Bob

My room here at Wellington hospital is a two bed affair with a dividing curtain for privacy. I have the best bed, it's near the window that has a view over a concrete slab.
There's also more room to accommodate the small collection of chairs that I have managed to pilfer anytime I spot one unattended on the ward. Should I choose to I could just about seat a small group for a seminar.

Speaking of seminars (I'll digress from my story for a minute) The entire time I have been in hospital I have had a constant stream of mainly female medical students come to poke and prod me so they can see and listen to the chest of a man with a complex set of diseases compounded by pneumonia. To be honest I actually enjoy the attention, it's a welcome break from the monotony of staring at these four walls, and lets face it there's not too many men that would turn down the opportunity to have a bevy of attractive young med students running their hands over their body one after the other.

They have a standard appraisal test that they must complete in seven minutes. I'm not allowed to tell them anything about my illness so it's fair on everyone doing the test.
However my favorite bit is when each one checks my pulse and without exception they get this puzzled look on their face. I can't help but say "no you are not wrong"
A resting heart-rate of 120 throws them every time.

I've probably had around thirty of these appraisals now and I'm getting to be a bit of an expert if I may say so myself.
More than one or two of the interns really need to work on their technique. One young female pushed so hard on my stomach while looking for my liver I think she found my spine! another young Asian female intern was so timid that it was a wonder she even found my belly button let alone an enlarged spleen.

Anyway back to my room..
I've had three or four roommates (I hesitate to use the term "bedfellows") since arriving here four weeks ago. Some I have spoken to, others I have ignored, secluded behind my curtain. Then about ten days ago Bob arrived.
Bob is 82 and loves to talk. Bob is also deaf as a post.
He repeats himself constantly and feels the need to declare his status as a "born again Christian" at every opportunity.

Now that's OK, I can choose to ignore him, or I can break the boredom by having a conversation with him about how far down the hallway he is allowed to walk. Of course everything you say has to be said twice... deaf as a post.

Today I got dressed, put on my shoes and headed down to the atrium for a walk.
I stopped at the gift shop and purchased some sugar-free gummy bears before attempting the stairs to the third level. I managed them one at a time and very, very slowly but I made it. Plopping down into one of the big leather couches provided on the landing at the top. I was very proud of myself. I'm sure my legs will be hurting tomorrow.

After a five minute rest I headed back to my ward and my room. Bob was strolling the hallway outside our room in his dressing gown. He spied my little shopping bag of gummy bear treats and followed me into my cubicle. "Are you allowed out of the ward?" he asked sounding a little dejected.
"I don't ask and even if they said no I'd just walk out anyway" I replied. Bob has been told he can't venture past the end of the corridor.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I should have guessed beforehand what happened next.

I was sitting on my bed picking out the red gummy bears to be eaten first when Bob appeared around the curtain fully dressed in an old pair of jeans and a Paddington bear duffel coat, several sizes too small. His footwear a pair of well loved slippers.

"Will you show me how to get out of here"? he asked. Now I really wanted no part in this misguided escape attempt, but I'd lit the fire and now Bob was eager to follow my example. I talked him through the two left turns that he needed to get to the lifts.
This alone was no simple feat, it was now becoming clear that Bob is not playing with a full deck of cards and it's little wonder the nurses won't let him out of their sight.

My mind rushes ahead and an image of Bob wandering endlessly, lost in this maze of a hospital enters my head.  (I call it "Darth Vader's Death Star" so named because of the endless corridors that seem to run in all directions).
"Umm hangon Bob, I'll walk you to the lifts" I struggle to catch up to this determined geriatric escapee. On the way past the nurses station I tell one of them that I'm just taking Mr Bower for a short walk. The smirk on her face should have been another clue as to what was to follow.

We walked to the lift and I pointed out to Bob, twice, that we were at the orange lifts and on level 5. We entered the lift and I pushed the button for level 2, the atrium where the shops and cafe are located. Bob looked confused. I talked him through the sequence of pushing the buttons and how the floor numbers appeared on the sign above the doors.
He pulled a pen from his paddington coat pocket and wrote "5/2" on the back of his hand. What had I got myself into!

