This must be the highlight of my time in hospital. St James’s is the biggest teaching hospital in Europe. Everywhere you go, there are facilities and whole wings named after local and scientific celebrities, donors, grateful patients. The original workhouse is now the Thackray Medical Museum and the original hospital is now surrounded by enormous new buildings, a veritable maze one might just get lost in.
And that’s what happened. 8pm became 10pm. I wrapped myself in my parka, lay on the bed and dozed off, to be awoken by a new face at 11.45. The young woman explained that they couldn’t wait any longer (I assume for a porter) so she had been sent to collect me and take me to my new room. Unfortunately, this was in another wing. Wheelchair, lifts, ramps, more lifts. Pauses for conversation and congratulations as she had just this week qualified and the few people we passed obviously were very fond of her.
We eventually arrived in Lincoln Wing. Total darkness, all doors locked, not a sign with a number below 40 and we wanted Ward J23. I sat patiently on my own in ghostly quiet corridors while she set off down some locked corridor in search of a human being. Eventually, she came back and brightly announced that she’d been given the wrong information. We wanted Chancellor Wing. Back we trundled, up ramps we’d slid down earlier, back to lifts. It took 35 minutes to reach our destination, the breast care unit, with an enormous room for me, offers of hot chocolate, anything I wanted...I just wanted some extra blankets and permission to get between the sheets still wearing my joggers. Sleep was all I wanted. No more drip alarms to go off, no more interruptions for blood pressure and temperature (huh, 5am in they came)...just let me sleep! The room was right by the hospital generator unfortunately. The view was tremendous:
Next morning, I was visited by L, the child doctor. Knock 50 years off me and I’d have been in love. He explained my blood count was still too low but they were aware that I was keen to go home and the original fever was all under control. Would I have a blood transfusion? Yes please!! He then proceeded to scare the wits out of me with all the things that might go wrong and again I had to sign my consent. I had no idea how slow the process is: 2 hours per unit and I needed 2 units. I managed to eat some lunch but the idea of blood being dripped in while I was eating didn’t sit comfortably with me. When it came to tea, no chance - a good excuse as the food on this ward was not great. It made the meals up on level 5 seem like haute cuisine. Same suppliers, same meals, just left standing to acquire a nice extra hard layer, over cooked to mush, generally inedible!
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