Tales from the NHS

On Sunday (yesterday) morning at 7.30 am I went to get my smashed wrist fixed at Derriford. I got home this afternoon at 6pm with it neatly rebuilt and wrapped in plasters and slings and things. Some of it is a bit of blur, to be honest, but on this day when the media is full of NHS 60th anniversary stories there are some clear snapshots worth remembering.



Arriving on the appointed ward at the appointed time and finding I was first on the list for surgery (good) but my allocated bed was unmade, and what's more never got the promised pillows... Nobody had time or inclination to explain to Ron what was happening or how he could get in touch later. Still, the bed was sufficiently prepared for me to go down to theatre only about 30 minutes behind schedule, someone stuck a venflon in the back of my hand and the next thing I knew it was all over. I was in recovery in extreme pain, with a button to push for pain relief.



I pushed it a couple of times until the pain went away and was returned, somewhat woozy but OK to the ward, where I was instructed to keep my arm elevated in a pillowcase pinned to a stand beside the bed, but I got into a row for not having it high enough, or was it too high, or was it that the bed was being moved up and down? Yes, and the under elbow pillow never arrived, either. And moving the bed kept pulling my oxygen out of the wall, but a kind girl in green got a longer tube. I was OK, however, until told I could get out of bed for the toilet, sat up and felt, but wasn't actually, sick. I was still feeling a bit queasy when Ron arrived; while he was there dinner was also delivered but one mouthful of rice from the sweet and sour something made me very sick indeed - all the several pints of water I had drunk. After that I dozed and started to feel better about nine - by 10.30 I was starving! "There's cheese & biscuits, yogurt or banana in the fridge." "Yes, please!" "Which?" "All of it!". And I ate all of it, later, plus Jaffa cakes Ron had brought me.

At 3am I was due a dose of antibiotics which involved putting in a new venflon as the first one had dislodged. From about 4 am the lady in the next bed was awake but confused, calling for her daughter and trying to get out of bed. Nurses occasionally came and went (usually when I summoned them to her because she was about to fall and hurt herself), but basically I spent the rest of the night listening to her if not talking to her.

By 9 am I had been issued with a fancy navy blue sling and been told that the only thing keeping me in was paperwork. After about 2.30 pm, when I discovered that the cut off point for getting out depended on whether the pharmacy was still open for painkillers to go home with (5pm) I started mentioning my predicament loudly to every passing NHS employee, in the hope that one of them would do something. I finally got my marching papers at 4.30pm, but was not just made to feel but actually told that I was being 'difficult' - and indeed keeping the doctor who had to sign the release from two very sick patients elsewhere!

Well, all I can say is that this is the only way that works. Opposite me was a small, quiet, polite lady, slightly older than me. Very reserved, very well mannered, accustomed to accepting authority, broken ankle. She had been there since Friday night and had never been free from pain, had not been visited by a consultant or a physiotherapist (or her husband, but he was not allowed because he had the flu). She was not aware that she could make phone calls. She was not a happy lady, but not the complaining type, and I learned most of this while we were up in the night with the 'confused' lady. So I did a little complaining on her behalf, and some asking for stuff and pointing out deficiencies. The first thing was some proper pain relief (she was written up for liquid morphine, she had been getting paracetamol), so she got some strength and some sleep, and by the time I left she had also been seen by physios etc and an ambulance had been ordered to take her home with a zimmer frame.

By contrast, on Monday afternoon a lady was wheeled in, complete with husband holding her hand, after some elective surgery. Confident, outgoing, greeted with a smile, people running round fetching her things, two physios walking her up and down the ward within ten minutes of arrival, etc.

And the 'confused' lady, who was being treated like a naughty, forgetful child but seemed to me to be mostly dehydrated, had apparently been fine apart from having fallen and hurt her leg some 10 days earlier. But was getting worse each day.

