Anna is having to take quite a lot of medicines at the moment. At the last count, it was 16 pills in the morning, 7 at mid-day and tea-time, and a further 9 at bed-time. Plus the Warfarin as directed, plus oral morphine at night for the pain. Her head is still a bit fuzzy, so the organisation of this falls to me. My choice. And it's driving me mad.
For every one of those pills (that's 39 a day, or 273 a week) comes in a plastic strip with foil backing, in groups of 7 or 10. This means that, after the Saturday evening sesh filling up the little compartments in the plastic dispenser pack, there is a pile of cardboard, metal and crushed plastic the size of a small car on my dining room table. Now this is a major irritation. Pills used to come in little bottles, with a cotton-wool wad in the opening to stop them rattling about. Shaking out a handful was easy; counting them out was simple, and the little bottles came in handy for all sorts of things afterwards. These days, by the time I have extracted a week's worth, my hands are aching and the table is covered in white dust, I have a waste stream to rival Biffa, and my head is aching at the sheer pointlessness of it. A hundred pills used to occupy a small bottle; now, they come in a packet the size of a housebrick, which is mainly fresh air and non-recyclable packaging. (The cheap Paracetamol that my pharmacist supplies is the worst: heavy plastic bubbles, covered with tough paper that would not be out of place on the Space Shuttle. I get about 1 in 3 out whole - the rest are smashed into chalk dust in the ripping process.)
Why change something that worked so well, and why change to something so wasteful? I'll tell you why. For the sake of the children, and to stop people from killing themselves. Now I resent this. For one thing, if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't let a bit of packaging stop me. If it took five minutes instead of five seconds to put in my hand enough Paracetamol to turn my liver to sludge and bring the curtains down on my miserable existence, I don't think I would find that a barrier. And if someone wants to top themselves, that's up to them. I don't see why I (and millions of other responsible adults) should be put to all this unnecessary hassle just to make it fractionally harder for them to grab a lethal handful.
But think of the cheeeeldren! Well, the childproof caps that came in when I was a teenager seem to do a pretty good job of stopping kids chasing them down like sherbert. And, in any case, what was wrong with the idea that medicines should be kept out of the reach of children, as they used to write on every label? Are parents now so stupid that they leave these things lying around on the basis that "we let Kylie play with them, cos they're in that new packaging, childproof, innit"?
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that one or two children's lives have been saved by this idea. I wonder how many adults have suffered or died because getting at their medication was more difficult that it needed to have been? After all, when you live alone and your hands are weak and arthritic is the time when you need all these pills the most. It's a case of balancing risk again. But, of course, old people don't quite have the emotional tug of the cheeeeldren, do they?
Bah.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, 6 July 2009
Bad few months pt. 2
Anna came home from the cardiac surgery in one piece and made remarkably good progress. After a week or two, she was walking almost a mile a day and we were looking forward to getting away in the summer and catching up with ourselves. But since then there has been nothing but bad news.
First was a pulmonary embolism, which thankfully was only small, but meant that Anna had to have Heperin injections for a while (that was fun - the darts I played in my youth came in useful) and then she went onto Warfarin. Meanwhile, all exercise had to stop, which meant that the progress she was making recovering from Health Disaster 1 was halted by Health Disaster 2. All through this, she had been experiencing severe pain in her back. She has a bad back in any case, so we assumed that it was a result of lying flat out during the operation. But when it didn't get any better - in fact, got much worse - we had it investigated. It seems that she had suffered a 'wedge fracture' of one of her vertebrae. Over the next few weeks, more of them collapsed, so that eventually she had four vertebrae which had crumbled. Luckily, the spinal cord was not affected, but she is now in a large spinal brace, which is extremely uncomfortable but at least relieves the pain enough to let her sleep. So that was Health Disaster 3.
Superstition says that things always come in threes, so we are hoping that this is the end of the troubles for the time being. Anna is now slowly improving, and although we have cancelled plans for a holiday in the near future, it looks as though getting away will be possible before too long.
On top of all this, the trailbike has had one thing after another go wrong with it. As I am not super-rich, I have had to do the diagnosis and repairs myself. As soon as I get one thing fixed, it runs for a week and then something else goes wrong. I'll probably talk about this in another post some time. The other bike has had its problems too, but fortunately, it has always been running when the trailbike was not, so I have at least had transport.
