I'm back!

[Skids]

Thanks again

Last night was a bit of a hiccup. They gave me some pain meds and a sleeping pill around 10pm. 11.30 I woke up in crazy pain.... 7.5/10 for me.

Nurses are great aren't they!?! They got me the strong stuff and an ant anxiety tab, she recommended I put my headphones on and listen to some tunes.... next thing I know it's 6.20am.and she's waking me to do obs.

Maybe I will be here for another night? I may have been rushing things a bit.

Feel way better for the solid sleep and more of the good stuff.

The old 'pain scale' is always a funny one for me. You hear some people "ah, ah it's a 10, it's a 10!"

Personally, my '10' was when I stood on a coblers spike when I was 15yo.
9 was having recently healed broken ribs fractured again..8 was broken ribs etc.
I was calling last night a 6 to 7 as tears streamed down my face.
How do you 'scale' pain?.....what's the worst pain you've ever felt?9

[Pies4shaw]

^ A tiny little kidney “stone”. The pain was so bad it immobilised me. I was actually collapsed on the bathroom floor and unable to move. The cause was trivial. I’ve had major surgery that didn’t cause anywhere near the same discomfort.

[pietillidie]

^I've never seen anyone in more pain than my old man with kidney stones.

Skids, that's probably a good reminder to take it gently! Healing is sometimes non-linear, so you get worse days in between when something's healing.

Make the most of the nursing while you can!

I get asked about my pain in my hands and toes every month or so like that. I tend to underrate pain I think, as I try to play it down both to myself and to others. But mine is a long-term condition, which is a bit different.

[stui magpie]

I've busted bones and done lots of dumb things but the most severe pain I've ever had was an infected wisdom tooth.

[pietillidie]

^Dental infections can definitely hit a 10. I've never needed my wisdom teeth pulled out, but now you menion it my worst pain ever was an infected socket after a tooth was pulled out.

[Bruce Gonsalves]

Pain, yeah everyone has different thresholds. I have 2 instances of 10 levels and both were inflicted in hospital.

First, when admitted to hospital with an abscess near my coight, painful enough, but the packing from the surgeon was shoved deep in the drained abscess and the nurse forgot to give me pain relief when it was removed. Holy crap that nearly knocked me out.

Second, when I blew the top of my finger off with my hi pressure water jetter [Skids will know about these machines]. Painful enough, but nursey again was pumping anti biotics into my arm at an accelerated rate and my arm was literally blowing up.

Hospitals are very painful.

[pietillidie]

^Ouch, nasty stuff, Bruce.

Skids, did you get any wild trains of thought or creative inspiration after laying in bed for a few days?

I was knocked down for a month with a nasty infection during the onset of the GFC, right when the house of cards was collapsing. I can still remember Bloomberg's reports and segments from the time vividly. Somehow, being half delirious on whatever drugs enhanced my memory.

[Skids]

No real ideas, other than just trying to be of some sort of help to other people.

They've taken so much blood for testing the last few days, swabbed my throat and nose. The fever seems to com and go. Wound, wear drain removed is getting minimal now.

The old (86) girl next to me had eye surgery and needs help to get up to go to the loo, I've had to grab the nurse's several times during last night, there's only 3 on at night.

Fever feels like it's abating. Still on the 'soft' diet, would love some boiled or poached eggs!

Came in for the op this time last week.

[think positive]

um... child birth was definitely a 10!!!
but i remember breaking my little finger in a netball final, and saying this is way worse than child birth!!!

Ive been very lucky touch wood, only op ive had is on the tendons in my hand in 2021, a fair bit of back pain after squishing discs falling off my horse at a flat out gallop when he shied at a sheep and reared up, and netball knees!

its a competition im very happy to lose!!!

[Skids]

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

Singing lessons. I can just hear the conversation between Skids and the Doc after the surgery (pinched from an old joke)

Doc: Well, the surgery was a complete success, we've saved both your Vocal Chords, your voice will be as good as ever.

Skids: That's great Doc, will I be able to Sing?

Doc: Of course you will. Absolutely.

Skids: That's fkn brilliant Doc, you're a genius, I was never able to sing before.

[Skids]

Well what a day. Guest number 20 in room 18's other bed arrived not long ago, bloke in his 30's I'm guessing, stroke victim.
Gurst 19 came in a few hours ago... the 'sickest' I've seen in this room over the last 10 nights. A 57 yo (looks over 80) smoker with terminal lung cancer.

It's actually getting depressing being in this room now. The hospital is maxed out causing whoever needs a bed to get the next one available, this is a designated ENT/Plastics ward, yet those of us under that category make up only around half of the 64 beds.

I've seen too many things to remember in here, being in crazy pain and mind blowing pain killers while fighting this infection the past 5 days being the main reason for that.

Mal (lung cancer) hadn't been here long when he suddenly went into this coughing, wheezing, choking fit. I didn't twig what was going on, Cedric (80yo bash victim) couldn't move and #20 hadn't arrived yet.
Before we knew it mal was gasping for air with blood all over the place, nurses rushed around setting up some breathing equipment I hadn't noticed in here before a d had him.breathing again in pretty quick time. Senior nurse comes in and makes a call to.somewhere, she's told that there's none available in WA at the moment, all are in use.

Our public hospital system.is on the verge of total breakdown, seriously, this is insane to sit and be a part of.
Kelly wants me to transfer to a private hospital now the surgery is well and truly over, but I feel I'd be deserting the student surgeons/doctors/nurses that visit me morning and night....there's only 4-6 more 'sleeps' to go.

Tonight has many stories to unfold yet I feel.

With our public healthnsystem.in such disarray, homelessness growing at a crazy rate, why on earth did our premier give every household a $400 power bill credit? And then resign.

[think positive]

skids, if its that bad there, transfer to the private hospital, staph infections are not to be messed with.

[Skids]

Hey TP, Just woken from a nice 30 minute power nap, antibiotics and pill time.
I did enquire about it and it sound like the process isn't as easy as it sounds.... most of the private hospitals are also full, not to mention the various hoops to jump through. I feel my journeys start point will be where I finish it.

Right now 10.51pm, it's quite calm, well.calm for here anyway.
I'm just going to try and focus on my breathing and not get myself too worked up. 4 or 5 hours sleep before 6am would be ideal. My obs were good and the fever has now been gone for over 36hrs. The pus oozing into the bag is now only around 50ml.over a 24hr period.

I did have this crazy pain in my neck thus arvo like nothing I've felt before. Imagine someone stabbing 50 pins in and out of your throat at a fast rate, it came on all of a sudden and lasted around 40 minutes until the Tramadol kicked in. The nurse explained its common as the hundreds of nerves in my neck 'reconnect".


Are you allowed to post the tumour pic on here to give the punters an idea of what it looks like? Mods?? Jo has about a dozen pics of the removal of the lump.