I have nothing but praise for the clinical part of my treatment, but life on the ward was completely and utterly shambolic and disorganised. It was a big, rambling, mixed sex trauma ward, although within the individual bays it was mostly all male or all female. There was no one in overall charge at any time, and although there were a lot of staff about it was impossible to know who to talk to. 'Uniform' in any meaningful sense, is totally absent. They all wear cotton tunics except the ones with nylon coats, of course. All conceivable styles and colours. Uniforms should identify roles clearly. Doctors are like sixth formers at the end of term; dressing up because they can, with absolutely no regard for hygiene or practicality. There were at least two competing regimes in the 8 beds Icould observe from my own, with two different drug rounds, observation and tidying lists. My bed was never properly made in the first place and not once did anyone attempt to tidy me up, but then once I was awake I was on it rather than in it anyway, more comfortable sitting crosslegged than trying to lie down. I had my temperature taken twice in ten minutes once, by two different nurses. I had the little clip put on my finger and the BP machine started with the cuff wrapped round the stand, not my arm. Because there was no control, no continuity, non assertive patients were ignored. Lies were told to shut people up (particularly the 'confused' lady) because that was easier than dealing with the situation. I heard a (presumably senior) member of the nursing staff tell my consultant that I hadn't been sick at all (because Ron had held the vomit bowl, emptied it and replaced it for me). She also said I was imagining the lack of oxygen supply, because a junior, greener, altogether nicer member of staff had gone and got a longer piece of tubing (possibly also because it was the senior nurse's constant fiddling with the height of the bed that caused it to come out the second time). I said never a word - what's the point?

I could go on, but I won't. Sadly, my experience is far from unique. I can see ways to improve the service, but the basic premise is now, sadly, flawed. And about to become a constant factor in my life, it would seem - Ron and I now have GP and an outpatients appointment each in the next week...

Lord save me from Your Friends

"Oh God, we need a miracle." Not words I expected to hear spoken in my own living room by an (uninvited) guest, issued in a conversational tone at nothing in particular. I enquire whether the apellant was perhaps not feeling too well, and was informed that it was ME that was being prayed for, to heal my broken wrist.

When I pointed out that even if I agreed that miracles were possible, which I don't, they would be inappropriate in the present context - bones usually healing themselves, with some practical medical assistance - he muttered darkly about all the people he had prayed for in The Ukraine being healed because they didn't realise who he was. As far as I recall, he had a three week holiday in Ukraine about five years ago. I've seen the holiday snaps - there were no obvious lame throwing their crutches away that I recall.

This sort of thing deeply offends me, as a committed anti-theist. Normally I am very tolerant of people's beliefs and practices, religious and otherwise, but not if it affects me personally. I asked him to stop praying for me. I went so far as to say that if he did not desist I would hit him (not with the plastered arm, though). He laughed. He may even have thought I was joking. Then he darted up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, said "Be healed!" and swiftly moved out of range. And that was unforgiveable.

I won't even let him take the dog for a walk, now...

I'm a Bird with a Broken Wing

It's worse than I thought, actually. I was at the fracture clinic for thee hours this morning, being x-rayed and prodded and ECG'd and things. The result is that the broken bones have spread themselves about and on Sunday morning they will take my wrist apart and put plates in. Hopefully it will then start to get better...

The coping isn't as upbeat as I first thought, either. I am actually surprisingly adept with my left hand, but there are so many things that need two! My hair is about two foot shorter than it was. I made Ron cut it to a length he could cope with, which is about bra strap length. I can comb it with one hand and he only has to put one band in it. It's quite long by normal standards, but shorter than I have had it for twenty years.

It is also, unfortunately, apparently a typical fragility fracture, which raises the spectre of osteoporosis. I shall leave thinking about that until after Monday, if they let me out on Monday.

What's the very worst thing about...

breaking your right arm? For me, anyway, the only thing I am finding impossible is doing my hair. It just isn't possible to wrestle waist length hair into submission with one hand, especially when it's the 'wrong' one. I'm sure I remember a time when I was surrounded by little girls who liked nothing better than fiddling with other people's hair, especially mine because there was so much of it, bu I can't find anyone now.