At the end of May, my boss called me in and told me that, as part of the company's cost reduction plans, I was being reduced to a three-day week. While a bit more time to spend with Anna (and get things like shopping done) was very welcome, the cut in pay and holiday entitlement was a bit of a blow. I was told that this arrangement was only temporary, but it is looking more and more as if it will be permanent. So I'll have to add 'looking for a new job' to all the other things.
This is a new blog, and I felt the need to put down all the stuff that had been happening recently. There. It's done. I hope no-one reading this (I ought to say 'either of us') thinks it's a plea for sympathy. It isn't. I take life on the chin, and I am quite content with whatever fate deals out for me. But it does save a lot of explanation later if I dump all the crap down here, early on, where the interested can refer to it if they are very bored.
Life moves on, and so do I. On to more interesting stuff in the next post, I hope.
First was a pulmonary embolism, which thankfully was only small, but meant that Anna had to have Heperin injections for a while (that was fun - the darts I played in my youth came in useful) and then she went onto Warfarin. Meanwhile, all exercise had to stop, which meant that the progress she was making recovering from Health Disaster 1 was halted by Health Disaster 2. All through this, she had been experiencing severe pain in her back. She has a bad back in any case, so we assumed that it was a result of lying flat out during the operation. But when it didn't get any better - in fact, got much worse - we had it investigated. It seems that she had suffered a 'wedge fracture' of one of her vertebrae. Over the next few weeks, more of them collapsed, so that eventually she had four vertebrae which had crumbled. Luckily, the spinal cord was not affected, but she is now in a large spinal brace, which is extremely uncomfortable but at least relieves the pain enough to let her sleep. So that was Health Disaster 3.
Superstition says that things always come in threes, so we are hoping that this is the end of the troubles for the time being. Anna is now slowly improving, and although we have cancelled plans for a holiday in the near future, it looks as though getting away will be possible before too long.
On top of all this, the trailbike has had one thing after another go wrong with it. As I am not super-rich, I have had to do the diagnosis and repairs myself. As soon as I get one thing fixed, it runs for a week and then something else goes wrong. I'll probably talk about this in another post some time. The other bike has had its problems too, but fortunately, it has always been running when the trailbike was not, so I have at least had transport.
At the end of May, my boss called me in and told me that, as part of the company's cost reduction plans, I was being reduced to a three-day week. While a bit more time to spend with Anna (and get things like shopping done) was very welcome, the cut in pay and holiday entitlement was a bit of a blow. I was told that this arrangement was only temporary, but it is looking more and more as if it will be permanent. So I'll have to add 'looking for a new job' to all the other things.
This is a new blog, and I felt the need to put down all the stuff that had been happening recently. There. It's done. I hope no-one reading this (I ought to say 'either of us') thinks it's a plea for sympathy. It isn't. I take life on the chin, and I am quite content with whatever fate deals out for me. But it does save a lot of explanation later if I dump all the crap down here, early on, where the interested can refer to it if they are very bored.
Life moves on, and so do I. On to more interesting stuff in the next post, I hope.
Bad few months
Life, eh? One damn thing after another. The last few months have been fairly difficult for me, in a number of ways. I'm going to list the events here, not for sympathy (I hate whingers) but just to set down once and for all how things have been, and why some of the things I say are how they are.
In February, Anna decided to seek medical help for some chest pains she had been getting for the previous few months. (It turns out it was years, rather than months, but she had been 'brave' about it.) After various misdiagnoses, she was finally sent for an exercise ECG, to 'rule out' any heart problems. The test was stopped half-way through, and an appointment was made for an angiogram at the big hospital 60 miles up the road. On the appointed day, I took time off work and we set off to Swansea. We had both dressed up a bit, as we thought there might be the chance to do a bit of shopping after the test. Hah. The hospital was first-class - everything on time and the staff unfailingly professional and kind. The result of the angiogram was not good, and Anna was told she needed a triple bypass - not only that, but it was urgent, and she was kept in for the next available theatre slot. Angiogram Monday, operation Friday. In between, she was confined to bed, with strict instructions not to move. Looks like the condition was way more serious than either of us could have guessed.
The worst part of the Monday, for me, was the time after the angiogram, when Anna reacted badly to the dye they inject into the arteries. She suffered some atrial fibrillation (heart rate fluttering) and the stuff they gave her to combat this dropped her blood pressure massively and she passed out. I saw her BP dropping on the monitor and called for a nurse. In seconds, there was a team milling round her and I was ordered out and the curtains drawn. I felt lke one of the hapless relatives in Casualty. What was in my script? Stand there and wait for the bad news? Burst in and scream "Why aren't you doing anything?" Threaten to sue the ass off the whole lot of them? Attempt to punch the doctor? In the end I did what any normal English bloke does (ouside of hospital dramas) and waited patiently. A pretty nurse came out and vanished down the corridor. When she returned, I asked her what was happening. "Oh, she'll be fine!" As the last thing I had seen on the monitor before I was bundled out was Anna's BP at (I think) 15/30, I was not totally convinced. After 30 minutes or so, I was allowed back in and Anna looked better and gave a weak smile.
