When I say "wake" I mean that I have become vaguely aware. It's dark. There are quite a few people standing around talking.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep...
I seem to talk to anyone who talks to me. When we talk the beeping stops. When they stop talking, I go away, the beeping comes back. It's not that the world goes away, instead I go down, falling into nothing. Again they talk, I know they are there. They stop, and again I go away, falling, sinking, stopping.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep....
There's a discussion.
"When we talk he's here, but then he goes..."
"Better do blah blah." "Blah blah". "Blah"
Going, gone. Stopping, stop.
I can feel my arm move, they're fiddling with something.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep....
Cold in my arm.
AWAKE!
Suddenly I'm in the room. There's four or five people here. My head is clear but I'm busy taking it all in. I get the impression that I'm in corridor under the hospital, in a basement. (I'm not. I'm in a ward.) I'm alert and talking. They ask me how I am, but I can't work out the answer, I'm completely stunned. I don't know if I'm standing, sitting or lying down. There's just too much to work out. What's happened, where am I, when is it?
"Better give him one more." Eh? What? Hang on...
Cold in my arm... a blinding heat goes across my chest, I think my heart is going to burst, there's a sharp pain in there. They're going to kill me! Help! Get a doctor! And now I'm shouting, going completely wild, I think I'm about to die. I have no idea what I said or did, but I know it got discussed with a few chuckles afterwards. Everyone seemed to know.
A young guy turns up, and tells me he's a doctor. He asks what's wrong and I tell him that I am panicking, I hurt, my chest hurts, I don't know what they are doing, I don't know that they know what they are doing. I want someone who knows what he's doing. Take these idiots away.
I tell him my colour is wrong. My hands are the pale yellow of old candle wax. Things aren't right.
He wants me put on an ECG. The nurse wheels in an ECG machine. It has a heck of a lot of wires. I've already got 4 or 5 wires attached to sticky pads across my chest, oxygen pipes up my nose, a drip in my left arm and an arm band on my right for blood pressure checks. The nurse tries to add more sticky patches, but I'm hairy and they won't stick to the skin. The hair gets in the way and they hang off me like moths in a web. She's pushing uselessly at the pads and they steadfastly flutter away from my skin. Then she tries to attach the wires. She can't work out which one goes where. Even I can see the numbers, why can't she do it? I tell her to shave it, but she just pushes fruitlessly at the pads. She pulls off the failed patches and tries more, tries different types. And the more she tries and fails, the more scared I become. Now I'm trussed up like Gulliver. I must have 15 cables attached, plus all the drips and oxygen, etc. One slight move and the sticky pads rip out a few more hairs. (I don't think the ECG ever produced useful information.)
I need to urinate. The nurse gives me a bottle, but I can hardly pee. My guts are turning over, so maybe my bowel needs to move. She gives me a commode and somehow I shuffle onto it. I pee a bit, but that's all. All night, pee a bit, a bit more. The nurse measure how much I pee, and is not happy with the results. I'm on a drip, but I haven't drunk anything, so maybe that's why.
She gives me painkillers. The world seems very strange, it's a dark and scary place. Why am I in a dungeon? I'm covered in cables, my leg hurts. I have some very dark and desperate thoughts.
It's still dark when the daily routine begins. Nurses taking "obs". Painkillers and antibiotics being handed out like sweets in paper cups. Every time they give me morphine there are always two people present. And every time they check my patient tag ask the same questions; "What's your date of birth?" before giving me the drug. The morphine doesn't have an obvious effect, but presumably it's reducing the pain. There are none of the more pleasant effects that people have told me about.
The nurse arrives with a massive syringe. Good grief! Is she going to stick that into me?! Luckily the answer is no. She connects it to the pipe on my wrist (they had to remove the elbow cannula because it kept bending and coming free) and pushes the plunger. My arm goes cold, and then I can taste and smell the chemicals even though nothing has gone anywhere near my mouth or nose.
However, the daily warfarin jab does go straight into flesh.
