Day 182 - Thursday 27th October

A day of pain and waiting and painful waiting.

When I arrived, kp explained she had had a painful night with a burning sensation in both her legs. She had been knocked down to a 50mg Fentanyl Patch from a 75mg Fentanyl Patch but she was feeling the pain come through. They couldn't give her anything but a sleeping tablet, which only helped for a few hours. We agreed we should see the doctor about this.

Whilst we were doing the bath routine, I was mulling over tomorrow (kp's birthday). It's a very busy day as we have an appointment at home with a Professor chappie regarding kp's condition, Ronnie is coming mid-afternoon and we have to be in Middlesbrough for 6pm for the birthday meal. I had worked out I would have to get up about 5.30am to get everything done. It suddenly dawned on me, why don't we go home after physio today. That would give me an extra time tomorrow to get everything done.

So, we put in motion the plan to get home today. Knowing how inefficient the hospital pharmacy is (after our previous weeks' experiences), we asked for kp's drugs on the way to the bath (about 10:15am). We had also pre-empted the rushed day tomorrow last weekend and had asked for the drugs on Monday to give them 4 days notice. So we felt we had all angles covered.

Bath over, we went to enjoy some fresh air, before coming back for physio.

Today, kp tried walking with a stick.

The main man went through with her how to do it :-



But kp couldn't get the hang of it on the first day :-



Normally her right foot stride is better than her left foot stride. But when she walked with the stick (in her right hand), her left stride was excellent, but the right foot just came level with the left each time. It reminded me of a chap I was in the Royal Air Force with, who used to march swinging his left arm forward at the same time as his left leg. She just couldn't quite get the rhythm.

But, as the main man said, it will come with time......

Physio over (2pm), we were ready to go home, apart from we needed our tablets.

They weren't there. Well, we weren't surprised, The nurses made some phone calls, and we waited, and waited..............and waited............

We have learned generally in the hospital not to stop doing things we want to do when we think things are going to happen imminently, so we went for a snooze. At 4pm, we were woken with the good news that our tablets had arrived.............Yay !!!!!!!!!!!!!

We checked them through to find Karen's new prescription of codeine hadn't been ordered. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! So, the nurse made a few phone calls to get a "script" (prescription) for it sent to the pharmacy. She got the "script" but the doctor had forgot to sign it. More delay. At about 4.30pm it was signed and through the pneumatic chute system they have it was at the pharmacy. We waited, and waited and waited...........................

kp went for a lie-down and watched Countdown. I went to sit down by the chute system so I would hear when the prescription rattled through. I waited and waited.........You get the idea. At about 7pm I gave up waiting and got up to go back to kp's room. Just as I got to her room, one of the nurses had just got back from the pharmacy and had her codeine !

Yay !!!!!!!!!!

We got away straight away and went home with a slight detour to Sainsburys to get some weekend shopping. That's it for today.

Pasta will be served shortly in the living room for Madame.