The Entourage and a Dr on a Power trip July 19th

If I thought Tuesday was going to be a quite day in hospital I was wrong. 


I had assumed that as I would not have been seen by the consultant until Wednesday if I had still been an outpatient the same would have applied as an inpatient.


I was wrong. 


They must start work really early in hospital because the entourage came around to see me quite early. It must have been between 10 and 11. I think I might have to explain 'the entourage'. It usually consisted of between 3 and 5 people maybe even more and was normally at least one consultant, although on Tuesday morning it was both consultants, & 2 or more others who I have since found out are the 'registrars', 'senior house officers' & 'house officers'. All of whom are really Dr's at different levels. There would normally be one of the staff nurses from the ward who would be in there as well. 


So 'the entourage' arrived and made some polite small talk about how was I feeling etc. Then they landed their bombshell. Just like that. The biopsy results were inconclusive, there might have been some traces of cancer (except they didn't say it like that & it is only now that I realise that they were trying to prepare me that it probably was) and because the results were inconclusive they wanted to operate as soon as possible, ideally Thursday or Friday.


I hate this bit of hospital. Visiting hours are all in the afternoon or evening, so someone can come and drop a bombshell like this on you and then you have to deal with it on your own and have to try and translate it and remember all the crucial bits to discuss with your family later when actually what you, or more accurately I, wanted to do when my family came in was forget where I was, play with my kids who had done nothing to deserve this and spend an hour to an hour and a half being mummy rather than a cancer patient. 


I spent the rest of the morning and time to visiting time watching the builders outside and generally just relaxing and trying to come to terms with what had happened earlier.


Mum bought the kids in and we explained about Mummy having a baddy in her tummy and that the dr's were going to have to snip it out of mummy but then she would be all better. Then they found some of my scraps of wool and the blue floor and had great fun pretending to go fishing and crabbing from the bed and the chairs. Lots of fish were caught and released, never say that I am not teaching my children good marine stewardship!!


Later once mum and the kids had gone and tea had been eaten - More sandwiches, Tony came in and bought some of the things I had forgotten to pack like my ipod charger and other things. 


I realised later on that the laxative I had been given the day before had still not worked and I was starting to be in quite a lot of pain from both the tumor and the blockage. I resolved to be brave and ask the staff nurse for something.


This is when I encountered the 'Dr on a Power Trip'


I explained the situation to the staff nurse and asked if there was anything I was able to take because of how uncomfortable I was. She explained that she would have to call the on call Dr and get them to prescribe something. She came back about 10 minutes later and said that the Dr had refused to prescribe anything because I should have asked my consultant that morning. How ridiculous is that. How was I supposed to know at 10am that I would be this blocked up and uncomfortable by 10pm? She was very understanding and went back and tried again. The response was the same. Tough, she should have done something about it this morning. If I had a crystal ball I would have. Lets face it, after childbirth you have very little dignity left but this was an uncomfortable situation at the best of times. In the end we (the staff nurse & I) decided that if I wasn't able to have something to relieve the pain and help unblock we would control the pain, so I got some more oromorph. But it worked and I slept.