Friday 24 April 16:30
As I’m typing I’m shivering. I’m drenched and freezing. While I run myself a bath, I’ll quickly tell y’all what happened.
I had to pull a favour today. I hate doing this, but sometimes you have to swallow your pride and ask for help.
Here’s the background.
We have a patient on whom everyone in the medical world has given up (read: the medical aid will no longer pay and it is now up to the family to make a plan). Angus is in his early 50s, on a ventilator, and was discharged from hospital after spending 8 months in ICU. It has been a whirlwind of decisions and meetings and trying to figure out how and where he will go. We had everything ready for his hospital discharge and arrival with us for today. (It was not easy to get ready, as we had to make huge physical changes to the room).
Out of the blue, the family was told Angus would be discharged a day earlier, and there was no way we would be ready to put him in his room. (There was literally a massive hole in the wall waiting for a new door), but the exhausted family was desperate, and we made a plan to put him in another room for one night.
Angus (whom we now all affectionately call Gussie), arrived and slowly settled in to his new environment. For the first time in months he had his own room, he could feel the sun on his face streaming through the windows, and he could see the world instead of a bland hospital wall or beeping machines . He saw birds and trees, could hear the wind blow and best of all, could watch his daughter as she bravely attempted an autumn swim.
As Gussie enjoyed his first day out of ICU, I started stressing about how we would move him to his new room. When you are connected to the amount of equipment he is, and if you are totally paralysed, it is quite a feat to get anything done. Keep in consideration that our lay‑out is homely and not an institution with long, wide corridors where patients can be wheeled around easily still tucked into their beds. I had no idea how we were going to move him, and getting outside help would cost a lot of money… something the family are running out of.
We needed a stretcher, we needed manpower and we needed a team who could disassemble Gussie’s special bed in a few seconds and re‑build it after moving it to another room at record speed. But most importantly, we definitely needed clear skies.
And yet, as luck would have it, when he needed to be moved we had pelting rain, skeleton staff (it was the Friday afternoon of a long weekend), and no stretcher.
And so, we circle back to the favour I asked… I phoned an acquaintance at ER24. I told him the sad story and he could hear my utter desperation. He graciously offered us an ambulance team (for free!!!) who would arrive around 15:30.
It was 15:25 when I announced our plan of moving Gus. There was a scrambling of people and umbrellas and moving of furniture when I saw the ambulance flashing its lights at our gate. I sprinted out in my bright pink raincoat and, to great applause, directed the vehicle to the far cottage where Gus’s room is. As we opened the back door of the ambulance I gave a little shout. On the stretcher was a deathly pale young woman. I’m not sure who was more surprised: me NOT finding an empty stretcher or her NOT finding the calm respite team waiting upon her arrival.
Just as it dawned on me that this must be a new admission for respite care, I heard “our” ambulance at the gate.
I ran up to the top of the property (it was now raining even harder) only to witness the surprised carers when they found an empty stretcher in the next ambulance where their patient should have been.
We swapped ambulances, the respite patient got to her room and we got our empty stretcher and three burly ambulance men. It was like an F1 pit crew: we did a quick briefing, who was supposed to do what, and we explained to Gus what our plan was.
Gus was put on the portable ventilator, we moved him from his bed to the stretcher, the maintenance guys started disassembling his hospital bed, his sister moved the ventilator out of the room, I balanced his pipes in my hand, keeping eye contact with Gussie the whole time to let him know he was fine. We pushed Gus into the hallway and his sister stayed with him while we set up his new room by moving everything through the rain. In record time the team re‑assembled the bed, only to get it stuck in a “U” shape and, for love or money, we could not get it flat. Gus’s carer eventually had enough and simply overrode the electrical bed and pushed it down with brute force. The complicated pressure mattress and its many pipes and cords were put on the mattress and two housekeepers put on fresh linen.
Then the most important bit came. We had to move Gus (who is over 6 foot) into the room, but we realised we would have to go outside. And so, six of us, with three umbrellas, marched outside into the rain and deposited Gus safely into his new room.
Gus was incredibly brave throughout the whole circus and smiled with tears in his eyes when his pit crew all raised their arms and high‑fived each other.
We could simply have told the family to organise someone else to do the transfer. It would have saved us the trouble, and they would have found the money somewhere, I’m sure, but by volunteering to show up for Gus, and for them, I think it will lay the foundation that we are in this with them. Gus’ sisters live in Scotland, they will be going home soon. I think it will be easier for them now knowing that we will keep rallying around their brother and do whatever it takes to provide good, compassionate care. We are really in this for him, for them and for his ten year old daughter who visits him daily.
Monday 27 April 19:00
I had my bath after writing the above. I was chilled to the bone but had the satisfaction one gets when a team achieves something that makes a real difference to a life. Since Friday, Gus has settled beautifully in his new room. He told me yesterday that he has not slept this well since he got ill. His nurse told me that they are going to see if they can slowly start weaning him off the ventilator.
We’re planning a garden outside Gussie’s room. Since he can now finally see the world again, we figure the bit he can see should be as beautiful as possible. We’re creating a little nook where his daughter can do homework and a bird feeding station for his entertainment. We want to remind Gus that he is not just a patient who needs to be treated. With us, he is a father who should get quality time with his daughter, a man worthy of dignity and compassion, and a person who deserves an entire pit crew to show up for him in the rain.