Thursday June 8th.
It was great to feel that the biggest problem was the weather. Hope we are not going to have a summer of sunshine, blue skies but with unpleasantly strong winds.
I thought that Val was a little on the quiet side today but she assured me that she was happy and fine. She was certainly able, with the aid of her perching stool, to fry some eggs to go with our supper. I will own up at this point to the fact that I love eggs – fried, poached, scrambled or boiled – but I have an intense dislike of cracking eggs caused I think by the clear liquid potentially dribbling over my fingers. There you are, I’ve said it and I’m not “yolking” – sorry couldn’t resist it!
Val’s mobility is really improving and the only thing really holding her back is her swollen feet and ankles. The health professionals are not worried and say that it will sort itself out – ironically as she becomes more mobile. My main worry as her mobility increases – and she has already discarded one crutch – is that she will try to do more and risk a fall. I vaguely remember feeling this way when my children were just starting to walk.
Over the last couple of days some beautiful bouquets of flowers have arrived for Val – I looked carefully in the packaging but there wasn’t so much as a miniature bottle of anything for me!
An unexpected problem has been the volume of used pads that need to be disposed of. I hadn’t given this a thought and while Val was in hospital I was only putting out one bag of refuse for collection. Our refuse is collected on a fortnightly cycle and already after a week there are three bags in the wheelie bin. Hopefully over time the amount of waste will diminish as Val masters her new bladder.
Friday June 9th.
It was another good day, when we had quite a few visitors. When Katherine visited in the morning I made coffee for everyone and then left them to chat while I sat in the dining room and caught up with the paper.
More visitors dropped by in the afternoon and then Jason called in on his way home from work.
In between all of this Val fitted in a nap but that was interrupted by the arrival of the district nurse who came to change the dressing on Val’s bed sore.
It is now one week since Val came out of hospital and I can see improvement in her general condition. She is now more mobile, doing a little more each day, eating pretty well all being considered and seems happy to be home. The problems are the bed sore which looks to be improving, her ankles and feet are still swollen thereby restricting her mobility, and she is still very tired.
Our GP rang to see that the results of the blood test she took on Tuesday are all fine – great news!
I think that I am hyper-sensitive to how she is and must stop asking her if she is alright – which must be annoying for her – and learn to relax a little more.
Saturday June 10th.
Probably Val’s best day yet since she came home – slept well, mobility better as her feet and ankles are less swollen, eating well and looked well. She is still very tired and we are dealing with that through a lengthy afternoon nap and shorter naps at other times.
The weather is still rubbish and we have yet to enjoy an hour or so just sitting in the garden. If Val’s feet and ankles return, or almost return, to normal then hopefully we will have our first small trip out which will be another welcome milestone reached. I think it is important that Val is able to re-engage with the world outside our front door as this will help boost her confidence that she is managing her continence issue and a likely first excursion will be to go for a coffee at a nearby shopping centre where I will be able to park close to the coffee shop.
A possible unexpected side effect of the anaesthetic is that Val happily sat through a second live football match since she came home from hospital and so having watched the Champions League Final we settled down to see Scotland play England. I will wait with interest to see if she will watch France versus England on Wednesday and if she does happy days!!
Sunday June 11th.
It’s like Groundhog Day in as much as little has changed. So, for how Val is please read any of the previous few entries. This one though is going to be about me and my growing sense of frustration and anger.
As I have said before, I have always been prepared to go the extra mile for someone who I feel is trying to help themselves whether they are family, friends, colleagues or students, and rightly or wrongly I don’t think Val is helping herself. Things came to ahead with the evening meal and therefore Val’s attitude to food. I had offered to put together some slices of pork, mashed potato and gravy for her meal. My thinking was that I could add cream and cheese to the mash to whack up the calories but Val decided that she wanted boiled potatoes and as far as I am aware there is little that you can add to those. Interestingly it never seemed to cross her mind to enquire what I might like.
Val is aware that while I don’t necessarily think she has an eating disorder as such, she ticks many of the same boxes and so she does seek to justify her lack of enjoyment of food. Today’s justification was that it was difficult to swallow food or liquids due to her throat being uncomfortable. I was aware that her throat had been a problem in hospital but this was the first time that she had mentioned it since she had been home. She said it had been like it since she had left hospital but inevitably she had not mentioned it to the GP or the District Nurse – why?
I think that she should take advantage of a visit from the Community Dietician because I can’t see what she has to lose. Val, in her usual way, dismissed that as being a waste of time but after further discussion she agreed to ring for an appointment tomorrow. I am firmly of the opinion that nutrition is an important part of the recovery process and hope that the dietician will be able to offer some suggestions.
The cooking I do would never be good enough for the trailer serving the crew on Master Chef or Bake-Off but I am trying and to have spent any time preparing food and then to see Val sit there with her head on her hand, bowed over like an old lady, clearly not enjoying what I have put in front of her does wind me up. I asked her, as I have many times, if she was alright and she replied something along the lines of its awful – and it wasn’t about the food I hasten to add – but her situation in general.
