On Monday 2nd. August I meet another group of professionals, the Occupational Therapists. I'm invited to Breakfast Club, where the patients make tea, toast and wash up. Fortunately, I'm fine at all of this. I'd really like an assessment of my writing and I.T skills but I guess I can sort that out for myself at home. The O.T's and Physios are kind, enthusiastic and fun and it's good to have hot toast and apricot jam instead of cold, chewy toast and marmalade. I am a little uncomfortable being assessed, even though there are lots of jokes and laughter, and I resolve to review policy on observations of children once I'm back at work. I wonder what children who are old enough to be aware that they're being observed feel about it? I remember observing a four year old with autism at his playgroup. I followed him around the activities with a clipboard, recording his attempts at social interaction and his use of language. I turned round to find him following me with a clipboard, carefully making marks on paper and wearing a pair of toy glasses from the dressing up box. Touche!
I meet four different consultants while I'm on the Stroke Unit and each has a slightly different take on my case. I'm warned there may be no answers, that my cerebellar haemorrhage may be 'just one of those things'. That will be difficult to accept. I want an answer. If I don't know why it happened then how can I prevent another?
The ward round has a standard format. The consultants are usually very busy, having rushed from a meeting or an urgent case and are dependent upon a junior doctor to interpret the file notes from any previous consultation. They're also able to refer to a computer on a trolley which shows them the patients' brain scans. I'd love to see my own brain but I don't ask. They seem so busy, I don't want to hold things up. I'm reminded of the importance of a good file note, which should include a very brief summary of any conversation and a few clear action points. I'll go back over this with my current team and hopefully my new team.
I ask again about whether there are any results from 'Nottingham' and the junior doctor is asked to chase this up. Later in the day, I'm told that another CT Angiogram has been organised.
I'm not too well. I have headaches and nausea and I feel ill all day. If I turn my head sharply the world spins like a top. I report this but the consultants don't seem worried. It's like watching the stewards on a flight. If they're still walking up the aisle, serving coffee and chatting during tubulance then nothing can be wrong, can it? If the consultants aren't worried, then I won't be either. Maybe this is 'normal'?
Apart from Breakfast Club and the excitement of the ward round I sleep. I wake and find a friend from work has left me a book. It's by a Jamaican author, Margaret Cezair-Thompson and is her first novel. Once I'm feeling better I'm quickly absorbed by it. In The Pirate's Daughter, she skillfully creates the world of Jamaica in the 1950's to the 1970's, weaving historical events and the lives of real people into an intriguing fictional plot.
My young 'ward-mate' makes a fantastic recovery and is soon ready to go home. I'm delighted for her but envious. I remind myself that she's probably twenty years younger than me. I'm left with three confused, elderly women. The fact that they're all probably forty years older than me makes my stroke seem more abhorrent. Despite the posters on the corridor that say stroke can happen at any age, there isn't much evidence of this on the wards.
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