IT HAS BEEN A LONG HAUL TO GET HERE

If you follow me you know I had surgery and spent a week in the hospital when I arrived in Scotland. Oh, it was so naive of me to think I had a torn ligament and it would heal quickly when I left Oklahoma. I had much more than that and did not know it at all, I was septic in my right knee.

Septic arthritis is considered a medical emergency because of the damage it causes to bone as well as cartilage, and its potential for creating septic shock, which is a potentially fatal condition. It says on the Mayo Web site that it can totally ruin a joint in only 6 days. It was a good decision by the small town doctor in Banchory to send me to Aberdeen to the hospital for IV treatment of antibiotics . It was an even better decision they made at the Royal Aberdeen Hospital doctors to whisk me off to surgery immediately at 10 PM to wash out my knee joint and then get me on IV antibiotics. Removing the infected synovial fluid from your joint serves three purposes: It removes bacteria from your joint, reduces pressure on your joint, and gives your doctor a sample to test for bacteria and other organisms. The most common method of removing joint fluid is through arthroscopic surgery. During this surgery, tiny cameras and special surgical tools are inserted through small incisions around your joint to access and drain the fluid around the joint.

I came home from Scotland not aware that I still had the hardest part of my recovery from the septic arthritis to go. I had received just enough antibiotics to get me through the week of site seeing we did while there and then 3 more days before I ran out of oral medication.



The problem was I did not have nearly enough treatment in Scotland and when I ran out of antibiotic pills after I got home, the barn door was broken down so to speak. I did learn a lot about Socialized medicine while in the hospital in the UK system.

(Maybe that is why I got sick when I did to learn about what they want to implement here for us. Let me tell you we need some fixes, but not like the ones there. If you want to hear more about it leave me a comment and I will post more about it. I have learned much since I have been home from my friends I met in my ward who are still having problems with their care and lack of it. I have also learned it is a heated topic and I had lots of feedback good and some very UGLY to me because I wrote about my experience in an email to my friends who forwarded it on).

It was the mid week and I got a prescription from my doctor, but they did not have them at the pharmacy. They said they did not get those anymore, they were too old of a type and so by the time I got another prescription, it was the weekend and the same story! It had seemed like nothing I was doing was working and the pain was getting unbearable.

I became really sick and had to go to ER here at hometown. They drew fluid out of my knee again and cultured it. It came back again that I was still septic. This staph infection was going to plan on playing hardball in my body. The pain in my leg and hip was horrible and it was still really swollen. I was on so much pain medication I was worried I would become addicted!

I got into my orthopedic doctor in Tulsa and he hooked me up with a most wonderful infectious disease doctor in Tulsa. He drew up a plan of attack of this horrible monster inside of me and we were in it for the long haul together.

I was sent to get in PICC which is a intravenous catheter in my arm so we could give me high doses of antibiotics in IV form. I got them every 8 hours and and it would last from August 6 until October the 7th.

Our table set up with all my things to give me my antibiotic treatments every 8 hours

My hubby was the best nurse I could have asked for, he was always there to give me the medicine. I think I only had to give it to myself a couple of times.

I also had another surgery on my knee area where they irrigated the joint and then took out the infected bakers cyst behind my knee where my infection was dwelling. I was bed fast from about 5 days after I got home from Scotland until I recovered from my surgery. I could not stand the pain of sitting up in a chair. I had to stay sedated because the pain was so bad and my trips weekly to see the infectious disease doctor and the orthopedic surgeon were some of the worst trips I had to make. I just could not stand to sit up in the truck seat that hour to and from the doctor because my leg dangled and put pressure on my knee. I had to go everywhere in a wheelchair for some time and when and I had to use a walker to get to the bathroom at home.

That surgery to clean out my knee and remove the bakers cyst took 2.5 hours and was no easy task to get out. I am grateful my orthopedic surgeon was and is one of the top knee and hip doctors in the United States. He and my infectious disease doctor worked together for my outcome. I am sure we will never know exactly how or where the staph infection came from. I am just grateful that it is gone now and I am back to a normal life.