The (female) friend we were with for the weekend when it happened used to work in a hairdressers, although not, obviously, as a stylist, but couldn't get the concept of winding it into a bun and holding it against my head so I could slap a clip on it. Ron took several goes to manage getting an elastic band (well three, at 12 inch intervals) round it, but mastered the technique eventually shortly before I got the big scissors out. Not that they would have done me much good - they just don't work in the left hand at all.

Eating is also tricky and will have to remain a private struggle for now, cutting bread isn't very good, but most other things are possible. I have had a shower, with my right arm taped into a plastic bag, and I have hung out the washing. I have put the bread machine on, and I've found the bus timetable for my appointment at the fracture clinic on Friday. I have told Ron I can't wash up...

"It's for your own protection"!!

This is a bit of a rant. All those who approve of and understand banks and their call centres, ignore me, I'm just a grumpy old woman.

Last Saturday, I tried to get money from an ATM with my A&L debit card. It was refused, but as these things are not unknown I didn't pay much attention, just used another card from a different bank. Yesterday the same card was again rejected, this time in the Co-op, so as I had to go to the town where the nearest branch is this morning I thought I would call in and get things sorted out.

After the cashier had passed the card through her machine and confirmed that it was blocked, she called the 'branch hotline', was put on hold for five minutes or so, then went through several minutes of security checks involving details from my driving licence and my account before being told that they were unable to deal with it in that department, and that she should call another (callcentre) number. The first attempt involved another long wait, with her explaining the problem then being told to hand the phone to me to answer about ten questions, including whether I had an overdraft facility (yes), details of any direct debits and the colour of my grandmother's eyes. Then I was told that they could not deal with this in that department and I should call again to ask for an advisor. At this stage I passed the phone back to the cashier, but she fared no better; the girl who had taken all the details attempted (possibly) to transfer the call, but failed.

The cashier tried again, with much the same results. By this time I had been in the branch for about 45 minutes and was getting a little frustrated. This time, however, the interrogator actually managed to put me through to an advisor. Who advised me that the card had been blocked because they had detected some unusual activity. Had I used the card at 9.58pm on 13th June to pay Kodak Galleries a very small sum? No, hardly, I was in or around the swimming pool at the local leisure centre at that time. Right then, that's it, the account is blocked, your card (and your husband's) are now dead and new ones will arrive in about ten days. In the meantime, should you need any money, you are to phone this number, pass through the security system (what colour were my grandmother's eyes?) tell them how much money I would like from which post office and then they would phone the PO and tell them to expect me and my cheque book. Or turn up at the branch with said cheque book and my driving licence or passport and they will phone the branch hotline for you and get authorisation to part with the cash. Could you possibly authorise them to give me some money now, as I have my cheque book etc with me and I've been through your security process three times already? Thought not.

After waiting another ten minutes or so for the branch hotline to answer so that the cashier could go through the rigmarole again and ask for some cash for me I gave up and went home penniless. I had been in there for well over an hour and had other things to do. I have to confess that I did express my dissatisfaction to the cashier, not with her but with the system, and even muttered darkly about closing accounts, etc.

On reflection, I suppose that some security is obviously necessary, and it was really rather clever of them to detect a fraudulent transaction, especially for a 'negligible sum', but what should theoretically be simple (phone up, get authorisation, carry on with a smile) falls down because the phones aren't answered quickly enough because the operators are taking too long asking too many security questions before they even know what the problem is and then not being able to transfer calls to the correct department or to an advisor who can actually advise. Which means that clients are then having to make more calls and go through it all again, thus clogging up the lines for the next customer in the queue. And it's no comfort to be told that these calls are all free so it doesn't matter; it does, my time matters. In the end today I left without completing the transaction because I had been in branch for 75 minutes and had other things to do. And I am retired, so my time is more my own than most people's.

It's no use complaining, either. After all, it is all for my protection!

Wildlife Photographer? Not Me...

