Elevator Friday - Borden, Saskatchewan

Courtesy of Dale Redekopp.

The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond - Ella Roberts

Amazing Grace

Yet another roommate hospital encounter

Thank God for Dave.

He was yet another diabetic leg amputee that was there to make sure he was healing properly and would then be sent home only to return in a few months to be fitted with a prosthetic leg.

I first ran across Dave in May when he was there for a short time and then again in August when he returned to get acquainted with a new leg. I did not have much interaction on his first go around. We got to know each other fairly well the second time. Dave is about four years older and helped me in ways that he did not know. Dave just made things better.

Even if you were someone I disliked I tried to encourage everyone I ran across. For all I knew some people may not have had any friends or family to visit them, or visit that often. I tried to be uplifting and tell people on my ward to keep at it. If they were in the same physiotherapy session I would tell them later I thought they were doing great. Whether I liked you or not, and vice versa, I truly wanted people to recover and do well.

On the main floor of the hospital there is a little shop that sells coffee, soda, and snacks. If I had a really good session in physiotherapy or if I reached a milestone, like walking up a set of stairs, I would go to the shop and reward myself with a Coke or root beer. My thought was I had to earn it.

Dave was in a different therapy block than me. One day Dave mentioned that he accomplished something in physiotherapy that had not done before. I told Dave that was not good enough and to meet me on the ground floor. I bought Dave a can of Coke Zero (for some reason they only stocked cans, not bottles) and I told him accomplishments have to be recognized and to tell me about it. This became a ritual with us.

The coffee in the hospital was not great. You could get decent coffee in the cafeteria that was only open from seven in the morning until two in the afternoon Monday to Friday. As soon as the nurses finished checking our vitals in morning we would meet for coffee. We also had breakfast there once a week. The hospital breakfast usually had scrambled eggs with the eggs likely coming out of a container and never any bacon. The cafeteria had a cook that cooked actual eggs and they had bacon. Life is better with bacon.

We tried to get others involved. A few guys joined us a couple of times at coffee or breakfast. We encouraged people that we knew on the ward, life has a patient can be depressing. Mostly there was about five guys in my room and visit. Nurses because to refer to my room as the frat room during this period.

Dave and I kind of fed of each other. He is an easygoing guy with a sense of humour. I know he had good taste because he enjoyed my company. Dave and I motivated each other and pushed each other in physiotherapy. Dave adapted to his new leg quickly and left about three weeks before I was discharged. 

Dave had to come back for a quick follow up and dropped in to see me before I got discharged. He brought me chocolate chip cookies that his wife made.

We keep in touch on a regular basis. 

Another hospital roommate tale

“Moe” was probably the worst of the lot. Thankfully I had him for a short time. He was another leg amputee that was there to make sure he was healing properly and would then be sent home only to return in a few months to be fitted with a prosthetic leg.

He was a member of a certain faith that did not entertain the thought of eating pork and had a very low opinion of women. He saw women as only existing to serve him. He had a very high opinion of himself, a classic narcissist, and I do not think he thought the other people in the room existed. This was kind of amusing since I found out over time that he was a retired janitor. You would have thought he was a king by the way he acted. He was adamant that he would not eat the usual hospital food, his food had to conform to his faith. That option existed, it was very limited. There were a few that had certain dietary requirements. He was the only ass about it.

A number of nurses flat out refused to deal with him. The nursing staff loved me, I never caused any problems and went out of my way to thank them. He would call them stupid or liars, pick fights, and not cooperate for the simplest thing. He would only go to physiotherapy when he felt like it. His family would come to visit him and he was rude to them. I got the impression they were glad he was in the hospital so they could have a break from him. When he was discharged he was waiting in a waiting room for a few hours for his family to pick him up. I think they were in no hurry to claim him.

You would think that a guy that had to have dialysis every two to three days, was a recent amputee, and an insulin diabetic would be kinder to the medical staff since he was so dependent on them.

He would play his tablet when he was in bed. I played mine when I was in bed at night as well. The difference was I played mine at a very low volume so as not to disturb others. He would play his at full volume. One night I asked him politely to please turn it down as I was trying to sleep and it was very late at night. After being ignored for the third time I yelled at him in an unpleasant manner. Before I could do it again a nurse cam into the room and got him to turn it down. He wanted to know who was complaining so he could do . . . actually I not sure what he thought he would do with that information. I was about to shout out it was me but the nurse told him to knock it off which he did. I declined to say anything further, nurses had it hard enough with him.

On another occasion he was back to blasting his tablet again. So I retaliated with AC/DC at high volume. After “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Money Talks” I got creative and found some bagpipe music that I played at full volume. Having Scottish ancestry the skirl of the pipes stirs something deep within my soul so I could keep it up all night long. He folded. To emphasize my point I played it longer than necessary to drive the point home.

I shall not miss him.

The hospital roommate chronicle

One of my other roommates was a guy named "Ralph". I was in the hospital for months and I had roommates that had shorter hospital stays than mine. There was some turnover.

Ralph was an amputee. He lost part of his leg due to diabetes. I ran across a number of guys during my stay that lost part of their leg due to diabetes.

He had a low opinion of women. He had told me after one nurse had left the room after making her rounds that no woman was going to tell him what to do. I asked if he realized that the vast majority of the nursing staff were women. I did not get a response. He had a number of run-ins with nurses.

We had bit of an adversarial relationship. He was there for some rehab on his leg for a few weeks, then would be sent home, then slated to return a few months later for a fitting for a prosthetic leg. I was intent on quietly doing my time until I could get well enough to be discharged. He would decide to hurl occasional insults at me because he enjoyed it. Then at times he sincerely wanted to be my friend and have a decent conversation.