I did have a scare 2 weeks ago and got up one morning and could not walk on my right leg again shortly after I was off my IV antibiotics. I was rushed to see the orthopedic doctor in Tulsa. They drew fluid off my knee again and did a culture to see if it was back.
Well the good news it was free of staph infection, the bad news is my knee had to have another cortisone shot to get rid of the pain. I can only have a so many of those so I don't know what will happen when I am there at my limit and can't walk because of the pain. They will never know if the infection got into the bone in my leg, because if it is I will always have some live infection dormant there. If I have any leg trauma they say it could come back if it is there.

I have been very lucky to have had good doctors when I got home and a great husband, mother and 2 nurse maids (that bark)
My nursemaids

Zoe top, Jackie bottom



that took care of me night and day for pretty much of the 3 months I was sick.

This week I am able to smile and enjoy things again, I am blessed!

CHAPTER 13 SCOTLAND Leaving the hospital

Cherie got her crutches and I got the Zimmer! I am actually able to use it and get around very nicely! It means for me I get off the potty chair and that is wonderful!
I start slow but by the time the day is over I am scooting around nicely and it is so exciting! The girls are cheering me on and it feels good! Now I am getting somewhere!

The day cleaning crew comes in and starts tidying up and cleaning like every morning except this day the cute little lady cleaning has her helper with her and he starts elevating every one's beds up as far as they can go. I am wondering what are they doing? Well I soon see that the cleaning lady is crawling under the beds to dust! When she gets to mine I hang my head over and say that looks scary to me! She grins and says what you have to do to make a livin'! I would be afraid one of those beds might collapse and squish me!

Friday night goes okay and I am still alive to tell about it, the only thing was it was so hot in the hospital during the day and that night.

That Friday Ross was upset because he could not find a tee shirt in the hospital gift shop that said Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.......he said they have them at Mayo Clinic! I told him he was funny!



Richard and Angie came to visit that night and Richard in his English accent told me "we might be late tomorrow afternoon visiting, because they were doing a whiskey tour." I thought he said they might be "lit"! I said you wouldn't do that to me when I am in the hospital would you? !!!!! That is one of the things tourists do in Scotland is go to the Scotch Whiskey distilleries.

Glenlivet distillery

.
Ross said to me a few days before that they rent Ambulances to get home from the hospital. I said of course they do because everyone drives a bandaid box here! How would you get in one if you had broken bones and could not crunch up!
Richard is always talking about my Denali and the other big cars and trucks we Americans drive around. Well that is okay for them, but I saw what damage little cars and big trucks do while I was in the hospital there. I want a little protection thank you very much!


It is Saturday and about mid afternoon one of the little day nurses aids comes in and walks down to "the girls end" and announces that they need beds and she hates to break up the happy little family but 2 have to go and it isn't Isla
We all looked at each other and I thought we were going to flip. We said to her we aren't going! We refuse to leave Isla there alone without us! She finally got us to say okay, but we would not go if we were not going to be in the same Ward. We were getting closer to going home than Isla and we knew we would have to go through this sooner or later. We both felt terrible to leave Isla there but Isla put up a good front for us.

They took Cherie down first in the wheelchair and our Ward was going to be in Plastic Surgery by the burn unit. Okay, now what kind of plastic surgery do you get in a government hospital I thought to myself?

The nurse got back to take me down and away we went. I tell you I was so nervous about this move. When I got there it was a tiny room with 3 beds in it and mine was an antique version like I had never saw before and it was stuck behind the door. This bed did not even have any way to lift the head of it up and I had to sleep elevated! It's headboard had a hay rack for a method of elevation! You just had to stack pillows on it. Gad, the thing was horrible! Actually our friends we were visiting just had a new grandson and they were showing us the photos of Mom and baby in the hospital when he was born. I made the comment what kind of weird bed is Louise on?

Oh, just like this one! ha ha

Looking up my nose in my hospital bed! You can see the hay rack headboard

Well I am not too keen on my situation down here in this old part of the hospital, but Cherie was just going on. I am visiting with the nurse and she is helping me get settled in. She was fixing me up with some bandages on my knee because it had started oozing water out of my surgical wounds....lots of water...gross..
Same situation the nurses are very nice down here and we did get away from Godzilla and Isla told Cherie maybe she will get fed now she is down there.

