I should probably point out that I am not generally a very good person to look after someone who is poorly - I start off okay but then after a certain point I get a bit grumpy and sighy, which is why it has been very interesting to see how I am now A is home. He is never normally sick you see - I can only think of once while we have known each other that he was poorly with a really bad cold, which I had too. Normally he is the one who looks after me when I get poorly. So, I think both of us were a little trepidatious when we returned from the hospital yesterday evening. Despite the fact that the stoma nurses had visited and pronounced A "A Okay" and the consultant had signed him off, when we left the doors of the hospital and walked out into the real world, with A clutching his bags of medicine and me carting the four carrier bags of stuff that he had amasssed in his six day stay I think we both had a sharp intake of breath.
It is one thing to will someone, or indeed yourself, out of hospital, especially when the days are dragging, either through boredom for the patient or for the carer the endless cycle of visiting - it is another to realise that there is no button to press when you feel a little uncomfortable, no doctor standing by ready to leap to your aid, no nurses to do pillow plumping and sort you out - it's just us. It was something of a quiet journey home - and I drove extra slowly hoping to avoid any jolts or bumps in the road which made A wince a bit and hold his wound to stabilise the sensation. We got back to the cottage and he gingerly got out of the car and made his way in while I rallied the excess baggage from the car and followed him inside. Because he was out earlier than I anticipated I had not had time to think about furniture and fittings - our sofa which we normally curl up on is much too low and unstructured for him to sit in comfortably (let alone contemplate getting out of) but luckily when we were on holiday up north earlier in the year we had seen a lovely second hand old fashioned armchair, and that is now his chair of choice. Then it was working out side tables and coffee tables to put all his pills and potions, glass of water etc, a folding TV table for food and we were getting somewhere. He has done brilliantly well in the last day - venturing upstairs for a little light exercise every hour to hour and a half to empty his new stoma bag, although by the end of the evening he was pretty exhausted.
Things went pretty well when we went to bed, although the lack of a night stand for his night stoma bag meant we had to improvise with a big bucket, but it worked just fine and we both slept straight through. It is an interesting thing at the moment, I want to do everything I can for A so that he doesn't overstretch himself and recovers from the op in the quickest possible time yet I do not want to be "fussing". A doesn't want to ask me to do something for him too much as he's worried I'm going to get really pissed off with it - and we seem to have managed to meet halfway with everything so far - but it isn't easy - I feel pretty tired, and you realise just how much you rely on your partner helping and doing bits and bobs when you suddenly find yourself having to do it all! A good lesson in not taking it for granted.
Another full day of managing with stoma and wound sees us settling into something of a routine - my only fear is that A may go a little stir crazy with the anticipated 12 week before driving recovery period. After all, there is only so much TV you can watch, books you can read etc. Hopefully he will be back blogging tomorrow and that will be a positive step too. As for me, well, as unaccustomed as I am to playing nurse (the only thing that ever appealed to me about it before were those old fashioned upside down watches!) I think I am doing okay, and although I feel a bit weary at the end of the day I did everything I needed to today workwise, made three meals, did three loads of washing and dried it, did some weeding, watered the garden, ordered food shopping and made progress on the photography website.
Tomorrow seems much of the same - lots of work til around 3, food to make, ironing to do, and A is planning to venture out for a slow walk round the garden. Baby steps ..... that is what we both have to remember.
And now, it's time for bed.
Sleep tight
T x
