Hospital Shuffle

Last Tuesday Bear remarked casually that Mustard (one of the cats) had scratched him . It’s something that happens all the time in our house.

On Friday, while Gilles, the carer, was washing him he drew my attention to the base of bear’s right thumb which was red and a bit swollen.

“You must see the doctor about this” he insisted.

The doctor had already been in twice; on Tuesday to give Whale his 12 weekly injection of Zoladex and on Thursday when he was short of breath and complaining of chest pain. She also looked at Bear’s aching shoulder (after a fall).

I rang the surgery but the doctor had already left on her rounds so I made an appointment for the afternoon and took Bear down in the car.

She squeezed out some pus and dressed the wound with copious amounts of disinfectant and bandages and gave him a prescription for antibiotics and more bandages for me to change twice a day.

“BUT” she said, “if the infection goes up his arm you must go to hospital immediately.”

All was OK till Sunday when Bear complained of a throbbing pain and there was an ominous red line working it’s way up a vein.

Hospital it was then.

There were two young nurses who spoke English and they were vying with each other to practise on us until an intern came along. She took one look and said she was going to call the surgeon.

Sure enough, he came to have a look and said he would operate as soon as possible.

Poor Bear had a very unpleasant time in the operating theatre as despite the local anaesthetic he said it was extremely painful at times and he could even feel a throbbing in his leg. He came back to the room with an enormous bandage on his hand. They kept him in overnight but he was allowed home this morning with prescriptions for loads more tablets and  for the nurse to change his dressing every day.

Meanwhile, Whale was definitely off-colour. He didn’t feel like finishing a cup of tea, ate very little breakfast and decided he didn’t want any lunch at all. He was short of breath and had a dry cough which also made him gasp for breath and he felt sick.

So I rang the surgery and the receptionist said she would add him to the doctor’s list.

The doc turned up just after 2p.m. while I was at the chemist’s getting  Bear’s tablets and dressings. As soon as I got back it was a case of ringing for an ambulance to take Whale to Casualty (the doctor provides a letter and a transport voucher and you have to make your own arrangements here).

The hospital staff will think there’s an English invasion.