Bed discharges patient!

Bit of an eventful start to the week!

Martin had been having some problems getting comfortable in bed and had buzzed for someone to help him. It was taking sometime for anyone to respond so he tried to work the controls on what is quite a high tech bed.

It adjusts to all sorts of positions to enable him to sit up without any assistance and bend his legs to support movement as well as preventing bed sores. It also flattens right out, in Martins case sometimes a bit unexpectedly, but more about that in a moment.

Anyway, there he was trying to work the controls on what looks like the remote for a TV set clipped onto the bed rail. The bed started to flatten out. In principle that shouldn't have been a problem except the side rails didn't function as expected and he ended up hanging out of the bed with one leg still caught up in the rails.

He couldn't grab the buzzer, as at this point he still hadn't got the co-ordination or strength to make his arms do what he wanted them too. Next thing he fell out of bed completely and ended up in a heap on the floor. Luckily his speech is a lot better and at the third shout for help the nurses arrived.

By all accounts they were a little surprised to see him on the floor. It was a 'what are you doing down there' sort of reaction. His sense of humour is still intact, he said 'it's a bit hot so I thought I'd see if it was cooler down here'. I think he made it into the accident book and the night staff won't now let him sleep with his door shut!

The bed seemed to have developed a mind of it's own. A couple of times it flattened abruptly without warning, so the bloke with the spanners arrived and took it away. A fresh bed arrived and no more problems as yet!

We arrived for visiting one evening to find Mart wearing a pair of specs that Jack Duckworth might have picked up from a car boot sale in the seventies. The left lens was frosted over (actually, it was some kind of sticky tape) to enable his right eye, which is his strongest so far to give him some comfortable sight. His sight in the left eye will come back, apparently it's the sixth nerve which hasn't recovered as yet....but it will.

To give you some idea, without the frosting over the left lens Martin has some sight in both eyes but the pictures he sees in each eye are in different places!

Martin has begun to feed himself as the week has progressed. Initially he had to use a spoon, simply for safety as using a fork with poor co-ordination meant that he was stabbing himself in the face! The best thing is that he's on nearly normal food now rather than the pureed liquid that he was having.

Everyday things that most people take for granted are a real effort for Martin. He had his first shower for four weeks but it drained him (pardon the pun). As he's not able to support himself in any way he had to be lifted out of bed and wheeled into the shower room. He was helped into what looked like a plastic garden chair with holes in the seat to allow the water to drain away.

In his words, it was one of the worst experiences of his life...a bit like a manic roller coaster ride with him trying to hold on for dear life. I don't think he wants to repeat it for some time so it's back to the bed baths.

The biggest problem we have is stopping him from getting bored. As his sight is till not quite good enough he's unable to read properly or watch TV and there's only so much Radio 2 you can listen to. He continues to have loads of visitors though and I know this is helping him enormously, so I'd like to thank everyone on his behalf. The ward staff have continued to turn a blind eye to the number of people that sometimes crowd into his room which has been great.

We're getting the idea that at some point Martin might be moved to a transitional care centre to continue his recovery. I guess this could only happen when he has more control over his movement but time will tell.

As ever, please leave any comments and encouragement for Martin. I know he'll really appreciate it.