Another hospital vacation

My old rat-bastard friend the cellulitis bug bit me again.

About three weeks ago, after returning from Auckland and the sensational "Walking With Dinosaurs" show, I woke up with the tell-tale flu symptoms. Fearing the worst for my recently shortened right leg, I feverishly inspected it. I took a relieved breath. It was fine.

So I thought it really WAS a flu this time, and proceeded to go back to sleep for three straight days.

I did not, however, improve. My appetite completely disappeared again (not eating for a week+ = losing 10 kg, or 22 pounds).

Then I looked at my good (left) leg. Damn and blast ... it was glowing red from ankle* to knee.

And into the hospital I went.

Absurdities abounded on this visit.

As I'm no longer under the care of my orthopedic surgeon Nigel, I went in to hospital via A&E (Accident and Emergency for you North Americans – not the TV network). I'd only ever been in here once before, a few years prior. It was a fairly streamlined process, so long as you didn't try to get admitted on a Friday or Saturday night, when the place would be rife with drunken amateur punkasses who'd fucked themselves up battling with gravity, or each other.

A&E had since remodeled. Now, instead of the first point of contact – a triage nurse asking pertinent questions upon my arrival – there were no less than four people (not nurses) standing shoulder to shoulder at an admitting desk.

My first thought was: "There are too many people at this desk involved in this process. Something's going to go awry".

My Spidey Sense was right. I regaled this foursome with my tale of woe, then watched as one person typed furiously into a computer, while another scribbled my name onto a notepad (olde skool!)  The other two ... well, I'm not exactly sure what they were there for, except for "looking concerned" and "attempting to look busy" by staring either at the computer, or pieces of paper.

Spidey Sense tingled again. "Do they need to write/type my name down twice?"

The answer, of course, was "How about NO, you crazy Dutch bastard!?"

I took a seat and waited. I watched as the four people sardined into this one small space passed papers back and forth. And looked concerned. And typed furiously. And talked at the same time.

A while later I noticed people who'd come in after me were being seen by the triage nurse.

Finally, after there weren't many people left in the waiting area, I went up and asked why I was being bypassed. The foursome shuffled papers and looked askance at the computer, and one held up the note pad – with my name crossed out.

"Haven't you been seen yet?" one asked.

Think real hard now – if I had been seen, would I be standing here in the waiting room, asking you why I hadn't been seen yet?

This is not the sick droid you are looking for.

After a bit more paper shuffling, concern-facial-expression wearing, and computer-keyboard thrashing, It was determined that the moment Person One wrote my name on the note pad, Person Two (literally standing right beside her) then promptly crossed my name off.

That issue sorted, I'm finally in and talking to a switched-on nurse, who dealt with me professionally and rapidly. She then whipped me in to see a doc as soon as she saw my leg and took my vitals. That went quickly too. A canular was installed, and a line of Fluclox was jacked into my arm, and I was admitted.

Fast-forward about an hour later, to me in a ward (room). One other guy there. He smiled when he saw me being wheeled in. But he sounded rough – lots of coughing and laboured breathing. Then some biscuit-blowing and dry heaving. When he calmed down, we talked a bit, he was a nice guy.

I hadn't planned prudently for my powerful thirst (water wasn't cutting it, I was jonesing for some fizzy soda with juice) and so he gave me one of his soda waters. (It was too late to get any sort of drink from the café and there were no vending machines).

The room was really warm (even warmer than what my elevated temperature was telling me). And it seemed there was no airflow. Very dry. This was not helping my thirst, or my military-grade headache.

In the night I'd gotten up and taken a leak. Of course I had to put on my prosthetic to get to the can, but I didn't have a sock on my remaining foot – and the small divot on my big toe, which was being treated by my podiatrist Hilary, was leaking a bit (triage doc took the dressing off and didn't re-dress it). A few drops of blood 'breadcrumbs' marked my path to and from the can.

The next morning I went back in for another leak, and I was greeted by a male nurse on his hands and knees cleaning up the blood droplets with a paper towel. My first thought: "Dude, they have these things called 'mops' ..."


He looked up and asked me if I was the one who was bleeding. I told him: "Yes, a bit from my big toe".

He looked at me again, and asked: "Which one?"

I smiled and told him: "Take a guess".

The look of dumb realization on his face was priceless as he clicked that I was standing there with a prosthetic on my right leg. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, this lad.

Breakfast was served, docs visited (the Registrar, and a school of House Surgeon Minnows) and proclaimed I needed a few (or more) days of anti-bee infusions. The nurse appeared with the usual rumpus of a re-application of a fresh bag of anti-bees (and a check of my vitals). Nurses like me in ward – I take maybe 5 minutes tops to look after every four hours. I am the dream patient.

Then, orderlies appeared. I was to be moved out of this room.

I wasn't initially concerned. This has happened before. Some middle-management suckup shows up on a ward and proceeds to piss in all the corners, so all and sundry can tell he/she is the boss of the lesser nurses, the plebes, victims and patients. In the past, I'd been shifted around to different rooms, for what seemed like nothing more than the reason(s) already mentioned. Somebody had to make sure the other folks knew they were a boss, of sorts.

So I was wheeled on out. I chatted amiably with the orderly doing the driving. Then I noticed we were heading to the elevators. My new room was clearly not going to be on this level ...

... nor, it was quickly made apparent, was it even going to be an actual room.

I was shunted into a dim, windowless hallway in the bowels of the hospital. This hallway had been recently MacGyvered into something resembling a ward ... except it was a 'ward' with 18 beds. And as already noted, no windows.