I glanced out of the window this afternoon to see two collared doves on the posh bird feeder, one on the tray and the other sitting right on the top, following the action with very careful attention. What a photo opportunity, I thought. Got the camera, remembered to switch it on before I got to the window, carefelly snuck the window wider open, aimed and fired. Bird on top is out of focus, bird on tray cannot be seen behind windowsill, whole thing is lopsided, etc. Then I remembered that Ron had shown me the zoom facility only last week. My 'subjects' were still posing nicely, so I went back for another go. Unfortunately, I forgot that the zoom is very, very loud, so I got a beautiful close up picture of an empty bird feeder in an empty garden, with two collared doves way in the background (and out of focus) sitting on next door's back fence.

My brother in law takes pictures of bats catching moths and that sort of thing. I'm beginning to understand just how much patience and practice it takes to produce photographs of that sort of quality, when a simple portrait of a posing bird in daylight is beyond me. Still, there are collared doves in my garden to add to the list...

Goldfinches...

...two of them, in my garden! Well, to be absolutely honest, one stayed on the fence while the other experimentally tested the spilled seeds on the ground under the feeder, but at least it's a start. They tend to go around in flocks, like the sparrows, so I hope they will tell their friends.

The picture is from www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Restormel to Lanhydrock walk

Yesterday the dog and I went for a 'proper' walk. We walk every day, of course, but usually down the coombe to the creek or around Churchtown community nature reserve. Every so often, though, we get together with some friends and go somewhere. As someone else decides the route, it is always a surprise and often a delight.

The weather forecast wasn't all that promising; it was quite cool in the morning and heavy showers were threatened, but as it turned out it was perfect walking weather, sunny and warm with a gentle breeze.

We met in Restormel Castle car park. I had never visited the castle, and I still haven't seen it, because it is invisible from the car park (surrounded by trees, although at the top of a hill) and I didn't have the time or the inclination to pay to look around it. There isn't all that much left, apparently. The first part of the walk goes in the a perfectly straight and almost level line through a farmyard, between fields, past a sewage works and more fields to a gate at the edge of the Lanhydrock estate. The walking is easy, and the views across the valley are typically pastoral and attractive.

Lanhydrock is a National Trust property described as 'the finest house in Cornwall... ... with 450 acres of woodland' ( www.cornwall-online.co.uk/heritage-trail/heritage-national-trust/lanhydrock/Welcome.asp ), and from the gate we entered the estate from the footpath winds round through the woods and slightly uphill to the house itself. As you get nearer to the house the woodland changes from native English to more and more exotic species, mostly magnolias and rhododendrons, and opens out into a spectacular vista of crenellated towers and green parkland.

The house and immediate environs are not dog friendly (there were three collies, including mine), although they do provide a place to tie them up with shade and water, and we weren't there to look at the house anyway, so we turned right down the main treelined avenue and found a spot to have our picnic.

After eating, we continued down to the main gate and turned right on the road the short distance to five arched medieval Respryn bridge, newly rebuilt after an articulated lorry listened to his Satnav instead of using his eyes. It crosses the river Fowey and the current is quite strong, as Ty discovered. He loves a swim, and his favourite game is to allow himself to go downstream as fast as the current and his legs will take him, then battle his way back, barking happily all the way, then do it again. Under the bridge, though, he aimed for the end arch, but was turned round and taken backwards through the second one. At least five times that I saw. He would have stayed there all day doing it over and over again, but we had to move on...

Plan A was to return to Restormel Castle by road, making it a circular walk, but it was a little busy so instead we reentered the estate and followed an attractive riverside path for a while, crossed by a wooden bridge and stopped to let the dogs play in the water again (the other two don't swim, but love to splash about) and meandered through the woods again until we got to the gate where we had first entered and retraced our steps along the good straight path to Restormel.

Greenfinch in my Garden!

Yesterday I wasn't sure, as I only caught a back glimpse as she flew away, but today I am certain; a female greenfinch is using the new posh bird feeder! That makes sparrows, blackbirds (mostly on the ground) magpies, jackdaws, wood pigeon patrolling for rejected seeds and one greenfinch! Word must be getting round...

