Courtesy of Dale Redekopp.
Friday 27 September 2024
Thursday 26 September 2024
Yet another roommate hospital encounter
Thank God for Dave.
Wednesday 25 September 2024
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.
Tuesday 24 September 2024
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.
Monday 23 September 2024
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.
Sunday 22 September 2024
Look at all the Bales!
Saturday 21 September 2024
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.
Wednesday 18 September 2024
Tuesday 17 September 2024
For those that are curious
Friday 13 September 2024
Wednesday 11 September 2024
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.
Friday 6 September 2024
Monday 2 September 2024
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.