As you might expect, this weeks whinge is hospital related, but not quite the way you might expect. It’s all about those damned annoying beeps of monitors.

Now I understand that they are necessary to monitor people and equipment, but there seem to be two rules. Rule one: beep when there is a problem. Rule two: Beep continuously until a problem occurs. Clearly there is an obvious problem of conflict and confusion.. But it goes deeper than the obvious, so let’s get them out of the way first. How can they be distinguished between each other? Frequency? Tone, volume pattern of sound? Well, believe it or not, all of them.

One of the most common beeps is the drip that most patients have linked into their cannula. This can be anything from pain relief, to a saline drip and depending on the reason, these can be very important to the patient and even the simple saline drip can also be carrying important salts to a dehyrated patient. Or pain relief can be vital to the patient’s comfort. They are important, So when a pump starts beeping to signal the end of a drip, the nurse has no way of knowing what has finished, especially at shift changeover. So why is it okay to leave it for 45 minutes? (I say 45 minutes because that is just how long I have just waited). Oh, I nearly forgot, do that too many times and the cannular fails and you need a new one, painful!

Now let’s consider the continuous beep. There is the beep that monitors heart rate and so on. Vital. But there is another sort of beep that has no other function than to signal that the equipment is working. Now who thought that one a good idea? After a while, you start blanking it out if you are staff, and it starts to act like chinese water torture if you are a patient. So in the case of staff, they don’t hear it go off, especially if they are out of the room when it stops.
In the worse case, staff have been known to turn it off because it irritates them. So what’s the point? Well actually, there is an important reson, to alert people that their attention is needed for somebody who is ill and in their care..

Scary Stuff!

This is getting very silly.  The Doctor finally arrived last night at 11.30pm.  At 12.30am she returned to insert a (very painful) cannula.  She took bloods and left. (BTW she was very nice and no problem).

At 1.30am they woke me for an X-ray.  I told them that I had recently had X-rays; a CT scan and most importantly an MRI scan specifically of the liver in anticipation of this.  They did not have them, hence the X-ray.

I was surprised when a nurse came round to take observations (obs) and told me they had still not found my notes, lost about 7pm, 2 hours after admission.  They still hadn’t found them at 7am, 12 hours later.

Then, for me, the biggy.  The doctor, who had originally taken bloods last night, came round at 7.30am to take more bloods.  I asked if there was a problem with them.  "No" she said, "They’ve lost them".  By this time, my confidence is through the floor.  I am seriously considering discharging myself.  If I do, I die in 4-16 months.  If I don’t, then I am putting myself in the hands of a system that can’t keep control of a piece of paper, my obs, and my bloods.

The Doctor returned after 20 minutes and said she had traced them in one lab, but the other lab wasn’t answering.  I had a long talk with the Doctor and felt a little better.  Then I saw the Anaesthetist, who did reassure me a bit more with the pain relief.  Finally, Sister (Suzanne) came and had a chat.  Okay, I am going ahead with it.

I do not believe this!  The second lab has lost my bloods.  I have had to have them done again.

Those who know me will have heard me say that I went into Cheltenham Hospital with a ‘needle phobia’ and came out 9 weeks later with a ‘needle fetish’.  Sadly it did not last long and my terror of needles returned almost immediately and has plagued me ever since.

My MRI scan this morning was not a problem except this stupid fear of needles.  It’s illogical and totally in my imagination.  I know that.  But it’s like the old faith healer who said that, “Though pain isn’t real, I dislike what I fancy I feel”.

So, sitting in the Scanner ‘Anti-room’, I was going through my usual, “don’t call me brave, I’m a raging coward”, routine to the radiographer with the needle. “What’s your name?”, I asked. 

“Damian”, he said.
“Oh for f*&ks sake!”. 
“Don’t blame me”, he said, “blame my Dad.  I can give you his number if you don’t believe me”.
”I think I already know it”, I responded, “666”.
“No, that’s mine!”, he smiled.

In the meantime he had quietly slipped in the cannula needle.

If you have not been inside an MRI scanner, it’s quite an experience.  The first time I was stunned by the volume of the noise it made.  A bit like standing next to the main speakers in a nightclub on ‘Bad Trance’ night!  I have to say I was a little disappointed that this machine, a later model, was a lot quieter.  I had built myself up to coping with the noise.  In fact, I had taken my iPod with me and was listening to ‘Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scotts’ throughout the whole procedure.

Nothing to it!