April always brings with it those perennial harbingers of summer, the US Masters golf from Augusta, Georgia, and the start of the County Cricket season. We also sighted the pair of mallard ducks that regularly visit our garden pond around this time. Not that this April was very ‘summery’, being distinctly cold and wet here! The Masters was rain-affected, but managed to catch up and finish on schedule; but in County Cricket, 62 of the 70 matches played in April were drawn, mostly due to rain.
There has been no further progress resolving the problem with my wheelchair but, after a nudge from Community Neurology, I have been told I’m back on Wheelchair Services’ list! My ventilator upgrade has moved on this month, though, but not altogether well. We had a care-team training session here after which we began using the new ventilator at night, when it is combined with a humidifier so I breathe warmer damper air. I have been using a ventilator/humidifier combination while in bed for two years, ever since I began to use a ventilator 24/7. The new ventilator is more sophisticated, even having a programme which includes use with a humidifier, but when I combine them, it sounds the alarm – and keeps on sounding it all night! It’s a good thing Doreen now sleeps in another room or it would drive her mad. Fortunately for me, with my hearing aids removed, I can barely hear it, so it doesn’t stop me sleeping, but the poor carer on night shift has to put up with it. The Home Ventilation team have come up with various ideas and remedies but so far none has worked. I now have a second new-type ventilator. Both of them work fine during the day but alarm constantly at night.
The continuous ventilator alarm at night is more than just an irritant; it is also a major risk. This risk was highlighted very sharply one night earlier this month. I was woken at about 4am by a loud noise. I was still wondering what it was when I became aware that I wasn’t receiving any air from the ventilator. I realised the air hose had become disconnected from my face mask and the noise had been the hose assembly hitting the wooden bedroom floor. I tried to call Pavel, my carer that night, but I had already exhaled so I couldn’t make any noise. I remember thinking, remarkably coolly (if a little melodramatically) , “Is this it?”, but then started rolling my head to and fro on the pillow to draw Pavel’s attention. Fortunately he was there and alert. Realising there was something wrong, he quickly spotted the problem and rushed to re-connect me to the ventilator. If there is a real problem, my carers will not be alerted by the alarm as it is already sounding continuously. Had he been out of the room, perhaps in the toilet, or getting himself some food or a drink from the kitchen, he would not have picked up the alarm, and I might not have been here to write this now.
The month ended with Doreen’s birthday and a family get-together. My care team clubbed together to buy her a present, a bouquet of lovely flowers. She also received a pot-plant in a holder shaped like a bird, a dodo. “Why that bird?” you might wonder. Well, after our first grandson was born, we were asked by our daughter what we wanted to be called by him. Doreen didn’t want anything conventional such as ‘Grandma’ or ‘Granny’; she wanted to be called ‘Dodo’. I didn’t like to tell her that the dodo has been extinct for over 300 years. Hence the expression, “As dead as a dodo”!
Finally, last but not least: Football. As I write, with only three rounds left to play in the Premier League, Nottingham Forest sit just one place, and one point, above the relegation zone. No news yet on their appeal against the outrageous points deduction imposed in March; will the appeal succeed in recovering some of the lost points? Will they be able to play their way out of trouble without a successful appeal? Or will they go down? By my next blog all will be known. Watch this space!