I decided that I'd better escort him on his freedom walk just in case. We get to the atrium and he asks where the cafe is. I point in the direction and he said he would be fine and that I could leave him now. Against my better judgment I returned to the fifth floor. There's a couch near the lifts that I often sit on and watch the goings on down on Riddiford street below. I sat down and pondered my predicament. I decided that if Bob wasn't back in five minutes I'd go looking for him.

I position myself on the couch so I can scan the people exiting the lifts. Five minutes pass and no Bob. Ten minutes pass and still no Bob. Now I'm not too proud to admit that about now I'm fair packing myself. How am I going to explain to the nursing staff that I lost Bob? it's not like he's a stuffed toy you leave on a park bench, despite the Paddington Bear coat he's a fully grown man.

I imagine the whole hospital locked down and teams of security staff hunting the maze of corridors for hapless Bob and finding him in a broom cupboard in the basement. I'm feeling pretty darn stupid about now for ever getting myself into this mess. Then just as I was about to get into one lift to start my search, Bob appears from the doors of another. Going by the beaming smile on his face, he seems pretty proud of himself and his new found freedom. Myself, I was just glad to have him back. He's snoring away contently in the bed next to me as I write this, Blissfully ignorant of the stress he put me through today.

Next time I go out I'll keep my big mouth shut for fear of inciting the whole ward to make a break for freedom.

Goodnight..

28 Days later..

Today is day 28. I've been here the best part of a month, and yet most of it seems a blur.
Yesterday I was visited by family members who had come up from Christchurch for my Mum's 80th birthday dinner on Saturday night. (The doctors had given me the night off to attend but I was very sick on Saturday, so was unable to go)

It was while talking to my family that Sarah and I laid out the progress I've made in the weeks that have passed and also I came to realisation just how sick I was.
To me I just think "I'm sick, but I'm OK" I just deal with what I have and make the best of it.

It was Sarah that reminded me that in the first few days I had to be spoon fed, was on oxygen and had a tube in my chest. That it took three weeks before I could walk again, and only a couple of days ago that I could shower myself. I think your brain just glosses over all that. If I can open the laptop and type a few words, turn on the TV.. I must be OK.

Yesterday was the first time I had enough courage to do some research on my illness.
I was in for a shock. The bug I picked up, Nocardia, is often fatal and usually causes brain damage, heart valve damage and can be extremely hard to remove. No wonder the doctors were in such a spin.
Curiously once in the lungs it demonstrates exactly the same symptoms as BOOP.
It's entirely possible that I've had the bug since late last year and it's been mimicking BOOP and I've been throwing steroids at it. Lowering my immune systems defences even more.

Fact is no one knows, the Doctors can't say and I can only guess. It was two weeks after starting antibiotics that my lungs were tested for the bug, by then it was gone. The question is was it there in the first place, or just in my chest cavity and blood? I think It was in my lungs personally, but that's just a hunch and if I'm guilty of anything it's that I have been second guessing my illness and it's treatment in the dark for quite some time now. (as have the doctors)

If my pneumonia was from nocardia then my experiment with erythromycin may well have been working and I may have been well on my way to weening off prednisone.
My hope is that they will let me try again once my lungs have recovered from this current illness. Apparently they are a mess with even more scarring and fibrosis which never recovers. Those parts of the lung will no longer function. I can live with that. As long as I can walk in the hills and do moderate exercise I'll be fine.

I may well be home in a couple of days, I'm fairly stable now. However I'd like to have seen an increase in my blood counts and a lower heart rate first. I guess if they aren't going to improve, it doesn't make much difference where I am. Home or hospital bed.
The cotrimoxazole antibiotic that I will need to take for six months to battle the nocardia bug also has a negative effect on my blood counts.

The plan for when I return home is to make the house safe for me from falls. My legs are incredibly weak and an effect of the prednisone is that sometimes they just turn off and I fall like a brick to the ground. We will put a hand rail in the shower and any other mods I might need once I've been back for that first day we should have a better idea.
I certainly won't be going upstairs for a while!

We plan to set up my stationary cycle trainer in the lounge and I will sit on that slowly pedalling while watching a movie, TV etc. Daily walks on the treadmill too. My legs are like bits of string. All the doctors comment on them when they first see them. Just skin and bone, the muscle has been stripped by the steroids and 10kg weight loss since arriving here.

Well, I'm off for a short walk around the corridors..