In a little while a nurse comes down to talk to Cherie about her complaints over us getting thrown out of our ward upstairs. Well I did not know this yet but when they delivered Cherie to her new room they pushed the wheelchair up to her bed and left her. She asked the nurse "well what do I do now"? The nurse looks at her and said "you get out of that wheelchair and get on your bed". Cherie looks at her and said, "How am I to do that, I can't walk and I just got these crutches an don't know how to use them yet!" and " the next one, Karen, that they are bring down is worse off than me!" Cherie said you should have saw the look on that nurses face then. The nurse told her they said we were ready to go home when Physios ( their term for Physical Therapy) releases them. The toilet down there wasn't a handicapped one so Cherie couldn't even use it! They had to modify it with the cute little raised seat with arms. There wasn't a shower in it either but the nurses were nice.....

Isla emailed (Facebook) Cherie and said no one was taking care of Margaret now and that our beds were still empty. Actually my bed was still empty when I got out of the hospital...........who do you think banished us from Ward 43? They did not need the beds like they said did they!

Okay now we are settled in and this floor is weird. The patients down here are all mentally deranged. There was one woman who tried to get Cherie out of her bed because she said it was hers..... scared her to death since she has a broken hip and sometimes those old people are strong as an ox! She constantly roamed the hall exclaiming "oh, my God" over and over in a dying voice. Creepy and it was dark and gloomy down there too. We had a roommate who had plastic surgery on her abdomen trying to fix some damage from an 8 year old car wreck. So that is the kind of plastic surgery you get in a government hospital. She informed us she never sleeps when she is in the hospital ever. She said I roam the hall and read, so actually she wasn't in the room much that night.

We have our evening visitors and we are telling them our story of the day. Then when visiting hours are over it gets creepy again. Cherie and I are laying in the beds and the lady is doing her chanting and you could hear the sound of a TV muffled and what sounded like someone banging a tin cup on jail bars.... I said to Cherie " Cherie do you think we are really in plastic surgery or are we in the NUT HOUSE? I did not sleep much that night because I was afraid to shut my eyes!

The next morning I am sitting up in my bed and I am thinking I am getting out of this place today one way or another! I was getting depressed and Cherie says "Karen, what are you thinking?" I told her I was getting a little depressed and she said I want you to snap out of it!" and I did. I told the nurse I wanted out of there today and she said that it was Sunday and Monday was a holiday and Physios aren't working today. I said well you better find some of them today.

The nurse comes in and sends me down the hall to the room of a gal named Karen and her roommate who have a good shower and they won't mind us using it. Okay, I thought that odd but I hobbled down on my Zimmer and to the shower I went. When I got there I saw Karen and asked if it okay I took a shower. She nodded and tried to smile. Karen obviously had been burned very badly over her entire chest and body area with half on her lower face. She was so thin and a fair redhead and I wondered what tragedy had befallen her. It was obvious she had been there for a long time because her scars were not fresh, they were healed. While in the shower I discovered the Zimmer made a great towel rack.

When Cherie went for her turn I told her, to leave her crutches this time and take the Zimmer, it makes a great towel rack and you will need it. She zipped off and went to shower.

Then two gals from Physio showed up to give me crutches. I took to them really well and they said the would be back and where was the Zimmer? Oh, that, Cherie took it to use as a towel rack and you can pick it up when you come to give me my stairs test with crutches. You could not get out of the hospital until you could climb stairs on your crutches. So Cherie and I got our crutches test and passed! I was going to be free to go!!!! Ross arrived about then and I told him I was getting out of the hospital where were Richard and Angela? He said on their way back to Banchory.
Ross called them and they said they would turn around and come back. Well the bad news it took hours to get dismissed from the hospital.

Ross went down to the nurses station and informed her our beds upstairs were still empty. He said the nurse was very annoyed they told her a white lie about Cherie and myself and why they needed us in their ward.


I wanted to go back upstairs to tell Isla goodbye, but I knew I would cry and not want to leave her. It was late and Richard and Angela had waited long enough. I was going to miss my best Scottish girlfriends Cherie and Isla, I had known them only a week but we had gone through what seemed much longer and lots of pain together. We celebrated our small accomplishments in our own recovery. We had hooked up on Facebook to keep in touch with each other in the future and Cherie made me promise if I came back to find them. I will you can count on that. Cherie was going home on Monday if she could get a ride in an Ambulance, but is was a labor holiday on Monday in just Aberdeen, so I am not sure if she had to wait until Tuesday or not.