There's a new plant in my garden, too. Apart from finally identifying the big red bush that is so attractive to bees and sparrows (jasminum beesianum) I have been given two cuttings of aeonium arboretum, a weird looking succulent with a rosette of almost black leaves at the top of a bare stem. My little jasmine cutting is growing apace, and the bits of ivy I stuck in at the base of the wall are all going strong. Last night I experimentally tried sellotaping them to the wall - if the sellotape lasts long enough for them to realise there's a wall behind them, perhaps they will start to cover it.

Jackdaw v Magpie

The posh bird feeding station is still not attracting any small birds apart from sparrows, but the big boys are making their presence felt. I have just watched a jackdaw eject a magpie from the feeding tray and defend it against an attempted return. This surprised me, as of the two magpies are larger and I'd have thought them more aggressive, but no. Magpies drink a lot; sparrows occasionally take a quick sip, other birds don't seem to bother, but the magpies actually seem to relish the water, even sometimes dropping their food in and eating it from the bowl.

At the same time as the jackdaw and magpie were jockeying for position on the feeder, a wood pigeon has come in and made itself very much at home pecking away on the ground below the fence seed feeder, obviously clearing up the sparrows' leftovers.

And having said the other day that there were no collared doves about, I have just seen a pair, not in my garden but on the path at the edge of the coombe.

Magpies and Jackdaws

Two jackdaws and two magpies on and around the bird feeder. Not quite at the same time, but within five minutes of each other. The first magpie took soggy bread from the feeding tray, jumped up with it to the waterbowl and dropped it in, eating it then from the water before drinking, then stretching up on tiptoe to get his beak in the seed feeder (unsuccessfully, I think). The second waited up on the top, pecking experimentally at the finial, before hopping down to take a drink as soon as the first had gone back to the fence.

The two jackdaws came for bread and flew away to eat it, taking turns nicely after they discovered that two big birds on one small tray wouldn't go... The jackdaw colony lives in the railway viaduct across the creek, in the gaps between the stones, so we don't often see them all the way up here. They range quite far in search of food, though, I think.

The sparrows are not the least bit bothered by jackdaws. Nor are they bothered by me and the dog, even feeding happily within a few feet while I was putting the washing out, but as soon as a magpie appears on the fence they all vanish. I watched this trick this morning - from a dozen or so sparrows there was silence. They were all in the red jasmine (beesianum) which climbs up the fence. I think that's why they like the feeder on the fence better than the new one. It's so easy to perch on the fence or vanish into the bush, and it is usually in the shade. The other is a bit exposed, six feet up and in the sun most of the time.

Collared Doves

I am not that fond of collared doves. When they are sitting quietly their call is a contented coo coo coo, but they shriek as they fly with a sound that grates on my ears like chalk on a blackboard. Having said that, however, I have just noticed that they are conspicuous by their absence this year - I can't recall having heard or seen any, and usually there are dozens of them about.

Royal Cornwall Show

I've just spent two days at the Royal Cornwall Show. It's a long time since I've been to a show of this sort, and the first time I've been involved in running a stall there. The weather was pretty good; it was cold, apparently, on the Thursday when I wasn't there, but it got sunnier and sunnier and hotter and hotter over the Friday and Saturday, although there was quite a strong wind all the time. At least it didn't rain, which was a bonus.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We weren't there primarily to sell stuff, although we did sell a fair bit, but mostly as a public relations exercise, talking to current members, trying to get people interested in joining our society, generally doing some fun stuff (play giant connect 4, test your dog's IQ, quizzes etc) and showing people we're human. I think it worked on all those levels.

One plus (perhaps) is that I have had to get up a lot earlier than usual in order to walk the dog, etc and take a 40 mile slow drive to arrive for opening time. In consequence, I have seen the sparrow breakfast feeding frenzy close up. My two seed feeders are now being refilled to the brim each morning and are empty by the next morning. Still no takers for the peanuts, though - apart from the sparrows, the bird count for the garden is now blackbirds (at least two), a magpie, a couple of woodpigeons and an occasional herring gull.

