2nd August - moving day

Ok, the ward I was on, was for scheduled Orthopaedics - hip replacements, knee replacements, that kind of thing - gent's in their advanced years................ I was being moved to Ward 7 - Orthopaedic Trauma - thought this is more like it, people of a similar age, more bouncy slide idiots / bike crashes etc.etc.........

How wrong I was. got wheeled in to a bay of 6. Double my age - would still be the youngest there - the one most with it, was being discharged that day - and just reminded me of "Major" out of Fawlty Towers - thin kI even called him Major once.........

Tom, Dick and Harry (not their real names) opposite - all nudging 80, one blind, one deaf as a post, and one wallowing in his own self pity who had nothing good to say about anyone or anything...........and lastly down the end, Father Hackett from Father Ted (based purely on hairstyle.)

This wasn't exactly laugh a minute territory, BBC1 daytime on TV on volume 46 out of 50, so started to make friends with the healthcare assistants and nurses - a cunning plan that would work out very well in days to come, however there wasn't a huge queue forming outside the cubicle once I announced I was a willing guinea pig to all female student nurses and HCA's for bed baths.........

Then it was time for the last moment of dignity I was clinging proudly to, go. I needed the loo, desperately. There was no way I was going to use a bedpan....... no way. No bloody way.  So myself , Dale (HCA) and Tony (Head Physio - who I liked a lot, but other patients feared) hatched a plan which would involve something along the lines of a paraplegic bed to chair transfer.......... plank of wood between chair and commode, swivel round on bed and slide down the plank of wood into the chair / commode.......... others were saying couldn't be done, so all we could do was prove them wrong. Then wheeled into the loo on the commode, over the loo, and well you can gues the rest......... then reverse the process on the way back. Simple but somewhat undignified.  It was then I hatched the plan of eat as little as possible, poo as little as possible!

Fortunately a bit of sane company arrived in the afternoon - in the form of mum and dad, and then mate who had the slide Damien - armed with McDonalds - a very nice gesture and was appreciated but just didn't want to eat that much as that would mean the dreaded bed pan or at best commode..........

however being a big northern wuss who didn't like hospitals or needles he did a runner (went to his next client appointment) when the physio came with what looked like bolt croppers to remove the temporary casts........and found these lurking underneath. I did tell him it looked like it had been bleeding.........



Given a list of excercises t do before arrival of Dinner - a bowl of I think soup........)

I think that evening I convinced Dick (opposite) that I was a purveyor of witchcraft by the fact that I was watching top gear on Monday evening through iPlayer and not a wire in sight..........

Lights off, and ear plugs in to shut out the sounds of Harry wanting a wee, and a table moved and the lights off, and the lights in Gorleston off as they were too bright, and that butterfly that now flapped it's wings in China was making it draughty.