Yesterday was my two week(ish) appointment to change the dressing and remove the stitches. Outpatients was either working at peak efficiency or in chaos, hard to tell, but the calmness of the staff suggested the former. The waiting area was standing room only, with several people standing, and the queue I joined for reception went out the door into the main hospital corridor.
I got to the front and the reception guy asked me if I had had my x-rays yet. No. He told me to get them done upstairs, and I asked, do I need a form for that? No, they should be expecting me. Now, if that was the case, my appointment letter should have told me to go straight to x-ray rather than queueing for reception, and when I went up the x-ray reception, they said, 'do you have a form, you're not on our system, go back to outpatients!' So, back down I went, and I explained what happened, and this time I got a form, went back upstairs (by lift, it wasn't onerous) and was told that there is a 2-hour queue for the x-ray. Well, I didn't have anything else to do that day, and I had my iPhone so I took a seat, but I thought I would be pushing it close, because I recalled last year with my other foot that the Outpatients was a morning surgery and it was already 10:30.
It turned out that 2-hours was wildly conservative. I had a waiting ticket numbered 95 and the screen showed 91. After 15 minutes 92, 93 and 94 were called. Then 15 minutes later I was called with two others. In my time waiting, the little banks of seats I was sitting in had filled up and I was in the corner hemmed in, so it took a few seconds on my crutches to get out to the nurse who had called us. By the time I got out the nurse and the other patients were gone! Good thing I knew where I was going! LOL.
I had my x-ray done by a trainee radiographer. I think he must have been fairly new because the full radiographer basically changed everything he did, but in a very friendly way, e.g "it works better like this." As the last time I had x-rays, they were zapped down to Outpatients electronically. Back in Outpatients, I reported my return and took a seat in the now only 3/4s full waiting room, and a few minutes later I was called in to see, I think, the house officer (the doctor standing in for my Consultant). He was very friendly, looked at the x-rays, expressed approval, asked how I was, I was fine, but I could feel the metal pin in my foot.
I asked about the x-ray, it looked freakish to me (I should have taken a picture), with 4 toes in line and then the big toe splayed over to the right. No, that's normal, so long as the foot looks like a foot. I also asked about insoles, and I've been referred to 'surgical appliances' to correct my flat-foot. Then I asked about my sick note, which said 6 weeks. The plaster cast is coming off in 5 weeks, 6 weeks seemed at bit..."excessive?", the house officer said; "yes", I said. He then tipped toed around asking if I was being pressured back to work, no no, quite the opposite, I explained. Before going to the hospital that morning my foot felt quite good. I didn't need to complete the course of Diclofenac painkillers and I was able to toe-heel about easily at home. However, after using the crutches to get to the bus stop and sitting on the bus, and then I misjudged the bus stop, and missed the nearest stop for the hospital, and had to crutch back from the Lewisham Centre(!), and then up and down and up and down for the x-ray, my foot had basically had enough and felt swollen. So, we agreed on 3 weeks. Actually I think he'd have written me a sick note based on what I felt, so I'll decide next weekend on how it feels, but I suspect I'll be back the next Monday.
At least I was sure of that before I got the bandages removed. Rather than slitting a plaster over and around the metal pin, the surgeons had placed a small round one directly over it. It was very difficult to remove without pulling the pin and cutting into my skin. Indeed, they were not able to remove it without pulling on the pin and cutting into my skin! Ow, ow ow. :-( Not screaming pain, but the pin stays in for 3 weeks, so any movement of it re-cuts the skin. When I saw it, finally, it was really big! Despite the pain, I was amazed at how clean and fresh it looked:
And also swollen. I know from the other foot that when the pin comes out the big toe will move back close to the other toes, but straighter. The other difference is where the pin is. Last time the pin came out at the top between my big and little toe, also the wire was a smaller diameter.
The pin was about half a centimetre proud of the skin. The skin around it was very sensitive to touch. And then the sutures (stitches) came out. Unlike last time, that hurt too. The sutures were very tight, I was told. There were two drops of blood once they came out. Then it was all bandaged up. It was quite a marvel to watch the plasters and bandages going on so precisely. But this was done in the room across from the plastering room, so I had to hop over there to have the warm fabric cast applied. I had to hop out and wait half-an-hour for it to dry and harden, before dropping off my referral to the surgical appliances department. I was warned that the foot would feel different in the cast and indeed it was quite bad, not least because of the trauma from the pin cutting my skin. Holding my foot in the wrong way, hurt, banging my foot hurt, shaking my foot definitely hurt. Actually standing on my heel did not hurt, so standing is OK. Moving on crutches however was slow and painful. Getting to surgical appliances was a chore, getting down the road to the bus stop left my hands sore and hurting, my upper body stressed and my foot just about coping. I definitely need that third week off I think. I'm sort of back to square one mobility wise.
No comments:
Post a Comment