It was one of the worst and one of the best experiences of my life all wrapped up into one package...
I had so many people praying for me from home for my recovery and I am also very thankful to them for that. I truly felt their power of prayer, and I felt so bad that they were all so upset. I had phone calls to my bedside and Ross's cell while I was in the hospital from my in-laws and my church stake President and my Relief Society President. I love them all and I couldn't have made it without their support from the homefront.




Now it is time to see Scotland on Crutches!

Some Scary Nights in Scotand

It is now 7:15 PM and time for shift change.

The night aids came around nice and friendly to see us.

I called for my pain pill and marching in the room about half way down the ward came this BIG nurse.

As I watched her I wondered where she was from, I thought to myself she might be from Samoa or Hawaii. Then about that time she turned her head toward me and slowed her pace down, and then said

"Oh, it's the Americano", which was okay, until she stammered and said "We call all Americans that in the Philippines.

I then knew by her demeanor and actions it was meant to be derogatory towards me and it had slipped out before she thought.

I believe she would not like any American no matter who they were and she never called any of us by our names.

All the nurses up to this point called all of us by our given names and we did the same.

I never knew her name, but I named her.............

GODZILLA

That evening my pain was terrible. My leg hurt so bad I thought I was going to go nuts. I had to have my pain pill every hour like I had started earlier. My new nurse did not like that because it meant she had to be on her feet and moving more delivering my medications. Our pill cart usually came every evening just after shift change. On her shift our pills wer always an hour or more. That just meant we all had to lie in pain longer. The aids wer fine but they were not a fast a mover as the others we had had so far.

My IV's are push IV's not drip. which meant they administered them with a syringe in my IV port in my hand just like a shot. They were 4 tubes and the antibiotic was pushed in slow as they could. Well, I did not know the reason for that, but I now do. You go slowly because if you do not the patient gets nausea and can throw up or faint. Well not little Miss Godzilla, she used all 500 lbs of body weight and 6 feet of height to shoot that antibiotic in me as fast as she could. Let me tell you that was not pleasant but the good news was I did not get sick.

I was telling Cherie and Isla about her and they said "why didn't you tell her you had a name and how she hurt you with the IV?". I said to Cherie, " I am not about to make her mad at me because she is the one giving me my medicine and she could do me in if she wanted" She had her mind made up about me before she ever saw me.

Chapter 8 SCOTLAND

Man, I bet you would like me to decide to post on a regular basis!
Well truthfully I would too! I have had some small problems that hit me in a big way since I had surgery...

Foremost being I have been on Pain Pills for 2 months and I am trying to get off of them...

Not so pretty because it makes you ornery! For some reason you
don't sleep much after sleeping and being sedated for 2 solid months!

I have to laugh about it because no one else around me was....
I thought I was the center of attention,
Didn't you get that memo?


Okay, back to Scotland

I had my emergency surgery Tuesday night July 7th.
On July 8th I found out I do not like bedpans...

Okay, now you know that. Then by about Wednesday the cart nurse (who brings all the pills you are to take for PAIN and such) started trying to give you pills to loosen up your bowels.

Well, I told you I don't like bedpans....
They sure aren't going to get into that whole ball of wax!
I would take my laxative pills and I got real creative with hiding them in my toast,
or in my night stand. I know they would just give me the stomach ache,
but I am not going to take a chance of the other thing happening....in a bedpan!

They took blood samples to check the infection levels every day. It was Thursday the the 9th that my blood work came back that the infection was better in my blood,
thank goodness for all the prayers being said for me at home!

Today, Thursday Cherie was able to get out of bed with a Zimmer.
( fancy smancy word for a walker in Scotland)
I said what is a Zimmer, and they laughed their heads off! Cherie said," Karen it helps you walk!
" I said "well, in Oklahoma that is a walker and they cracked up laughing!"
Isla said "Karen you are too funny"....
After that I called it a Zephyr and that really got them laughing....
The girls would say "Karen, a Zephyr is a car!"

giggle, giggle, giggle




I love those 2 girls!


To be continued. . . . . . . . . .

Chapter 7 Scotland I'm BACK

The third morning was easier for me to be there in a strange place because of Isla and Cherie being there with me and having someone to talk to and feeling bonded to them. I really don't think I would have done very well without them.