I struggle to understand this given what the alternative would have been. I have listened for years to her “tough as old boots” mantra but at the moment she is about as tough as a pair of soggy flip-flops. So yes, I am feeling tired, frustrated and angry. I told Val that I was willing, as I think I have proved, to do whatever I can to help her recover but, not unreasonably, I want to see some payback and to see her helping herself. I don’t think there is anything, other than more of the same, that I can do and so in the absence of any external help, I think Val has got to start doing more for herself. In particular, she needs to do whatever is needed to get the swelling down in her feet and ankles. The answer according to the GP is to have the protein drinks and to drink more water. I would add to that regular feet and ankle exercises. Once she can start to wear shoes then we will be able to start going out and becoming a normal couple again because for four months now our lives have been anything but normal. Do I enjoy putting cream and dressings on Val’s bed sore? No, but who else is there to do it? Do I like taking bags full of pads full of urine to the dustbin? No, but who else is there to do it? On top of which I have the care of Val and I have the home and garden to deal with and I sense that I am somehow getting lost in all of this. The one thing that keeps me going is my love for Val and the thought that we have come so far and also I have invested so much of myself, physically, emotionally and intellectually, in getting her better to give up now.
Needless to say, I went to bed feeling tired but quite tense and as a result struggled to get to sleep. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Monday June 12th.
Overall this was a better day. Val has done more today – helped with the washing up, sorting out her own breakfast and lunch. Small steps but positive ones as she wasn’t just sitting there waiting for it all to be done for her. Her mobility is improving daily and the swelling in her ankles and feet has subsided so there is every chance of a small trip out later in the week.
The day though did get off to a strange start as we couldn’t find our vintage juice squeezer. Couldn’t find it anywhere until I looked in the dustbin on the off chance – and I was clutching at straws here – that I had thrown it out with the oranges and lemons that had been squeezed yesterday, and there it was. This follows other recent memory lapses when I couldn’t find my wallet for a while and a couple of occasions when I couldn’t remember where in the car park I had left the car at Hospital B. There are probably other examples but I can’t remember them. Did I tell you about the juice squeezer?
Val did ring for an appointment for the community dietician to visit and also changed her outpatient appointment with her surgeon. This has now been brought forward by a week which means that if Val’s situation allows, we will be able to go on a short break to Yorkshire with Rod and Liz which was planned back in January.
Tuesday June 13th.
Another good day. For the first time in months Val wanted to do some water colour painting and I am sure that losing herself in that will have done her the world of good. Her feet and ankles continue to improve and in readiness for our trip out tomorrow, she tried on many of her summer shows but just at the moment none of them fit. The solution turned out to be a pair of my sandals.
Val continues to feel tired but in all other respects she is improving. I left her for a few hours in the middle of the day to have lunch with a couple of mates. This was good fun and I enjoyed this bit of normality. In as much as Val doesn’t want to continue with the label of patient, I really don’t want to be tagged with the label of carer.
The evening allowed me to continue my research into the effects of anaesthetic on a woman who doesn’t really like football and I am pleased to say that we watched France versus England although Val went to bed at half-time which I hasten to add was down to tiredness rather than boredom.
I am thinking of producing a paper on this subject which I believe will change the information that an anaesthetist will need to give patients before an operation. I see it working like this: “Well Mrs Johnson, I will be your anaesthetist for today’s operation. Obviously all operations carry risk, the most common of which is waking up feeling nauseous. We can do something about that for you. You will feel very sleepy for a while and again this is nothing to worry about. Do you like football Mrs Johnson? No, then I do then need to tell you that there is a strong likelihood that you will find after the operation that you will have acquired a strong interest in football – and there is nothing that we can do about that.”
The District Nurse also came and changed the dressing on Val’s pressure sore which is healing well.
Wednesday June 14th.
Both of us had slept well and we woke up to a glorious day in more ways than one.
We did make our first venture into normality and went to Costa Coffee at our local shopping centre which has the advantage of allowing me to park close by and everything is flat and level. Val even managed to go into a local shop and bought two pairs of flip-flops to help with her swollen feet.
Then we came home and sat in the garden and enjoyed the peace and the sunshine. It was our first opportunity to use the new sun loungers that we had purchased just before Val went into hospital. I took the opportunity to take a photo of Val as she sat in the garden and used “Whats App” to send it to family and friends. James said that it had made his day to see his mum looking so good and happy.
Val had eaten quite well throughout the day but come late afternoon she felt a little sick and didn’t have any supper. The problem was that once again her stoma wasn’t working but after being sick it started to work and she felt more comfortable. Her stoma does do this periodically and so neither of us was unduly worried about it and didn’t allow it to spoil our day. Probably the best day since Val came out of hospital.
