Puffy MacCloud

Temperature in the mid teens and rising slowly, wind westerly at a fresh breeze level, thick overcast almost unbroken and no rain since I woke at 07:30. For someone, i.e, me, who currently dreads the heat being experienced elsewhere, it's just about a perfect day. I'm now out of high dependency and back in a side room where I've got a far better view of the outside world, or I would have if they removed the x-ray machine at the window, and I'm looking forward to following the weather from here for a while. I have various procedures awaiting me later this morning but the first of those is my bed bath, which I'm looking forward to. More bubbles Matron! And thanks again to everyone for their good wishes. Very much appreciated. @snowidea I'm so jealous of your obvious delight at the experiences to be had on Orkney. I know you'll fill every day there with more. Enjoy and keep sending the photos.

Job done. He lives!

It's bright and breezy, hot and sticky, and it rained this morning but it's dry now. Mainly overcast. Quite a nice day. Today marks 75 days since I was admitted and finally my chest drain is minutes from being removed. I am loaded up with morphine, oxygen and Irn Bru. What can go wrong?

24⁰C today with very little breeze early on that increased usefully from lunchtime, clear sky, much sunshine and no rain. Intolerably hot and airless on the ward. Today marked a week since my pleurodesis, which the consultant declared a success in our meeting this morning. This opinion was formed based on the results of many tests, x-rays and a CT Scan that confirmed the pneumothorax has closed, the lung is inflated and no further leakage of air or fluid has been detected. Whoo hoo! So, his intention is to remove my chest drain on Wednesday, as long as final blood tests tomorrow, once my antibiotic course has finished, confirm that the last remaining vestiges of pneumonia are gone. Exciting.

Nice to be useful. One shall do one's best to hang around a while.

My visitors today were reporting car temperatures at either side of 20⁰C with sunshine, clear sky, light breeze and no precipitation. The inside temperature was higher I'm pretty sure and the nurses looked badly dehydrated. My pneumonia has left me with little desire to eat or drink and less than sufficient puff to successfully cough up that which I need to. Feeling weak and sweaty tonight. Oxygen saturation pathetic. Not a good day.

My body temperature is down to 36.2⁰C and I'm feeling far better than the fevered 37+⁰C and 38+⁰C that made breathing so difficult from Tuesday through to yesterday. Outside we must be up to high teens or entry level 20s, clear sky, steady south-westerly breeze and no precipitation that has managed to feel warm without feeling too humid. In terms of recent experience, not a bad day at all.

Temperature is still up at 38.8⁰C, me not meteorology, and I've now contracted serious pneumonia in both lungs, which means every breath has to be fought for and although its only around 17⁰C outside it's roasting on the ward and I'm finding that very hard to cope with. I reckon if I survive this I'll survive anything.

This morning my temperature is 38.8⁰C, which is somewhat more than the low teens outside. ("low teens" is a reference to temperature and not a comment on small Paisley folk between 13 and 19 years of age.)

Nothing much happens here at the weekends; no doctors so no procedures so nurses mostly involved in domestic type care and time goes by with nothing to mark it, not even the weather this weekend, which simply repeated Friday's pattern to further confuse me about what day it is or was. I met the priest again, the one from my recent march to chaos, and it turns out he's a chaplain here. Our pleasant conversation included the fact that I am not of his religious persuasion, but he wasn't in the least put out by that. In fact, he was a tad too magnanimous about it. Almost relieved I would say. I think, after Friday's shambles, that he was rather hoping I was a Proddy and for that to be confirmed was probably a blessing. I didn't mention that I'm not religious in any way, shape, form or practice because I thought I'd covered the point adequately. Anyway, having come to visit me with a look of the doomed on his face, he left with a skip in his step, a smile on his face and never a backwards look. Good news Kilties. It appears that the tear in my lung has healed (at long last) sufficiently for a wee operation that will hopefully stabilise my lung for a while. Consultant coming to see me tomorrow to discuss where we're at and what we might do. Exciting. There's a chance that I might get out of here in the foreseeable future. Unless the most recent outbreak of Covid19 on the ward claims me overnight, obviously. I'm typing this while hiding under my covers... Have a great time in Orkney @snowidea, I know you'll enjoy it thoroughly. Don't know how long you're going for but if it's more than a week you'll also pick up the 45 degree angled walk so identifiable in the folk of the northern isles. I quite liked it, at least until i got off the ferry back on the mainland and promptly fell over.

Temperature today was in the high teens, cloud cover in the high octas, breeze was next to nothing as was rainfall, as far as I could tell. So July has failed to make a name for itself on its first day, preferring to align with June and dull drabness. On the ward however, well, what a day. The physios arrived as a matching pair and set about breaking my nine-week idleness with a range of therapeutic implements such as a walking stick, zimmer, walking frame, harness, crutches and a big cushion, all of which I took exception to and refused to work with. This meant engaging further staff as bearers for my oxygen tank, chest drain pipework, chest cavity suction pump and collection vessel, intravenous medication travelling stand and a chair to catch me in if/when I collapsed. So, starting at the side of my bed and with a target of the wall on the other side of the room, off we set with one physio holding my arm, other physio holding the back of my gown shut, (why from the inside? he’s an odd boy,) a nurse holding the oxygen tank, an auxiliary carrying my chest drain kit, a porter on the intravenous stand, a passing priest, who I’d never seen before, dragging the chair and offering up suitable prayers and a couple of curious hangers-on bringing up the rear. What was billed as a walk and turned into something more akin to a tinkers’ flitting, had successfully, although slowly, traversed the ten steps to the opposite wall and crashed slow-motion concertina style into it. Turning round was a shambles, machines started beeping, physios started flapping, nurse was nagging, porter jaffa cakesed off, priest was praying, one hanger-on sought rest on the chair and the other took selfies of the whole charade. I puffed. And puffed. And puffed. Then we got it sorted and with me carrying my own drip stand we returned to the start where I was promptly sick on the physio who was holding my gown shut at the back but now from the front, which served him bloody right. I’m still puffing now but folk say I did well. I’m not convinced...

