28. Guess The Name Of The Dog!

The routine settled in. Every shift, day and night, someone would come and check my blood pressure (and sats, and heart rate, and temperature). When asked daily, "Can I take your blood pressure?", I started trying to answer creatively. My favourite answer was "no." Because it's checked every 12 hours, and for some random reason, mine was checked around 6:30am and pm. Thankfully, I had usually woken up by that time in the morning (or else I was woken by the door to the room opening). I'll never forgive one health care assistant who came in at 5:45am. I was woken by her entering the room. It was still very dark outside. I thought, if I pretended to be asleep she would just take it, trying not to disturb me (it's been done before), but no, the joker shook me awake. This same lady gave me the remote to the hoist once and got me to push the up button whilst she did (or rather tried to do) a pull up, in an attempt to weigh herself. So, I wasn't even surprised at her waking me up at ungodly hours.

I tried to amuse myself. I lay in the hospital bed and made it go as high as it could go, and pretended I was the princess and the pea (pee). I counted how often my air bed inflated. (It's good for your skin when you're not moving, and helps avoid bed sores). I discovered that every 20 seconds it would reinflate for 7 seconds (very distracting, but I got used to it after a while). I named everything on the ceiling. (Good old Laurence the Light.) A Pets As Therapy dog came round once. It was allowed to lie on my bed with me (I did ask). While it was stepping on my PEG tube it was not so fun, but its stepping on my bladder was actually pretty useful. Iwas able to relieve myself promptly when it left!

Now it was November, the ward was plugging their Christmas raffle, raising money for recreational things. Though I told someone to put a bedpan of my wee in the raffle, there were actually things you might not mind winning, like food. There were also other things that you might not want to win, like a huge, garish toy dog. You had to guess its name to win it. Of course, I wanted to win it for a joke. One day, another young person and I were bored, so we were taken to the canteen to help a health care assistant hawk the ward's wares. I soon realised my voice really wasn't audible, so I started yelling (quietly), "Guess the name of the dog! Guess my name! Buy me! Give us your money! We want more TVs!" To my mortification, one man stopped and started talking to me normally. I explained I wasn't cognitively affected by my brain injury, just enjoyed the excuse to be weird.

They were ready to move me by 15th November. I was transferred down the corridor to the Specialist Neuro Rehabilitation Unit. A bed had become available, and now my traccy was out, I could go. On that day, I was being visited by a family friend, and he got the job of pushing me into the new ward, where we had to explain he was not my dad! On my way out, I was given a guard of honour; I was wheeled past the combined clapping power of the therapy and nursing teams. I felt like a footballer.

I had been stood up on my feet twice, but I couldn't sit up by myself, or balance whilst sat up, couldn't lift my head up for long, or raise up my knee or arm. I couldn't eat anything, but had started yogurt trials. When I got to my new bed, in another side room, one of the housekeepers asked if I'd like a tea or coffee. I said yes, but no.

(I didn't win the dog, by the way.)

Writing practise on my last day.