Good morning
@Kay9 ,
First of all - congratulations for having the operation on your other leg done.
I'm so sorry about those things that went wrong but glad there's light at the end of the tunnel.
@Suzette is a very nice person, offering support. And Josephine is indeed very professional.
I read both your recovery threads with great interest and can't help repeating what others said who posted here: The follow-up treatment at this nursing home as they call it is a whole lot of rubbish. I'm not even so sure about your surgeon of the second time around: He seems to be working like in an assembly line and doesn't seem to be interested in following up the surgery. I met a surgeon like that here in Germany, someone who does thousands and thousands of hips a year at various hospital in the Rhine-Main area, apparently technically very professional but no time at all to speak to patients and answer their questions. So I post-poned surgery and chose a different one.
Regarding the icing: It's wrong to deprive you of your ice. The nurses at my hospital, too, claimed - no benefit beyond 15 or so minutes, and in my rehab centre where I went afterwards, they said ice was only for knee patients. What nonsense. When I was at home visiting hubby at week-ends, I iced longer on the sofa, and that felt very good.
About your haemoglobulin: Yes 12 or 13 is a normal level - I had below 8 some time back in the 90s and that's extremely low - people were wondering how I could still be up and about. It was seen to - I just took the contraceptive pill to moderate the menstrual bleeding and recovered fast. On leaving my hospital, it was about 11 - still low but acceptable.
I'm glad you contacted your patient advocate organisation. In Germany we have websites where we can rate doctors and hospitals and also write a short report. A well-known site is
www.jameda.de. There, you can give marks like school marks to doctors and hospitals for things such as professionalism, bed-side manners, child-friendliness, parking facilities, food, etc., etc., I wonder whether something similar exists for UK hospitals and nursing facilities. If so, rate your nursing home there and give them the worst possible marks. Did you not say the place where you had the operation was in Bath? I lived there for six months in the winter of 1977/78 during my course of study.
You're not being racialist when you say you find people with strong accents hard to understand. I also have difficulty with some Indians. The thing is some of them not only have an accent, they mumble. Don't doctors in England have to take an English test? For doctors and nurses I think it's important to communicate well with the patients. My husband contacted a Polish nurse at his hospital when he had an OP on his shoulder and the pain would not subside. She didn't seem to understand him, and didn't respond to his request. Her German wasn't all that fluent.
Not providing the required pain killers and forcing you to get mobile so early - never heard of anything like that. At the hospital where I had the OP they don't usually get patients to walk before 48 hours have expired post OP, and I managed after 24 hours because I was so fit. On the first day, we were just supposed to do light exercises lying in bed. My painkiller was Voltaren (Diclofenac). Don't know if that's known in the UK but I've read it's also an NSAID like Ibuprofen and Parazetamol - and quite strong. I took it twice a day for 2 weeks and just in the evening for another weej - but then again I was probably healing fast and/or have a low pain threshold like many hobby sports people (I like triathlon). Depriving you of pain-killers when in pain: that's plainly and simply cruel. And the incision - well it looks as if whoever stitched it up bungled it up. So not only does the left hand not know what the right one is doing, but they also seem to be wanting to save costs - not managing the pain and discharging people at all costs even when they are not ready yet.
So pleased you are your own advocate. Let's hope that in a few week's time, you will be able to forget this and be up and about - but I think everything will be allright, because you show strength, perseverance and a first-class sense of humour. Good luck - Constanze
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I am SO proud of you for being the squeaky wheel! I agree with Josephine about you mentioning the press. That was a stroke of genius. Also mentioning contacting everybody short of the Pope was great as well. It's sad that it takes threats for those imbeciles to start to do their jobs, but sometimes that's the way it is. Shaking my head....
