Jane’s Health

I’ve not been writing about Jane’s health recently because it makes depressing reading and there’s enough bad news in the world today without me adding anymore.

Over the last few weeks Jane has been experiencing breathlessness and it gradually worsened so she found it difficult to walk for even ten minutes. Her oncologist was quite dismissive but did bring forward her regular echocardiogram and CT scan. The Echocardiogram on Monday indicated her heart was good however after the scan yesterday we had a call from a doctor saying that she had clots on her lungs and needed to go into A&E to get a clexane (blood thinning) injection. Thereafter she would need a daily injection for several weeks to disperse the clots. When we arrived at A&E nobody was expecting us despite us being told they would be aware that we were coming. Jane went through triage, a doctor examined her and took blood samples and then the bombshell that they were going to admit her for the night.

So we arrived at A&E just after 19:00 and Jane was taken into a holding cubicle at 23:00 where she was told they couldn’t give her any morphine and could I go home to get it. I did but this is normally a one hour round journey (as it was I did the round trip in 40 minutes). By the time I returned to the hospital at midnight Jane had been moved to a ward and after chasing around the rat run corridors of Lincoln General Hospital I found her in a bed just after midnight and her morphine was then administered. I left for home at 00:30 and was in bed by 01:30.

Jane had an awful night’s sleep with people coughing, snoring and calling out rather than using their bell push. Unsurprising – this morning she was at an all time low. I visited at 10:00 and managed to get her settled enough to get some sleep but she had to be awakened at 11:00 for more medication. She was told someone from the oncology team would be along to see her today but when I left after my evening visit at 20:30 she hadn’t been seen. I was very disappointed because I rang her oncologist this morning to let her know Jane had been admitted but no sign of her.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is another day and I shall be making waves.