Cant Get No Sleep!!

Well what do you know? The bloody dirt shifters have decided to play up as well just for the hell of it.  They did not come in and clean my room or even change the bin bag yesterday.  I recon they have decided that they are missing out on some valuable free publicity on here as everyone else have managed to get it.  Well I don’t want to be the one to disappoint them so here goes.  “Dirt Shifters”, YOU ARE CRAP AND USELESS”. In fact I would go as far as to say that my room is probably hygienically cleaner today than it would have been if you had cleaned it yesterday.  I don’t think there is anyone else that hasn’t caused me any grief left, apart from the porters, oh, and the Pharmacy Department and I know the plan is to maybe turf me out into the wild evil world later in the week possibly, I will definitely be having dealings with Pharmacy and I’m sure they will be up to their usual incompetent and sluggish selves.  I better start asking for my take home drugs now (Tuesday) and they maybe ready by the weekend.  I could safely say that I could write that days blog accurately already as it never fails to amaze me at how many incompetent people are involved and how slow the various cogs work in such an act that is repeated loads of times a day on every ward in the hospital.  It is not unknown for me to be told at 9am ish that I can go home and still be waiting around till about 8pm or even later before I could actually go, mainly because of the drugs.  Even when I have known the day before and got the doctors to fill in all relevant paperwork and Pharmacy having it the DAY BEFORE!! I am still here till about 8pm the next day, its bloody ridiculous!!!!

Right, I started to go off a bit then and to be honest I was stealing my thunder from Fridays blog or whatever day it is that I get these shackles taken off.  A bit like shooting myself in the foot which I am good at.

I know I have brought up this subject, well you could say a few HUNDRED times but it is generally getting on my nerves at the moment.  It’s the old matter of Lack Of Sleep.  I don’t know about you but I do try, although quite unsuccessfully for a number of weeks now at least, to get about 8 hours sleep and that started me thinking.  Say it takes you about 15-20 minutes to actually get to sleep when your head hits the pillow you need a spell of no disturbance for 8hours and 20 minutes.  The routine in here, and that does not include any treatments that are needed, is that the Ob’s as they call them which are Blood Pressure\ Pulse\ Temp check etc are due to be done at 10pm and then again at 6am so you could in effect get nearly 8 hours but not the 20 minutes per night.  Well that is the theory and is strongly based on the idea that everything runs smoothly and on time.

NOW LET ME GIVE YOU THE REAL SCOOP!!!!

The nursing assistant who is on duty for the night waits till about 11.30, just as you are starting to  nod off, to come in to do your Ob’s.  This usually involves turning on every available light which is just what your eyes needed and the machines are not the quietest in the world.  After your 10 minutes of attention they are off, usually leaving the lights on.  Then it’s the wait for the other nurse to turn up with your dose of antibiotics and if not your drugs that are due (unless like me you take your own).  This can be anytime from 10pm to about 1am usually depending on how busy they are.  As a rule they usually come into me at around12.30am.  The chosen poison at the moment is given over about an hour then you either wait for the nurse to look through the window to see if it has finished usually about 3 hours later or do as I do and press the buzzer to get them to unhook you.  So there we are already it is now about 1am and finally you are allowed to go to sleep.  Yeah Right!!!!  By now due to the attention and the lights going on full blast etc etc I am usually wide awake and if I am lucky I might get to sleep in about an hour so that takes me to around 2am.  Okay, are you keeping up so far????          Good!!!          Right then I have been asleep now since 2am and am just getting to the point in my dream where I climb up the tower, well stumble really because the dragon bit off one of my legs earlier in the dream, swine!! To rescue Princess Judith from her wicked, evil husband when you hear the dulcet tones of the night nurse saying “I’ve come to take your Ob’s love”.      Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!   A quick glance of the watch and pretty much always it says 6am meaning I have had the grand total of 4 hours.  The same procedure is followed ALL LIGHTS ON!!!  NOISY BLOODY MACHINE!!! Etc etc I think the general idea is to wake you up so you don’t miss the rest of the Heath Towers Express that is to follow and in that case they definitely do their job properly.  Then usually not far behind them is the next person in this daily pantomime the nurse to give you your antibiotics, which again just adds towards the general aim of waking you up.  Then along come the slop stirrers and not just once either.  They actually come around 3 BLOODY TIMES!!! In about 2-3 hours.  First it’s to replace the water jug and cup which as I tell every one of them, “don’t bother as I don’t drink the stuff I prefer my own juices and stuff”, but they never listen, even the ones who I have known for nearly 3 years.  Then comes the Tea Trolley trundling through the ward.  Believe me when I say that this thing's really noisy.  Even with my hearing the way it is I can still hear this thing coming for miles.  The head pops around the door, “Cup Of Tea”??  no I want a coffee with 1 sugar which I have been having from you for the last 3 blinking years, surely you have the message now that I only ever drink Coffee with 1 sugar???  After a short wait which is usually just about long enough for the slop stirrer to burn the porridge and over boil the eggs in readiness, oh  yes, and make sure they grill all the toast first so it is just slightly warmer than it would have been if it had come straight out of the freezer, but not as warm as the fridge.  I think the idea with the toast is to try and serve it at the same temperature as the butter which is always nice and chilled.  Quite often I ask for some toast now but I must say that the nurses are good in the fact that they don’t mind making me some a bit later on in the morning as quite often I can’t face food for a couple of hours first thing in the morning.  The other trick I have found which does work sometimes although it did backfire yesterday is that I ask for a piece of Brown Toast  which as a rule they  don’t do, they usually make up a load of white toast.  As a result they usually have to go off and make some fresh so it’s at least on the warm side of cold for a change.

Usually by now then you are well and truly awake after having around 4 hours of sleep and not the 8 that you need or at least want.  I suppose over a few days this doesn’t make a lot of difference but if like me you are usually in for a couple of weeks I probably loose the equivalent of 2 or 3 days worth of sleep which surely can’t be good for your general recovery, can it??  As I have pointed out numerous times in the past once the Train starts it has to run it’s course so you try and get a little snooze in when you can during the day and evening but every expert in these matters will tell you that the benefits of this are minimal if not none because it is not the correct type of sleep.  It does help sometimes though all be it psychological I suppose.

Is there an answer to this burning issue I ask myself???  Well I guess there are things which would help in a small way but I guess the bottom line will always be MONEY!!!!  As the nurses all ready rushed off their feet would need additional colleagues employed to ease the burden and as we both know that just won’t happen.  So we are stuck with the status quo!!

Right.  I seem to have gotten the bug of writing again whilst being in here as my blogs seem to be endless and not the small ones I did whilst I was home.  Maybe I will try and dig out a copy of my book and continue on writing where I finished off.  That way I might actually get to finish it one day!!

See Ya!!