One of the fun things was to watch the tea and coffee cart coming around for tea and biscuits 4 times a day. Now we don't get that here at home! The English ritual was alive and well here in the hospital!


In my Ward 43 there were 6 of us and besides "us girls" there were 3 women the youngest of them 85 years old and the oldest was 93 at that point in the week. Margaret was blind and I never really knew what she was there for. I am sure she had something broken and fixed before I got there. The other 2 women had broken hips and one came in the day I did and one was there already. They were not sent to surgery to fix those hips, they just gave them pain pills and told them they were not an emergency....so they would have to wait until they had time to take care of them.

It was a little before this point that I started paying attention to the situation there. I had been in this Ward about 12 hours when I started to notice a lot of differences in the care of the patients than I was used to here at home. You know the United Kingdom has socialized medicine and I am here to tell you....
it ain't what you are used to if you are from the States!

I kept asking the nurse why am I not hooked up to a IV drip bag to keep me hydrated and to administer my medication. She said, we don't do that here.
What???? I was on IV antibiotics but they were just pushed into my IV port in my hand 3 times a day with syringes. I thought that was odd and a very old fashioned way of doing it.

If you were not able sustain yourself and to sit up and drink your water and eat what came on your tray you became weaker like I watched the aged do. Visiting hours were from 2 to 3:30 in the afternoon way after lunch, and evening hours were 7 to 9:30, way after our "tea time" which was the evening meal. So you had no family members there to feed you, and if you were old or too sick and a nurse didn't take an interest in you, well you didn't get much to eat or drink. The 93 year old next to me looked good when I first arrived but she quit eating and drinking on my 3rd day there. She got red streaks running down her cheeks and I told her family she was not eating or drinking and no one was trying to get her to eat. Now that is just wrong in my opinion.

Not everyone had a call button that worked on their bed either and I noticed that Cherie always was watching to see if anyone needed a nurse. She was the "little mother of the Ward". Actually Isla and myself became "mothers" also, but Cherie was the natural!

Actually I became quite fond of all the nurses and even the cleaning crew on my stay there in the hospital. I only had problems with one nurse and I will tell you about her later on in the story.

I found the Scottish people to be the most sweet, adorable, humorous people. I quite fell in love with them and would not have known them if I had not landed up in this hospital. I had been in a state of anxiety the first full day I had been there then on the 2nd day my husband made the statement that day when he came to visit I seemed like I was starting to like it there! Well I must admit I really liked most everyone we came in contact with.

Margaret made it hard to sleep at night because she had night terrors and called out and moaned "oh my God, I am dying" and that made me creepy, but, I did get used to it. Margaret also yelled out "where's Doris?", which is my mothers name and that got to me also.... She spoke Gaelic but I did not know what that was about.

The worst part was the other 2 women on my side of the Ward who were waiting to get their hips set. They would have the doctors come in every day and tell them they were not emergency cases and maybe tomorrow they could go to "theater" (surgery). They would change their sheets and give them baths, but they cried out in pain. It was very sad and depressing to that they were not perceived as emergency cases. It would have been the same for me if I had been there with a broken leg or hip, but these people are old!!!! It took each of them 5 days, yes, I said 5 days, to get their surgery. My 93 year old ward mate went to surgery and then they brought another woman 85 in to take her bed with a broken hip. I am sure she waited just as long to get it set. I don't know if the 93 year old made it through her surgery or not, she was awfully weak, and that made my heart ache.

It wasn't all horrible, the 3 of us young ones ( ha ha) always kept things going when we were not asleep from too many pain pills. :) We celebrated each others accomplishments and also talked about our trials and tribulations.
Isla was planning a wedding next September and we talked about that and how she missed seeing her boyfriend. He was hurt in the same car accident but had been released to home, but could not travel. We got to know each others families and friends and that was so much fun. Cherie had the two cutiest little boys ever! Isla had a dear mother we talked with alot and my husband was totally taken with them all also.

The girls were always mad that my husband was not allowed to hang with us during the day. I told them, hey I get it, it is for privacy. They said "we have all the privacy we need, we have a curtain!" I said I did not think the older generation would see it like they did. :)

to be continued. . . . . . . . . . . .