Amazing Resilience

The ward is quieter today.  Many of the younger patients have been discharged and the little fellow down the hall, calling for his mummy, has been given stronger painkillers.  All I can hear is the clack of trolley wheels and the squeaky scuff of the nurses' soles as they bustle between beds.

Soon after his re-admittance, Middle Son developed a nagging pain in his hip.  The doctor pursed her lips and looked closely at him.  She is getting to know him and is understanding that he does not complain lightly.  An MRI followed and yes, it was another abscess.  The surgeons removed it that night.  Another hole in my boy. Damn.

He is down in theatre again this morning, with doctors putting his leg together and checking his hip wound.  I hope that's it for a while.

Meanwhile, let me entertain you with photos of his full body MRI.  He was enveloped in a mass of Velcro and foam and kept still for ninety minutes while the magnetic tunnel knocked and jack-hammered around him.  I was so worried for his mental health.  Claustrophobia is unpleasant.

But, when the radiographers unloaded him, he was asleep.

Here he is, waking and wondering what the fuss was about.

Hope your day includes a good nap,

Mrs Catch

xx

Hurtling on... With the Emphasis on Hurt

The last few weeks have been so eventful. We really need a chance to draw breath, but that's not going to happen.

After his diagnosis with leukaemia, Middle Son began chemotherapy almost immediately. It was a bit anti-climatic, to tell the truth. Just a transfusion through a drip. The only clue to the seriousness was the heavy protective gear worn by the nurses.  But, we were relieved to be on our way. The first steps towards his recovery.

"Mum, my leg really hurts". It was a mantra, heard many times a day. The doctors explained that chemotherapy causes joint and muscle pain and prescribed stronger pain killers. After a couple of weeks, we were allowed home. I laughed as my son stroked his blankets and pillow tenderly and proclaimed "I love my bed..."

As the day wore on, he became stiller and stiller. "My leg really, really hurts..." Tears rolled silently down his cheeks with the pain. Helplessly, I shuttled heat packs to and from the microwave and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed with heat cream.

He lay awake, unable to sleep, unable to read, unable to distract himself from the pain in any way. At two in the morning, he developed a fever. We bundled into the car and retraced our path to the hospital that we had left barely 24 hours previously.

An MRI revealed a group of massive abscesses. Deep in his muscles, stretching from his knee to his ankle. Not common, but with the immunosuppression of chemo, understandable. It became clear that surgery was the only option.  The cut needed nineteen stitches when it was eventually closed, days later (Try googling Vacuum Wound Dressings. They are the oddest thing you will see in long time).

We came home for a week, but his leg continued to hurt too much to use. He hopped, happy to be home and enjoying the novelty of his siblings rushing to retrieve things for him.

Unfortunately, follow-ups a week later, revealed new abscesses had grown, worse than the originals.  Back to theatre, more drainage, plus a halt to chemo until the infection is under control.

It is a nightmare.  My normally upbeat son looks at me, eyes wide with fear " But Mum...what'll happen if they can't fix it?...?  I see the thoughts flitting through his mind.  I push my own terror away firmly.

Not possible, son.  It's simply  not an option.

To My Brother...With Love

(Sometimes, when life is tough, you just need someone to draw you rainbows).

In 4012, How Will We Drive?

The hospital where my son is receiving treatment is filled with amazingly long and winding corridors.  Unfortunately, I have to track them frequently each day. To get supplies from the chemist, to buy extra food for Middle son, to grab a coffee.

 My directional skills are giddy at the best of times and here, I am well out of my depth.  I haven’t been so much lost as in a parallel universe where the future stretches out in a long, blurring tunnel ahead.  The halls all look the same and there are many dead ends and level changes.  At one point, I was convinced that I would turn a corner and stumble, Indiana Jones style, across the skeleton of a poor soul who didn’t make it.  And died of starvation before he could reach the canteen.

Then, I learnt to ask the guys who trundle patient records around in trolleys, to different wards where they are needed.  They know every corner of the hospital and quite often will be going close to where you need to get.  They also tell wonderful stories, stretching back years, about the history of the hospital.
 

Here is a (blurry, iPhone) photo taken from the window of one corridor.  It shows the new road network that connects the bus way and tunnel under the river.  As I looked, I wondered what a caveman would think if he were to see this engineering marvel.  What words might he use to describe it? How would his brain absorb the experience and fit it in with what he already knew?

And then I wondered what the same stretch of land would look like two thousand years in the future.  And if we were to see it, how would we describe it? Would we have words and could we link it to anything we already knew. It kept me amused for quite a few minutes as I gazed across the bustling scene.

Oh well...  Back to being a human GPS.  Where’s a trolley guy when you need him?

How’s your sense of direction? Do you have any tips for me?

Mrs Catch

xx

Laughter - the Best Medicine

Being in hospital entails a lot of waiting. For doctors, for medications, for needles, for tests. We have read more in the last couple of weeks than the whole of last year. But now, these guys are kindly entertaining us as we wait.
 

"Sheldonisms" are fast becoming part of the vernacular here.

LMAO
Mrs Catch
Xx

(Can you believe I've never watched this before? What planet have I been on?

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There was a Knock at the Door ...

In a hospital, you think it's going to be a doctor or a nurse.  Or maybe the lunch lady, if it's midday.

Who could have guessed that it would be these familiar villains instead?

There was silent, stunned staring as they advanced upon us, waving their light sabres energetically.  Darth Vader's words were incomprehensible through his electronic voice box, but we gathered from his hand shake that, this time, he came in peace.  Middle Son was speechless.

A few minutes later, the endocrinologist arrived and bravely chased them off.
Insulin needles-1.  Light sabres-0.

The force is with us.  Hope it is for you too.

Mrs Catch
xx