The night from hell - and its only the first night!

Well it was an interesting night.  First up was dinner.  OMG, what a nightmare.  By this stage, I was totally starving.  I had been on a low residue/low fibre diet all weekend (a.k.a the don't eat anything tasty diet), and then clear fluids the day before, and starved from midnight prior to surgery - suffice to say, I was ready to eat something yummy.  Even hospital food would suffice!  So the dinner tray was dumped on my table, and my awesome day nurse helped set me up for dinner.  I lifted the lid off my plate.....and.....hang on....is chicken meant to be grey??  What the hell is this?  I looked at my menu sheet - some kind person had pre-selected my meal - I was to continue on the low residue/low fibre diet (don't want me to poop for the next 58 hours!) So I had a "yummy" dinner of chicken without the gravy (i'm still not sure why I wasn't allowed sauce or gravy with any of my meals), the vegetable selection had been crossed off, and replaced with beans (ummm, hello???  do you know how much fibre is in beans??) and the ultimate insult - the dessert of caramel cake had been crossed off and replaced with pears.  PEARS???  I HATE PEARS!!!!!!  And again - omg, do you know how much fibre is in pears???  You give stewed pears to babies to make them poop!  At least I was intelligent enough to know not to touch the beans or pears.  Oh, and I was given an 'extra' dish for my meal - half a slice of white bread.  Gee, thanks, you're too kind.  Sigh.

My nurse took pity on me and went off to get me some toast instead.  The chicken was dry and tasteless and had the texture of grey rubber.  Not appealing at all.  And the mashed potatoes were lumpy and dry.  You know - I reckon some GRAVY would have made this meal a bit more appetising!

Soon enough it was change of shift, and my awesome day nurse was replaced with the most idiotic nurse to walk the planet.  I'm not sure how she got her registration. Now let me set the scene.....

When you're lying in bed unable to move with very little to do, you clock watch.  By this stage I knew exactly when my radiation was going to start - hell, the machine whirring away when it first starts is a clue that its starting! Then you feel the little tingle as it sends in the radioactive seed, and you know you have 26 minutes before it ends.  I was so bored, I would check the time when it started and know what time to expect it to finish, so let's just say, I knew my times.

So I'm lying there counting down to the finish time.  I hear the machine wind down and turn off, and I glance at the time and think, hey, it finished early.  Then the door opens.  Now, the safety feature for this radiation machine is that the door must be closed for it to work.  If anyone tries to open the door during a radiation session, the machine will turn off first before the door will open.  So now I'm wondering who on earth is opening my door during a session - it has to be something pretty important to stop a cycle part way through.

So in walks this bumbling nurse, all perky and chatty and says "i timed it just right, I have to hurry!" And i'm like huh?  She goes on to say she has 2 minutes before the next cycle starts.  I say no, there was actually 2 minutes LEFT on my cycle, I was in the middle of one.  She said no, it said outside that you have 2 minutes before you start.  And the light was orange, which means its ok to go in.  Ok, so I'm not an oncology nurse, I have never worked in an oncology unit, but even I know enough to know that IF THE LIGHT IT ON IT MEANS DO NOT GO IN!!!!!!  We spent, I kid you not, 5 minutes arguing over whether I was just about finished or just about to start. I kept telling her my machine had been making noises for the past 20 minutes, so I'm pretty sure that meant it was ON.

UGH!!!!!

She finally reset my machine, and closed the door - giggling as she left.  Still not sure what was so funny.  As soon as the door shut, my machine kicked in and gave me my last 2 minutes of radiation.  I felt like calling her back and saying "HUH!  I was RIGHT!  In your face!"  But I'm way more mature than that.......

A little while after, I asked if there were any snacks or something.  Toast for dinner just wasn't cutting it. Idiot nurse tells me no, I'm on a clear fluid diet.  What?  Since when?  I've been eating toast and crackers all afternoon, and they gave me dinner (one that was uneatable), so I'm pretty sure I'm allowed food.  More arguing insued - she went off to check and comes back and says that yes, I'm allowed to eat.  But the snack cart had already been through.  There's a snack cart???  OMG.  I can already tell this is going to be a long night.  It was at that moment my stomach decided to join the conversation and rumbled.  The nurse giggled and left.  I still didn't get a snack.  Shoot me now.

A few hours later, the nurse comes back in and asks if I would like a freshen up. OMG YES!!!!  Yes a thousand times!!  I never realised how gross you can feel just lying in a bed.  So she fills up a bowl with lovely warm water.  She turns my massaging SCD stockings off and takes them off and proceeds to wash my legs for me.  Bliss.  It feels so good.  I'm almost ready to forgive her for not feeding me!  She then washes around the burns on the front of me and puts my new magic burn cream on.  Then she turns me and washes my bum, and more burn cream there.  Then she covers me all back up again, tips the water out and leaves.  Ummm....what about the rest of me??  My arms?  My face?  Brush my teeth maybe?  Worst bed bath ever.

Then I get some good news - she's only on until 11pm, and I'm getting another nurse.  I hope to god this next nurse is a bit nicer!