Two bathrooms. One shower. All that separated each bed space (each VERY NARROW bedspace) was a sheer curtain.

It was mixed gender too. Not that it bothered me, but there were a lot of old ladies who looked extremely uncomfortable being in an open hallway/makeshift ward with old men (and me) clearly capable of seeing them, and hearing everything the doctors said while discussing their issues. I am certain this was in direct violation to the Health Care Code, where patients are meant to be guaranteed privacy and confidentiality. (No joke – this actually is the real deal here).

It was finally explained to me that the hospital was jointed – no bedspace – as the incoming sickies were piling up, with no place to put them.

So those of us already in a nice comfortable ward (with a window, and a place to hang your stuff, and no more than one other person in the room) were re-triaged. I was deemed "not as messed up as some other people", and stuffed into this tiny space in this niggardly, dark, windowless afterthought of a hallway.

I asked what the parameters were for putting me here, and not leaving me where I was. They said they chose people who were likely to be discharged in a day.

I said: "Look at my chart. I'm in here for at least a week, if not more. This bright red leg isn't going to be cured by one more day of IVs". That didn't seem to matter ...

So I hunkered down, and busted out the iPad to check emails and surf and such. But no, DENIED! Another indignity ...

Nasty feature # 15 of this horrible Pit of Despair: No reception for WiFi or cell phone.

I learned a bit later this was because my new locale was behind radiology, and next to nuclear medicine. The walls were lead-lined.


Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Thankfully, one small mercy – as I had no reason to stay in bed between IV feedings and inspections, I had 3.5 hours after each such session transpired. I could skulk out to the Atrium ... which had windows, skylights, a door to walk outside for fresh air, and ... a café which made proper coffee. And other humans who weren't confined to bed and who looked somewhat normal. And, Wifi and cell reception.

Never mind that I looked like a Zombie – 'bed head' with wild hair sprouting out in many and varied directions, hospital ID bracelet, IV canular sticking out of my arm. Cold sores on my mouth (a lovely side-effect look that accompanies all this infection rumpus). A desperate, 1,000-yard stare in my eyes. A clearly visible, twitchy craving for coffee. Or maybe ... Braaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnnnns.

After almost a week of this WWI-style internment, salvation appeared on the horizon.

They were going to replace my constantly collapsing IV canular (the wee pipe sticking out of a vein in my arm, into which IVs were jacked) with a "pic line". I'd had one of these before, they work a treat. It's an advanced method of jacking stuff into you – instead of just being a few CMs into a vein in your arm (like a canular), a pic line gets threaded all the way up a vein in your arm, around the corner (your shoulder), and down into your chest cavity, stopping very near your heart.

It's fairly permanent, and has little to no chance of "collapsing" – as canulars do with me, once every 24 to 36 hours.

(This of course usually happens at 3 am. Whereupon a "house surgeon", or the most junior doctor available, must be summoned to attempt to put a new canular in. Of course,  these 'baby docs' can't find a vein in my arms for love or money – no less than four attempts are made each time, and I end up looking like a cross between a pin cushion and a voodoo doll. Or a goalie at a darts tournament).
Now where was I ... oh yes, the pic line. This meant I could then be punted out of the Gimp Cellar and home, to be administered to by a District Nurse once a day.

Except ... the specialized pump device which they needed to hook me up to (before releasing me), which delivers a steady, slow drip of the magic elixir into me constantly (over 24 hours) needed to be sent down from Auckland. (No explanation as to why Welly Hospital didn't have a few in stock ...)

This, I was told, would take at least two days.

For those of you who don't know New Zealand, the distance between Auckland (where this magical pump system lived) and Wellington (where I am) is a 1-hour plane ride. Or an 8-hour car drive.

Regular mail only takes one day to arrive. Courier companies can get you a package in 6 hours or less.

And here I'm being told it's going to take at least TWO DAYS for this stinking thing to arrive ... and if there is a glitch, three.

What glitch? Courier gets lost and can't find the airport, or Wellington Hospital? Dinosaurs eat the plane? Zombies attack and eat the pilots? Terrorists blow shit up and steal the package?

As it was Thursday when I was told this, that meant if said "glitch" ensued, I would need to remain in 'stir' until Monday – as of course there was no Sunday courier service.

Fortune smiled upon me, though. The pic line was installed in anticipation of this pump arriving (a fun thing to experience – An X-Ray machine and an ultrasound device are deployed, to track the course of the pic line as the surgical nurse manipulates it. You lie face up on the rack, and you can see, via no less than a bank of SIX monitors, exactly how the line is being threaded inside you. There is a small bit of local anesthetic at the start, the only real discomfort).

Two more days in Camp Depresso ensued.

Then the pump device materialized on Saturday. And home I went. District Nurses show up once a day to swap out the canister of Joy Juice, and inspect me to make sure I'm not mutating any further. With luck, I'll be finished this pump thing and mostly cured by Tuesday, following an inspection by the Infectious Disease people at the hospital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* The infection stopped at my ankle, and didn't affect my foot at all – because through sheer luck, I'd left my sock on while sleeping in that first night. 


The sock in question is a special one from the orthotic shop, which has two unique features: (1) no elastic at the top, which can leave nasty dents in a puffy DVT-afflicted leg (this has no bearing on this particular bit of luck). 


The other feature was crucial: (2) The socks have silver in them – an infection-defeating precious metal, used in certain types of dressings.


When I fearfully took my sock off to see how nasty the infection might be on my foot, there was NO infection. Where my leg from the ankle up was red, from the ankle DOWN my foot was the usual color. 


Saved by Silver!