Thursday 7 April 2011

The Hospital Experience

Time to fill in some of the gaps regarding the hospital experience.

On the whole, our public hospitals do a fantastic job of looking after the sick. Overall, my experience in one of Melbourne's biggest public hospitals has been positive. Of course there are things that could and should be done better, but I'm sure that's the same in the private system as well.

Physiotherapy

Before I came in to hospital, my doctors made a big point about how important post-operative physiotherapy would be to speed my recovery and help prevent phlegm build up in the lungs. Avoiding lung infection being the goal.

On the first day after the operation, while still in a heavy post-op drug haze, the team from physio arrived and got me out of bed, into a chair and we had a short walk around some part of ICU. All went well and l was told how well I did. I was left with the impression that phyio would be back every day or so to assist me with my recovery while I was in hospital. The reality of course was a little different. Over the next five weeks, I think I saw them maybe two or three times after getting the doctors and nurses to get them here. I suspect their main role is for new patients to kick start their recovery rather than to have an ongoing treatment relationship when a patient stays in hospital for longer than normal. This is a shame because greater physiotherapy involvement would help speed up recovery. As long as you follow their initial advice and do the deep breathing and coughing exercises all is not lost though and you can still get some benefit from Physio's advice, if not their actual involvement.

Pain Relief

As far as pain relieving drugs are concerned, I'm sure Ketamine is up there with the best of them. I was on a ketamine PCA for about three weeks after the operation and can honestly say, was almost pain-free the whole time thanks to it and the fentanyl patches on my skin.

Ketamine also has a darker side to it. It's a fine pain killer, but after three weeks I found that I was starting to experience side effects that could literally be described as wierd and wonderful.

First the wonderful.

It started out as hallucinations of white faced cute pussy cat faces in a kaleidoscope puffing their cheeks in and out when I was swishing water in my mouth to combat the dryness I was suffering.

Then i started to have dreams that could I have somehow recorded them would have been masterpieces of cinema too clever for me to contemplate otherwise. The sheer clarity of thought. I'd even convinced myself that I was doing some short haul time travel to the next day and back.

Now for the wierd. Let's just say nightmares and leave it at that. I consider myself lucky I didn't get the spider hallucinations that some others get on it.

More to come later.







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