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Thursday 21st. Overcast. I am finding my way around my phone keyboard as I pretend to be an influencer.
I suffered from chest pains yesterday evening. The nurse gave me pain killers and blood thinners. She brought in the ECG? and blood pressure machines. With lightning speed she repeatedly unclipped the usual monitor leads and fitted the new. It helps to be colour coded.
My pulse, on the screen, was the roughest looking wire net fencing imaginable! The spacing was all over the place! From an earlier, more cheerful, BP reading, it was now elevated.
I was shaking as if from the cold. Though the air temperature was perfectly comfortable. Thankfully the strange shivering soon passed.
As I struck up a conversation in Danish with a fellow inmate. The hospital helicopter had arrived. To provide the evening's only real entertainment.
The pain stopped as the minutes crawled inexorably towards bed time. Which was a little after 10pm for me.
It was then I discovered that memory foam pillows may not lie in my future. Though raising the bed head certainly helped.
A crosspiece of 2x4 will be tried on my recycled bed at home. Not with the intension of investing in a new pillow. More as a sideline in research into increased home comforts. At minimum cost of course.
My view through the vast window nearby. Is of the soaring cliff of another hospital building. Which runs parallel to my own spacious accomodation. The seemingly countless windows gradually lit up throughout the interminable evening.
I slept quite well. Getting up only three times. Fortunately the toilets were just across the corridor. As I crept about in my hospital issue socks with their grippy soles. Though I have yet to test the limits of adhesion on the corners. Nor their braking power in an emergency.
6.30 and a new nurse did the first rounds. My blood pressure was still elevated. At least compared with yesterday's personal best.
Last night's chest pains may have dashed any chance of a swift exit. Not by the accepted route anyway.
Back to the necessities of life and the discovery that breakfast does not follow a strict, home timetable. An exploratory jog down the corridor left me bereft of my first fix. Of my organic Arabic coffee. Served black and pre-cooled.
Nor was the morning bowl of organic porridge oats forthcoming. With the mandatory organic milk. Measured to the nearest millilitre to avoid sogginess. Or worse, to dry out. Before the very last, large flake, was carefully scraped from the pristine enamel.
7.10 and news of the arrival of coffee and assorted juices went around.
We are now a man down. As the patient to my left has been released on parole. False alarm! He just had his bedding changed in his absence.
Yet another update to his status. He was wheeled through the orderly queue at the breakfast dispensing window. With full pomp and ceremony. Something to do with a poor connection to his new pacemaker. They were going to try again. Third time lucky?
A new male nurse arrived. We chatted about yesterday's shenanigans. It seems I have been punctured. The catheter was too large to reach the minor plumbing features of my heart.
The doctor/surgeon will be around later. To decide if I get time off for good behaviour. Or must continue my enforced incarceration.
8.25 and I joined the queue for breakfast. Porridge oats with whole milk. With a side order of a crusty brown roll and generous slices of a tasty cheese.
The weight of the tray caused a leak. Which went unnoticed. Until my thigh and hospital issue shirt began to look like a rather grisly crime scene!.
The dressing had lost contact with my wrist. On the brisk jog back to my bed. Where I sat in the comfortable armchair. Normally reserved for visitors.
Two nurses promptly attended to my efforts to discolour the decor. I was marched, hand held high, back to my shared cell. Where a wrist compressing bracelet was inflated. To avoid further embarassment.
A nice lady arrived to try and extend my enforced stay. I left it to their expertise to decide when to chuck me out. Early release, while still suffering from symptoms, is a bit of a no-no it seems.
Lunch was a delicious tomato soup with chicken bits.
The helicopter arrived and departed later.
13.15 No further symptoms or pain.
Our fourth man was eventually taken away. To be replaced by yet another heart patient. I am beginning to feel guilty at my lack of symptoms.
The nurse confirmed that I was not taking up a valuable bed. A recovered patient was the reward for services rendered.
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