If you are familiar with hospital rooms they usually have a tray-like table on wheel for your bed. I had a cell phone and an iPad. There was no working television in most of the rooms but there was free wifi which kept the inmates sane. Ralph had a cell phone and a laptop. He kept his laptop on his table.

A lot of guys had urinals to use as some of them had difficulty getting to a washroom or could not use a washroom. Ralph would use one during the night when he had to. He usually placed the urinal when he was done on the bedside table.

One morning I woke up before five in the morning because my roommate was yelling and cursing. I asked him what the problem was. He had woke up, bounced around in his bed to get comfortable, and while moving his arms grabbing covers he managed to knock over his partially full urinal dumping the contents onto his laptop keyboard.

I hit the call button for a nurse. He angrily asked me why I called a nurse. I told him he is going to need some help saving his laptop and cleaning up the mess. Everything got cleaned up and amazingly enough his laptop suffered no ill effects.

Hospital roommates

The majority of the time I was in the hospital I had two roommates in a room that was only set up to accommodate two beds.

One of those roommates I will call Jack, not  his real name. The only redeeming quality Jack had was that he was quiet.

He was in the hospital for rehabilitation due to being stabbed in the neck.

Jack liked to steal hand sanitizer. The stuff would come in containers with a hand pump to squirt some on your hands so you could kill germs. He would steal it and drink it. The contents would be emptied into a travel mug and he would drink it all day with a straw. Staff would hide hand sanitizer on the ward so it would not be liberated by my roommate. Once is a while they would search his room when he was not it and take back full containers that he managed to steal. Occasionally staff would find him passed out at various places in the hospital. A few times he was found passed out on the floor beside his bed.

He would disappear for hours at a time. Sometimes he would roll out in a wheelchair at some early hour like two in the morning. There is nothing to do in a hospital at that time, I would guess he would go outside to smoke.

Visiting hours were over at 10:00pm. He was quiet, his occasional late night company after visiting hours were not quiet. My other roommate said Jack had sex in his bed once very late at night with either his wife or girlfriend. Thankfully I had slept through that. Painkillers really help you sleep.

He was eventually discharged. I am not sure if the administration decided if there was nothing further they could do for him or they just were fed up.

Look at all the Bales!

Fresh bales on the western slopes of the Cypress Hills of Alberta.

Michael Truman

Past Presence Website

The Witch House revisited

I posted a photo of this wonderful house that Cpt Mo took back on August 14, 2024.

Here is the original photo:

Check out the link:

magpiesmumblings.blogspot.com/2024/09/tah-and-dah.html

Mary Anne at her blog recreated it in fabric. This is a great piece of art. Go visit her blog.

Cpt Mo Wednesday

 

For those that are curious

I have been home since the afternoon of September 11, 2024. It is good to be home.

The food at home is better, not that the food at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital was bad. There was a certain sameness to the food there. In the hospital I always felt like I was being underfed. Being back home there have been a few times I have felt ravenous. It is good to eat until you are stuffed.

It is also discouraging to be home. I feel like I am in more pain being home. I am twisting my body more from threading my walker around the furniture in my small space which results in more and different pain. I have a wheelchair that I am trying not to use as I am forcing myself to use the walker. I have a limited supply of prescription painkillers (Tylenol 3) and I am trying not to take any unless necessary.

My sleep at night is fractured. I only sleep in bits and pieces. I have this weird compulsion when trying to sleep. In the hospital I got used to sleeping flat on my back. At home in my much better mattress I feel I have to sleep on either my left or right side as I used to before I went into the hospital. The trouble is that my legs do not hurt but they noticeably ache in those positions. I cannot get comfortable. Every morning I know I will have to face a day of pain all over again. It is hard to face the day with pain in your future.

On the plus side, I went through my mail when I got home and completed my tax file and got that sent off to the accountant. There should be refund in my future.

Elevator Friday - On a farm west of Red Deer, Alberta

Courtesy of Dale Redekopp.

February 16, 2024 - September 11, 2024

If you want a happy ending create your own.

Home. I am home for the first time since the morning of February 16. Quite the rude interruption to my life. I am going to dwell on the positives and there are many.

I will have to continue to pick up the pieces and put my life back together somehow. It will not be the same. Somehow I will endeavour for it to be better. 

For now I am going to take a moment and have a glass of wine or three. 

Random post

More about me

I have not done anything this long weekend. I have been very tired, rundown, exhausted. I got a lot of sleep. I am not sick, no symptoms of anything so far.

I do need a walker to get around. I can take my hands off the walker and stand unsupported. I cannot take any steps without support. Interestingly enough I can stand beside a table with a cane and walk with a cane in one hand and support myself with my hand on the table with the other hand.

I think in about a month I think I will have enough strength in both legs to try walking with canes. If I can accomplish this currently it is not that much of a stretch to try using two canes to walk in the near future.

I have a follow up with my surgeon September 11 and a likely discharge date of September 12. I will be a few days shy of being six months in the hospital. I will be going home with a two-wheel walker, a four-wheel walker, and a wheelchair. I hope to only need the wheelchair for a few months.

I had a short practice with a few activities here. I can get on and off a toilet (with support arms) myself. I can get in and out of a bathtub using a bath bench. I can get in and out of a Dodge minivan that the hospital owns. The hospital has a various rooms set up to help you navigate things to prepare you for when you go home.

I look forward to getting home where a new set of challenges await me.