When
Ron and I arrived at the ICU, Julie was sitting up, and there was something
missing: no ventilator was attached to her, and she was breathing on her
own! Julie did this for 6.5 hours before the nursing staff hooked her up
to the ventilator again at approx 6:30 pm for the evening and
overnight. Julie's hair had been French braided by Amanda, her
nurse for the day. Soon after Ron and I had to leave as staff
arrived to attend to Julie. We promised we would be back soon, that we
would just go over to the shopping centre to buy The Australian newspaper (the
Hospital newsagency had sold out). We were longer than expected.
Got into Lift Eleven, headed down to the Ground Floor and got out 34 minutes
later: the lift had stopped at Level 1, a man entered and the lift resumed its
way to the ground floor. It reached there, but the doors refused to
open. There were 7 of us in the lift. One young lady panicked and
kicked at the door, yelling out. The elderly hunched over lady with her
had a combo walking frame/wheelchair. We believe they were
grandmother and granddaughter. They hailed from Romania, and Ron and I
were slightly concerned for both of them, particularly when the elderly lady
got out an asthma puffer. It was a bit of a fiasco with us trying to
alert staff that we were stuck in the lift: when the man nearest the lift phone
picked it up, all he got was a selection to press 1, 2, or 3, and was eventually
told by an automated message to call back later. Once we got our
message across, we were left to ourselves. Not once did they have
someone call in to check we were okay and to reassure us that we had not been
abandoned, or to find out if everyone was handling the situation okay. We
pressed the piercing siren twice for 5 seconds (it is definitely a
finger-in-the-ear sound), trying to get some attention, but no-one was worried
about the mental state of the occupants. One of the men in the lift was
an employee of the Hospital. He did not strike me as someone
who would take action to try to get the powers-that-be to implement a
procedure which included reassuring the lift occupants.
Julie
had been wanting to go outside for some time, and later in the day Amanda
told me she had been given permission to go out onto one of the balconies for
ten minutes, now that the ventilator had been disconnected. I wheeled the
machine that was feeding Julie through her nostril and Amanda took charge of Julie's
chair. We managed to steer around the corners, miss all of the medical
equipment, the nursing staff and one or two of the doctors. The timing we
had been given wasn't good: when we arrived at the balcony, there were quite a
few staff there along with at least 20 boxes of pizzas. A sales rep was
promoting his medical equipment, and had sponsored the break with pizzas and
soft drinks. However, everyone stepped aside to enable Amanda and I to
wheel Julie and her accompanying machine onto the balcony. The balcony
was closed in on the outer wall, but with extra wide louvres which were open,
and through which a beautiful breeze was blowing. I don't think the
experience was what Julie had expected, but she just relaxed her head back on
the headrest and drank in the outdoors and the breeze. I hope that the
next experience won't include quite so many people. To top it all off, I
understand they didn't have any vegetarian pizzas, so Julie and I wouldn't have
been tempted to nick a slice or two! Although Amanda stuck to the 10
minute time limit, it was great for Julie.
Julie
had another big step forward: she was given a thick syrupy liquid to take
through her mouth, one large teaspoonful at a time. I understand it was a
lemon flavour, but this was drowned out by all of the blue dye the nurse had
stirred through it before feeding it to Julie. The dye was used to see if
any of the liquid found its way into Julie's lungs - which would have been a
bad thing. Julie managed to get it all down, and there was no blue in the
sputum the nurse brought up from her lungs. Later, Julie was given her
first meal of pureed apple, and once again she passed the test with flying
colours. I am looking forward to seeing what today brings insofar as
nutrition goes. Late afternoon, Karen Sanders brought in two video
presentations for Julie to see. Both were to do with her work, and these
two engineering power women became engrossed in matters relating to their
chosen careers. I was the wallflower in the background - but a wallflower
who absolutely enjoyed the energy flowing between them.
To
all of you who supplied contact phone numbers, email addresses, physical
addresses for us to find a lipreader, I have put this on hold for another day
or two. Julie was uncertain whether she would like a stranger coming
in. I am compiling a list of the suggestions given, and will have them
with me at the Hospital to take action should Julie decide I must.
Best
wishes, Val
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