were the other patients getting their treatments, the cheerful orderly was in cleaning, etc, and my nurse was getting ready to change my bandage.  And that’s where things went off.

There were several people in my room, and I said that I was ready to go back to bed as I had already been up since 8:00 and it was 8:45 and my back was beginning to spasm from pain.  She said, “Ok, I’ll just change your wound bandage and we’ll get you back.” Then she realized that my bed hadn’t been changed yet and called for someone to do that while she worked on my wound. Then she got an urgent page to take a call from my doctor about an issue she’d reported that morning and said that she would be right back to finish changing the bandage and get me back to bed so I could rest until physio at around 10:30, so for about an hour.  Then I don’t know what happened. The room was empty again.  It was just about 9:05. I waited, with spasms of pain getting stronger, and somehow nobody was there.  People left the other cubicles, and out of the ward.  Nobody looked in my direction, and I sat, unable to stand and walk the steps that separated me from my bed and rest. I rang the call bell, no answer. Nobody came to see why a bell had gone off.  My next door neighbour had a consultation with her team.  I started moaning and crying for help.  My endocrinology team arrived, young residents, saw my distress, asked me what was wrong and looked embarrassed because they said that they were not trained to help me safely.  They went in search of my nurse and a moment later I heard her being pages to my bed for help.  Nobody came. It was 10:29, so I thought that at least my physiotherapist would be there soon even if she was late and I’d get relief.  My cries, to me anyway, got louder, and my face was covered in tears. The team finished their consultation and heard me crying.  They asked what was wrong, and I sobbed out that I was in pain, I couldn’t get back to bed and nobody had helped me since 9:00.  They also went off to find a nurse and I waited, crying even harder.  A nurse, hurrying by in the corridor, looked in, asked what happened and said, “I’ll get someone.  Just breathe.”  She returned quickly with another nurse and they helped me get back into bed and get some pain medicine.  That was at 10:43am.

It seemed that there was a concatenation of catastrophic circumstances that cascaded into chaos.  My nurse had apparently gone on break, thinking that her covering person had finished my bandage change and put me back to bed and if I were not, that physio was looking after me.  Not unreasonable assumptions. She apologized profusely several times and was extra gentle with me for the rest of the day.   Physio explained that there had been an emergency situation, so they thought that they would skip my morning session and work on me after lunch, so having a little morning rest would be beneficial and I could do something different and more active later.  Also not unreasonable.   My mid morning cheese-and-cracker ration arrived shortly after 11:00, and the day gradually returned to normal, although my pain level stayed high and it still is now

I wanted nothing to do with my nurse.  I was in anguish and I had been neglected for over an hour.  I felt that she had been cruel, and I wanted to swear and cuss and generally lash out at everyone. I didn’t want to forgive my nurse, nor have her treat me.  I said so.  I shouted it. But the client care person also didn’t come, so again nobody listened.  Again, I received the awareness of my total dependence on my care team and their vigilance.

Later, in one of the times when I was half awake, I suddenly thought of the parable of the “Good Samaritan” and meditated myself into it as the person who was injured- a readymade role!  Drugs are wonderful in some situations, like this one, where my mind wandered into and out of the situation!  I won’t repeat the story, you know it and can look up the details.  But for the first time, I considered it from the view of the injured person, and the passerby and every possible angle. I remembered all the things that I know and have said about forgiveness, and the importance of doing it.  I admit that I held all of those thoughts and battled internally. I will come back to this another day, but right now I’ll just say that I’m uninjured, my pain is nominal and I was able to walk a full 15 steps when the physiotherapist did my session in the afternoon.  I wasn’t able to sit up again, but it’s not the end of the world.  My sleep was broken again, but it’s a new day with no mistakes in it yet and it’s the start of my birthday month.  The pandemic restrictions are beginning to be retracted and vaccinations are increasing.  This serves as formal notice to the lobsters 🦞 that we will be resuming the cull.  (And enjoying roti sooner than that!). I hope that my experience yesterday will be your worst.  Cheers!