Temperature in the upper teens today, breeze faint to faff all, cloud cover occasionally broke sufficiently to allow some sunshine after lunchtime but a couple of showers slipped through in the morning. A pretty unremarkable day for Summer '22 in Paisley. Tomorrow I will be taking on the physios in a game of Move the Puffy. We'll see how that goes.

I exaggerated. Apologies. It's only been 60 days in here. In here without alcohol. Tomorrow it'll be 61. Not that I'm counting. Actually, the count that I am keeping track of is the air leak figures for the drain in my chest. Down again this morning, which is good. Way to go! Still raining, temperature in the mid teens, slight breeze getting up, completely overcast.

Day 50? Pffftt. That's nothing, I'm on day 68 here and that's without any flavouring in my water. I'm relying on water through leaks in the roof. Luckily I'm in a hospital and there are lots of leaks in the roof. And it's raining. Nurse! Bring me a bucket!

Outside it's bright overcast and it's raining proper rain. But I don't care. The leakage rate through my pneumothorax has dropped below 1 litre per minute for the first time since I got here nine weeks ago. I smell progress. I also smell something from next door. Dirty next door...

The temperature was kept down by consistent cloud cover that only let a few sunny spells through but provided several rain showers driven on by a southerly breeze that kept the ward feeling cool and comfortable today.

Don't know about any thunder or lightning but I had a tropical cloudburst and I'll raise you a helicopter landing outside the window last night. Cooler day but dry with a stiff breeze. Much more comfortable in the low teens, temperature-wise.

Sunny this morning but cooler in the breeze induced draught through the ward; cloudier, hotter and more humid this afternoon and now cooler again as the rain starts.

Picture this if yous will, dear kilties. A hospital bed sits empty with the curtains drawn around it, creating an enclosed space of a metre wide between curtains and bed around its sides and foot. At the head end of the bed on the left hand side there is a high-backed chair and on the right hand side is a chest of drawers. At the foot of the bed on the left hand side, facing the chair, a commode has been dragged into place. (A komodo drag-in, near enough. Haha) On the commode a figure sits dressed in a hospital gown, head down, concentrating on the business below. Suddenly the curtain moves, pulled back sufficiently to allow a lady in a floral dress to slip into the enclosed space and flop down into the chair. She lifts a plastic shopping bag into her lap and starts to empty its contents onto the bed; biscuits, cake and juice mainly. “You’re looking better today Doreen,” she says, without looking up. A lavatorial rumble, low in tone and volume, and an embarrassed grunt, also low in tone and volume, emanate from the figure on the commode, the head rises to fix the new entrant in view, thus clearly displaying the owner’s beard. ‘Tis Puffy dear reader, ‘tis me! “Really? Is Doreen very ill then?” A can of diet coke slips from the lady’s hand and lands noisily on the floor and rolls towards the bare foot of the other figure. Her head now rises and her eyes take in all the details she had ignored on entry. The bare legs, the gown scrunched into the lap, the cardboard top hat hanging upside down from the seat of the commode, the beard and the eyes with a curious expression to them. “Ermm, is this Room 3?” she asks. “Room 2” “Ah,” she sighs and rising slowly with a glance at the goodies on the bed, dismisses the possibility of retrieving them and slips out of view beyond the veil. That was my evening earlier on, kilties, and this is my unexpected Yorkie bar, being eaten first because its melting in the residual heat of a day when the temperature reached the low twenties, the cloud stayed in place throughout, it stayed calm and dry and overall was mostly stuffy, again.

Temperature in the high teens by mid afternoon, sky clearing to well broken cloud on the same timescale, no breeze, no precipitation, and still light enough at 22:40 to see the houses on the hill across the way. Uncomfortable in here, too hot and sticky with outside temperature remaining in the mid teens.

Warmer day today, definitely nudging the 20s, mostly sunny, less breeze than yesterday and dry, which was nice for those able to enjoy it all but a bit stuffy here in the ward. I got a new suction machine today and it's performing admirably. I shall say no more on that subject as there are those in here who would blow that out of proportion. Something mammoth probably.

Temperature today ended up in the high teens, sky had broken cloud to well broken cloud with sunshine, no precipitation and a good breeze blew all day, which did its best to keep the ward from overheating.

Yesterday the temperature got up to the top teens, maybe even twenty, with no breeze to speak of and it felt stuffy. Today we’ve had some drizzle, the temperature is only now nudging the mid teens and a slight breeze is moving the smaller branches about, resulting in a far more comfortable feel. Sorry for those who are disappointed by lack of sun and heat but I’m grateful for it, well, lack of heat anyway.

Thank you again HC, I’m all for bringing a bit of class into the proceedings. Plus it sounds better than smuggling lumps of concrete out in my pants. If I had pants, which I don’t, and my surgical gown isn’t much use for hiding anything under. Talking of which, nurse says I have a perfect bottom, although I think she was referring to an absence of broken skin and bed sores rather than an aesthetic judgement. Then again.... Blinds are up. Warm today, overcast and calm, no precipitation. Feeling more comfortable than yesterday.

Thank you for your kind words WT, I really appreciate your sentiments. I’ve always thought that Yorkies are fine judges of character and here you’ve proved it. I’ll make a point of visiting your illustrious thread in the near future, I’m sure it’s lovely.