Sick and suffering!
I have been intending to write a report about my `internment’ for quite some time, and have delayed the telling of what was perhaps some of the most dreadful moments of my life.
It`s hard to believe, but some six weeks ago I was seriously ill and hospitalized in the bargain.
My malady began with a dose. No! No! Not that kind of dose, it was a dose of U.T.I. Urinary Tract Infection.
Serious in itself but not, thank heavens, life threatening. I was admitted into hospital via the back door and had gone through the trauma of Emergency Services. Catheterized (and gentlemen, you know what that means) I was wheeled into hospital conscious, and fully aware of what was going on around me. Believe me, it was scary.
I have been intending to write a report about my `internment’ for quite some time, and have delayed the telling of what was perhaps some of the most dreadful moments of my life.
Probably the most important structure in the entire hospital building is the bed. Yep friends, you have to lie on it for as long as your malady persists, in my case…days!
Now I happen to have been in some very odd places throughout the world and in beds that creak, groan, are lumpy, too soft, too hard, lice infected, you name it, but never had to endure the rigors of the hospital bed that I had here in Nelpsruit. It was unbearably uncomfortable, it clung like a leech around me and I found I could not turn or move into any comfortable position. It simply wouldn`t allow me. I was unable to sleep for ten days, and finally began to sleep through exhaustion.
The nursing staff were kind and caring at all times except when they applied some physical force upon my body. Like taking blood samples, blood pressure, connecting the leads for an E.C.G.. or giving an injection. I came away from that hospital black and blue through the bruising of my body.
I am 90 years old dammit!
You cannot handle an elderly person as you might a normal adult. We are fragile. We have lived years and years and need special tender care. Those nurses had muscles on them like King Kong, and then some.
Bathing me was pure torture, unable to walk far, they manhandled me onto a chair set in a shower cubicle and then hosed me down. The bruises on my arms and legs have only just disappeared.
They woke me up a few times at three in the morning to take blood samples so that the doctors could have it first thing!
They even connected the dozen or so leads of the E.C.G. machine in the dark one night, using a flash-light for guidance. What the Hell for? I was fine before they arrived on the scene.
Oh! That electronic device they all use for checking blood pressure! Having atrial fibrillation (that’s an uneven heart beat, that skips a beat now and then) the machine gives nonsense results. I warned them of this time and time again, I even told the doctors and surgeons, but still they took my blood pressure and wrote down idiotic readings.
I took one doctor aside and explained this phenomenon to him. Yes, he knew about it all right, but nothing was done. Fact is, none of the nursing staff were capable of using the old fashioned manual type blood pressure device.
There`s more of course, and hopefully those memories will fade with me into the twilight zone.
I should mention at this stage that the never ending sound of the cash register as it went “Ka Ching” continued unabated throughout the entire proceedings.
It never stopped! Dammit, they even charged me for a pee.
You might think that I sound bitter? Naaa, not really.
Luckily I don`t wake up at night screaming.
The miracle is that I am now alive and well at 90 years of age. I drive my car into town and can call in at The Lowvelder to see the boys and girls and still laugh at life.