This happened once more when was there and once again, apparently, after I had left to go home. It turns out that it was the medication that was causing the loss of BP, and once they switched to an oral prescription rather than intravenous it didn't happen again. But I really thought I was losing her, and it shook me to the core. You never think about this stuff normally, and coming face-to-face with Life'n'Death™ is a bit of a wake-up call. I felt the same when my first daughter was born a few weeks prematurely - suddenly, all the safe, cosy lifestyle stuff looks very fragile indeed. However, it did have two advantages for me: firstly, I get to use the word iatrogenic, which is a bit of a secret pleasure, like overdosing on chocolate digestives. And secondly, I got to go to Swansea and back on the bike several days in a row, which was good therapy after a day's work and an evening's visiting. Roads flattened. Bends destroyed. Sleepy cars spotted, hunted down, eliminated, left for dead. Hospital to home in 54 minutes, after dark, with three digits on the clock most of the way. I hope there are no policemen reading this. Riding a bike fast takes total concentration, and clears your mind of everything else. Sometimes this keeps you sane.
To be continued - there's lots of shit to happen yet.
In February, Anna decided to seek medical help for some chest pains she had been getting for the previous few months. (It turns out it was years, rather than months, but she had been 'brave' about it.) After various misdiagnoses, she was finally sent for an exercise ECG, to 'rule out' any heart problems. The test was stopped half-way through, and an appointment was made for an angiogram at the big hospital 60 miles up the road. On the appointed day, I took time off work and we set off to Swansea. We had both dressed up a bit, as we thought there might be the chance to do a bit of shopping after the test. Hah. The hospital was first-class - everything on time and the staff unfailingly professional and kind. The result of the angiogram was not good, and Anna was told she needed a triple bypass - not only that, but it was urgent, and she was kept in for the next available theatre slot. Angiogram Monday, operation Friday. In between, she was confined to bed, with strict instructions not to move. Looks like the condition was way more serious than either of us could have guessed.
The worst part of the Monday, for me, was the time after the angiogram, when Anna reacted badly to the dye they inject into the arteries. She suffered some atrial fibrillation (heart rate fluttering) and the stuff they gave her to combat this dropped her blood pressure massively and she passed out. I saw her BP dropping on the monitor and called for a nurse. In seconds, there was a team milling round her and I was ordered out and the curtains drawn. I felt lke one of the hapless relatives in Casualty. What was in my script? Stand there and wait for the bad news? Burst in and scream "Why aren't you doing anything?" Threaten to sue the ass off the whole lot of them? Attempt to punch the doctor? In the end I did what any normal English bloke does (ouside of hospital dramas) and waited patiently. A pretty nurse came out and vanished down the corridor. When she returned, I asked her what was happening. "Oh, she'll be fine!" As the last thing I had seen on the monitor before I was bundled out was Anna's BP at (I think) 15/30, I was not totally convinced. After 30 minutes or so, I was allowed back in and Anna looked better and gave a weak smile.
This happened once more when was there and once again, apparently, after I had left to go home. It turns out that it was the medication that was causing the loss of BP, and once they switched to an oral prescription rather than intravenous it didn't happen again. But I really thought I was losing her, and it shook me to the core. You never think about this stuff normally, and coming face-to-face with Life'n'Death™ is a bit of a wake-up call. I felt the same when my first daughter was born a few weeks prematurely - suddenly, all the safe, cosy lifestyle stuff looks very fragile indeed. However, it did have two advantages for me: firstly, I get to use the word iatrogenic, which is a bit of a secret pleasure, like overdosing on chocolate digestives. And secondly, I got to go to Swansea and back on the bike several days in a row, which was good therapy after a day's work and an evening's visiting. Roads flattened. Bends destroyed. Sleepy cars spotted, hunted down, eliminated, left for dead. Hospital to home in 54 minutes, after dark, with three digits on the clock most of the way. I hope there are no policemen reading this. Riding a bike fast takes total concentration, and clears your mind of everything else. Sometimes this keeps you sane.
To be continued - there's lots of shit to happen yet.
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