Pigeons and Peanuts

The new bird feeding station is proving 'quite' popular - not quite as popular as the old one by the fence, but popular enough that I thought I'd better pop in to our local hardware store for more seed.

They bag the seed and the peanuts in half kilos in plastic bags, and have them in an attractive pavement display in a big basket. When I arrived, the peanut basket was occupied by two pigeons, who had pecked a hole in one bag of peanuts and were taking turns to feed from it. They totally ignored me when I walked into the shop past them, and were not at all bothered by passers-by or traffic on the busy Fore Street of our small town.

I told the shop owner, who went and chased them off. He told me that one pigeon had learnt the trick a little while ago and was becoming quite a nuisance, but this was the first time he had seen two of them. Pigeons are highly intelligent and easy to train birds. I have no doubt that unless he changes his 'pigeon food' displays they will tell all their friends and soon come flocking for their peanut treats.

New Bird Feeder

The new bird feeding station arrived today. It has three hooks for hanging feeders from, a bird bath and a feeding tray, all on a long pole with a spike, and arrived in a small cardboard box for self assembly. I was supposed to be on my way to the Royal Cornwall Show to help set up, but I just had to put it all together and get it up before I left, in between laminating stuff I had to take.

'Im indoors helped me to stick it in the ground and anchor it to a fence post and it appears to rise up out of a bush, which is quite attractive. I can actually see it from the kitchen window without having to climb on the counter top, as well. I fitted it out with one seed feeder, water in the bath and some nice soggy brown bread on the tray, but for the time being I have left the old peanut/seed feeder stack over by the fence as well, as it seems to be quite popular.

I expected it to be ignored for days until they got used to it, but by the time I had come indoors and walked into the kitchen to admire it there was already one male sparrow helping himself to seeds. He then flew off but flew back almost immediately to try to breadcrumbs.

I had to go out then and didn't get back till eight o'clockish, so I don't know what has happened in my absence, although all the bread crumbs have gone - I can't be sure whether the level of seed has gone down much, but I think it has.

I still seem to be getting only sparrows at the feeders. I watched a female blackbird gathering up a mouthful of bread from off the gravel early this morning, and I have seen a male blackbird down there as well, so perhaps we will have a little more variety in the future. I don't mind if it stays exclusively for sparrows, anyway - they are quite fascinating.

Little Egret

There's a little egret in the creek this morning. In the winter this is not unusual, but at this time of year it is rare to see them here. Most of the year they are solitary, almost aggressively so, but at breeding time they all nest in the same tree. Their local colony is only visible if you happen to be passing along the Lynher by boat - from a distance it looks as though the trees are covered with big white (rather noisy) flowers.

I have often wondered about egrets' feet. Why are their feet bright yellow, the colour of sand in a child's paintbox, and their legs dark grey? Is it a disguise, so that on a sandy shore or riverbed they look like a couple of innocent reeds? If so, it isn't too effective in our muddy creek. Or do they wiggle their golden toes against the dark brown mud to attract little swimming things close enough to catch? I wonder...

Happy Birthday, Me!

Today is my 61st birthday. As I strode purposefully down the coombe this morning, carrying a stick but only because it's quite treacherously slippy in places after the recent rain, I reflected on the fact that this is the third spring I have delighted in since the one where I was saying to myself "Make sure you miss nothing - you'll probably never see this again." Not superfit, no, but I am getting around a lot more easily than I was, and I'm still able to enjoy the flora and fauna around me.

On the way back, walking along the stream where it flattens and widens into the creek, I became aware of almost stereophonic birdsong. A blackbird was singing his heart out in a tree about three feet from my right ear, and a song thrush was competing from the top of the fence on the opposite side, about fifteen feet to my left. While I can identify each individually, it was interesting to compare and contrast the two. The blackbird has a richer tone (and is louder) but the thrush seems to have a greater range of high and low notes. Both are beautiful. I am always amazed by the way that birds, who are furiously and busily feeding babies at this time of year, can still find time for a song. While I was standing listening to them, a robin came down to bathe in the stream just at my feet.