Home Alone with the worse things - T's Day 25 and a half A.S.

It's night and I am home alone with the cats, the keyboard and a large (very, very large) glass of wine for company. A is back in hospital. It's been all in all a pretty crapy day. Things were pretty good this morning – A actually slept through nearly the whole night, said his back ache had almost disappeared and he was going to get up and have breakfast as I went to work. I was a happy camper. I called him a couple of times during the day and he said he was okay but feeling pretty knackered and still not much like eating. I got home around 4.30 and didn't think he looked too great, he had an odd kind of grey pallor and felt a little bit hot. We chatted about him not feeling like eating and I suggested he might like a cup of mint tea or something to try and settle his stomach - I went in to the kitchen to make it and the poor A was very very sick in the living room. That decided me - I quickly cleared up and then called the doctor's surgery. Luckily our lovely doctor said he would check him out as an emergency - unfortunately he was in a surgery in a neighbouring town, so with sufficient supplies of make shift sick bags and tissues I drove us to the surgery. A seemed in pretty good shape in doctor's terms during the examination - his blood pressure was okay, chest and vitals all good, the doc overall was happy except for a very high temperature of 39 point something. He decided to call the urology team at Wycombe to check on the next course of action while we sat and waited in yet another waiting room. He called us back in and handed us a hastily scribbled letter - "They are expecting you at the hospital." And so we high tailed it back cross country, stopped briefly at the house to pick up a book, dressing gown, drugs, stoma stuff, radio etc (just in case) and got to the local hospital. We were sent straight to Urology where A's bed was already made ....... He looked terrible by this point and was obviously in a lot of pain ... and he was worried. We both were. They took his pulse which was over a hundred and then his blood pressure which was through the roof - things were looking not so great. I knew he didn't want to be back in the hospital but we both knew it was the best place for him. His notes are still at the other hospital following our results meeting last Friday so we spent a long time going through all the medical history with the Junior Doctor. She wrote it all down, prodded and poked poor A and did lots of frowning. At which point it was way past the end of visiting hours and I got kicked out. It was hard to leave him - he looked so weeny in the massive hospital nightshirt they gave him, and he got quite emotional when I left, well, until I almost accidentally knocked the canula out of his arm when he just swore. I lasted til I got out of the ward and had waved goodbye til I succumbed to the "it's just not fair" blubbering shuddery sobs, and then I headed down to the car. I couldn't see particularly well to drive so stopped at my friends house who lives very close to the hospital for fortifying hugs and a cup of tea. It helped, but all the way home I kept thinking of all the things that could be wrong, or going wrong or the massive list of things that they said could go wrong on the pre surgery form that we signed. That's the trouble with spending time alone with your head in the hours of darkness ... it takes all those worse things and stands them round you. However, I have just spoken to A and the nurses, and it seems that they have more than an inkling that he has a massive infection, probably a serious upper tract urinary infection but they will need to grow some cultures to ascertain that. They have him on IV fluids and painkillers and huge vats of antibiotics and anti emetics and hopefully he will be feeling at least a little human by morning, even if it's a very poorly human. I know he is in the right place, with loads of nurses checking on him all the time .. and that is a good thing. I know that I cannot imagine for a second that I will sleep tonight so I am heading downstairs to gather kitties and a blanket and snuggle under them both on the sofa and watch taped cookery shows until I eventually doze off. When the surgeon was talking to us about post operation recovery, I assume that having made so much forward progress, this bit is one of the steps back that he was talking about. It's a steep learning curve this bit, but for future reference for everyone, backache + temperature + nausea and bad mood generally equals nasty urinary infection. Sleep tight everyone. T x