The Bluestocking, where Maud reigns supreme...

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

... & Magpie regularly drains the hot chocolate bowser.

If you understand that, or you're just cool with it, come on in & bagsie a chair by the fire.

Previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5410054-the-bluestocking-the-one-where-the-nights-start-to-draw-in?page=1

I found this picture of Myrtle being Zen and stoical at the same time - very ecumenical😁

Found this picture?!

Did you sneak a snap while I was in A&E? 💙

A bed was found in A&E on Tuesday morning at 7am after 18 hours waiting on hard chairs and no way to lift my leg.

I saw a doctor at around 9am while still in A&E and he said the wound would be managed conservatively. No surgery but a negative pressure wound therapy system (also known as magic) would be used. It seals and drains the wound by using a pump. I can expect to be in hospital for a week. The infectious wounds team would see me later.

I was transferred to the ward at about 10am.

I discovered breakfast was cereal (I'm lactose intolerant) or toast. There is a reason we only bring the toaster out at Christmas - and never before the 20th. The 9th December equalled half a stone weight gain in 2024 so October is way too early.

I miss my cardamom tea, but at least the coffee isn't instant. I hate that I can't make tea or coffee myself and must wait. I have lots of water.

I am not allowed to take my own drugs and must wait for them to be doled out. Lunch was at 1215, dinner was at 5.15pm. I feel infantilised and also taken care of.

Having not slept at all the previous 24 hours I desperately wanted to sleep but this expectation of visits from the team and the new dressing stopped me.

Yet basically nothing happened yesterday because we are now on NHS time. Everything happens slowly.

No visit from the infectious wounds team. No news. No magic dressing. Until 10pm when I had finally fallen asleep when a nurse asked if I wanted the magic dressing "now" or in the morning. I said now because the morning could mean any time the next day, and at 11.30pm they came to add the new dressing.

I had developed blisters around the dressing and on removal it was clear I was severely allergic to the adhesive. A new dressing with a tube emanating from it to a continuous pump was placed with the expectation it would remain for three or more days.

The next part will follow.

Oh, Myrtle, you are going through the mill, aren't you? 💐I recognise myself in your reaction to hospital time and routine as I had 16 days in hospital on intravenous antibiotics a couple of years ago. It took a bit of getting used to. Hopefully the magic pump dressing will start to do its stuff on your ankle very soon.

Procrastination is all very well for most of us but taking that long to start dealing with an infection which needs special management not just ABs is something else.

Oh Myrtle!!!! I know we are lucky to have a system of healthcare that is free at the point of delivery, and I know the staff are under masses of pressure and all of that but fucking hell that is no way to treat a lioness. I hope you have packed a LOT of knitting, or that the Walrus can sneak in some additional yarn as the days progress. I recognise the sense of feeling infantalised from my mother's post-stroke experience. While she valued and appreciated the work of virtually all the staff who cared for her (there were a couple of sadistic nurses amongst many many more angels, and she wasn't very impressed with the consultant), she did find the whole experience dehumanising. Sending you strength.

And now I will get back to some procrastiknitting, of which I do a lot - indeed it is so bad I try to have 2-3 projects on the go at once so if I get bored of one there is always something else. The Devil makes work for idle hands and all that.

You are really being put through the wringer, @MyrtleLion. I hope the magic dressing works. I just wish there was more I could do.

Dear Myrtle, awful awful awful situation, I hope and believe that the treatment once started, once corrected, will start to heal your poor paw.
I so admire your stoical stance, but being infantilised and cared for tends to make a person rather helpless. Sending lion-like power and presence to your heart and I also wish for you to have a comfortable night

Fingers crossed for an Androcles for our lioness's poorly paw 🐾

Oh Myrtle, it's all so unfair! I hope the treatment starts to work soon, and you eventually manage to get a reasonably good sleep, you must be running on empty by now😞
I hope the hospital bed is more comfy than this

Mega sympathies @MyrtleLion - it all sounds very unpleasant indeed and I hope the new dressing works its magic soon.

I have not been here for a while as busy with life’s challenges, anyway seemingly we are all currently gathered around Myrtles hospital bed.

Wish i did AI.

Am not the nurse type, not keen on gore or ailments,

i will come back when Myrtle is suitably ensconced at the bar knitting in hand. I would be most grateful if some one could @ me when Myrtle is back home here.

Ta

Myrtle, I'm so sorry this has been mishandled. I hope that you'll be able to sleep through at least some of it. Though that full moon has been keeping some of us awake (and apparently making at least one poster even more than usually relentlessly nasty nutso)

I spent some time worrying that I'd lost my sense of smell after an overlooked bout of some virus or other, before realising that if the rather mangled dead mouse already had been on the floor of the shower room this morning I'd have spotted it when I was scanning the floor to see where the ENORMOUS spider had gone to after I shook it out of my dressing gown.

Just one little corner of not the most enjoyable day.

I don't think the spider killed the mouse, but . . .

@DeanElderberry i assume you are referring to me ” even more than usually relentlessly nasty nutso”

pretty unpleasant of you.

No, darling Banned, definitely not you. If you have been lucky enough not to trip over the threads it's on, count yourself a lucky hedgehog.

@DeanElderberry oh i must apologise Dean i am a bit outspoken but never intend any meanness sorry for thinking you meant me.

loves xx

This one is often a bit relentless but has been outright nasty to a few people in the last couple of days, including Taz, and I have genuinely wondered whether it's partly triggered by the full moon.

Awoooooohhhhh!!!

I have not been around other than sitting in the corner, because one wing of my hoglettes family are struggling with the grand hoglettes am trying to help.

Funny thing is sometimes they want my opinion other times not so i end up looking like a hedge goldfish opening and shutting mouth, nothing coming out.

Glad I did not look back on the threads now.

They probably need a wise presence they know they can call on when needed.

Anyway i have some exciting news TERF island has been dispatched to my house, cannot wait.

I was going to save it to read on my next boat trip, but its like a box of tunnocks it ain’t gonna happen.

I'm guessing the Dean meant elsewhere than at the Bluey - I haven't seen anyone being nasty here. Don't worry, Banned, we're all here the same as usual.

Good on you for helping out with the grandhoglets. I'm sure the hoglets appreciate it even if they don't always listen. 😁

I was thinking we need a project, a hen coop, as all the chickens in the world are gonna come home to roost.

Please come back & give us your review - I missed that one completely.