INHALE/EXHALE

Chapter 4-Day two

Thursday 31st August

I remember waking up near enough every hour, hearing the machines beeping to a patients heart beat, and alarms ringing for emergencies. My first nurse was lovely! Having someone look after you requires a lot of trust, especially being physically incapable at the time I was. She would stay and talk with me every night before I fell asleep, we'd speak about me going to university, school and some other crazy stories like the time I was pushed into a nettle bush. OUCH! It's the smallest things like that which helped me to forget what was going on in the world around me, the only chance I had to ignore the pain and discomfort.

Being woken up every few hours to take pain killers is another thing I hate about staying in hospital. It seems like every time you'd begin to nod off, boom, I'm waking up to tablets being pushed near my face, making it difficult to get back to sleep.

'There's a first time for everything'

It was the middle of the night and I needed to go to the toilet, forgetting that Iv got a pipe hanging out my chest, being high on medication and that I'm still half asleep, I go to get out of my bed. Lucky enough I figured out what I was doing, I wasn't allowed to get out of bed alone, so I hold down my emergency button and my nurse arrives. She leaves my room and I'm wondering where she's gone because I have a toilet just round the corner from my door. She returns with a wheelchair. I'm so confused at this point as to why I need to go in this rather strange wheelchair, then she takes this lid off the seat. It's a commode and she helps me out of bed to sit on it. I'm trying not to laugh but I can't help it! Everyone around me is sleeping and there's me laughing about sitting on this wheelchair going for a wee, well trying to anyway. I found it difficult to go toilet like this, especially when your used to doing it in your own privacy. It was funny using it for the first time though.

Friday 1st September
6:45am

"Hello? Excuse me?"

I'm being disturbed from my sleep by an elderly man wearing all black. He's pushing along this huge trolley overloaded with cups, plates, teapots and food. He asks me if I wanted any tea, coffee and something for breakfast. I asked for a cup of tea with two small sugars, not too dark but not too light. I'm fussy like that. As I close my eyes attempting to fall back to sleep, he asks again, "What do you want for breakfast my love?". Well I obviously don't want anything to eat if I didn't ask for it, but I had to, and it was his job to make sure he gave me something, even if I didn't end up eating it. So he hands me some Weetabix in a bowl, with some milk poured into a plastic cup, in case I wanted to wait a while to eat it.

8:00am

'PING' I got a text.

It's my mum messaging me to inform me she's going to be on her way up to the hospital pretty soon. I hated staying in hospital all alone last night, so I'm squealing with happiness to see her. As I'm waiting, watching time tick by I put on Jeremy Kyle to see what twisted stories were being aired today. Same old people with the same old storylines. Don't it just make your life feel the slightest more normal?

I can already hear her as she walks into the ward, saying good morning to all the nurses. Mum runs into my room to see me, carrying a very large pull-along bag. What's in there? I mean I know she needed to bring me clothes, underwear and the usual cleaning bits, but it doesn't need a bag that big! I'm getting excited to see what she has brought for me. Next thing as she's pulling my clothes out, she pulls out my quilt and pillow from home, my laptop, magazines, books, food the lot. I cry with laughter at how crazy this woman is, I'm so glad she brought it all though because I know I'm going to be in hospital for a very long time, according to the doctors.

12:25pm

Lunch time

Iv ordered a cheese sandwich, orange juice and some biscuits. Very small compared to what I would usually eat for lunch at home, but I'm sure it will do. Hospital food is not the best anyway, anyone whose stayed in a hospital can agree, and is defiantly far from my mums fresh, home cooked meals. Uhhh!! Steamy Shepard's pie with creamy mashed potatoes....

Iv eaten half of my lunch and one of my nurses appear round the curtain to tell me I'll be going down for another chest X-ray shortly. Annoyed. This is like the 4th or 5th one within two days! Same routine, I jump into a wheelchair for the porter to then race me into the lift, then from the lift through multiple corridors till we make it to the X-Ray department. I stand in front of this board, being told to hold onto the handles placed at the sides. Each time they take a scan, they told me to breathe in and hold my breathe for 3 seconds, then breathe out. I slowly sit down back into my wheelchair and glazed over to the radiographer, awaiting his reaction. It doesn't seem promising and two clicks later I'm being taken back up to my room.

I start to settle down and put on a film on my laptop, whilst waiting for my night medicine. Me and mum are watching some comedy, never seen it before, but it was a bad idea because every time I laugh it hurts from how the chest drain is positioned. A nurse finally brings my pain killers, injection, anti-sickness and my night-time heart tablets to take before going to sleep. I'm feeling as if I'm floating in the air, or like a feather drifting from the sky. She pulls out the needle to inject into my stomach, tensing as she goes to stab it in. It's the first of many to come.

10:45pm

Wide awake staring at the ceiling. Iv just got off the phone from FaceTime to my brothers and sister. Crying again and again and again, even the nurses have had enough of it I think! I can't help the emotions, holding back these uncontrollable tears seems so pointless. I miss all my family so much and just wish I was at home with them, drinking hot cocoa, playing board games and snuggling under blankets watching movies. Twenty minutes later the codeine has kicked in. I'm so high and feel like I'm floating with the balloons on the bottom of my bed. My eyes begin to close, slowly more and more until I'm buried in a suspension of consciousness. Goodnight.