A surreal experience

Where to begin, oh faithful readers. I suppose you thought I was had it with blogging, and was in heaven playing with my new cats and decorating my new home.

But no. I have just spent 4 days in hospital. Yes, Hospital. The last time I was in hospital, I was born. I was hoping that the next time I'd be there, I'd be giving birth.

Hang on, I'll let you make a cup of tea before I go into details. All ready? Right.

So on Friday it was a normal busy day at work, and I went off to the doctors for my daily dose of IV antibiotics (see here if you don't know what I'm talking about). The doctor looked at it and said off to the hospital with you missy, it's not getting any better. I begged to differ. I was going to the rugby that night! I rang Mum who said, if the doctor says go to hospital, You Go To Hospital.

So I rang my step-sister Kathryn who is great in an emergency, she ditched the kids at the neighbours and helped me pack and check in. Oh sorry, that sentence didn't quite describe the actual length of time it took to be admitted. Which was Four Hours. While patience is a virtue, it's a virtue I don't have, especially when I am hungry and surrounded by mothers with Munchausen's By Proxy and healthy people who think they are dying and basically society's dung heap in general. But once I made it up into Ward 4, it was nice and quiet and I brought the average age down by about seventy years.

So by this stage I was quietly freaking out - I'm supposed to be at the rugby! But instead I was in a hospital bed, with a swollen hand, and a nice big needle in my arm. My sister Megan left Amelie with Ben, and came to visit me (and brought me McD's, mmm). We both giggled over how weird it was, until the lady next to me broke both our hearts. In the final stages of dementia, she repeated over and over again "Cassie? Where are you Cassie? You know I love you. Why don't you help me? Am I dying?" etc. It was AWFUL. She then nearly fell out of bed so the nurses moved her into the nursing station. I made a point of chatting to her every day which she loved, the poor thing, and I deduced that this Cassie person was her daughter who lived in Tauranga - but I never saw her there. Families huh- we've all got our little secrets!

Anyhoo to save this post from being thirty pages long - here are some bullet points and photos.

My view for 4 days. Not being outside for that long is weird. When I finally got out I was feeling dizzy and ill - purely from lying down for so long.

Bed goes up, bed goes down. I amused myself this way for many hours. Note nice red nail polish, to try and score myself a hot doctor, of which there were many, including one I had gone to Uni with, which was embarrassing, as I was in a gorgeous hospital gown with hair so greasy you could have fried an egg on it (forgot to pack shampoo) and was high as a kite on morphine and slurring like an alkie. But I digress.As you can see, I was looking hot. This is just before my operation. I was put under a general, and they stuck a needle in my wrist joint and sucked out the goo. Yuk I hear you say. Yeah it was. It took about an hour and then I went back to the ward, where I entertained everybody by asking the same question ninety times, then fell asleep, and this was the time my boss (bless his heart) showed up to visit me. I hate to think what I looked like. Drooling on the pillow no doubt.

Hand after the op. Note piddling little band aid. This hasn't elicited much sympathy from work mates, I would have preferred a neck to knee cast, but what can you do. Oh yeah, throughout the 4 days I was there, I was being woken every 8 hours to be shot full of antibiotics. There really is nothing like being poked with a sharp needle at 3am and then half an hour of stinging pain to make a good night's sleep. Luckily I was spoilt rotten with many visitors, and packets of lollies and delicious flowers. Mum made a 3 hour trip to look after me and tidied my house and made me a bucket of soup. Yum.

So anyway - I got out on Monday, and was back at work on Tuesday. This was purely so that I didn't go mad with boredom. The hand is still sore, but not swollen, and I am still on oral antibiotics. I don't think I have any natural antibodies left in my body.

But what about the cat you say? What about Gordon, who put you through all of this? Well Gordon solved a problem for all of us, and bunted a window open and has run away. Can you believe it! Everyone wanted me to put him down, which I vehemently disagreed with - then Mum went back to my house, and suddenly the cat was missing. Hmm I hear you say. Yes the thought did cross my mind, but Mum knows that if she did Accidentally leave the window open and allow the cat to run away I would be most unhappy with her. To be fair though, Basil is loving being a one-cat-per-house pet. He is running around, meowing at everything, playing in his kitty litter (got to knock that one on the head) and snuggling up and purring at night. I have done everything to try and find Gordon, but if he doesn't show and no-one finds him, c'est la vie.

So anyhoo that's my story - can hardly remember it anymore which shows how good the drugs were! Hopefully it doesn't happen again for a long long time, and the moral of the story is - if you get bitten by Anything - go to the doctor!!!!!