Herself had an eye operation today. Our daughter turned up at 7.30 to take her to the hospital in Worthing, and I went to get her at about 2.
Took me half an hour to find her in the vast three-level labyrinth that is Worthing General. Having found her, and found the person who could discharge her officially, I was reminded that she had had a general anaesthetic and had to have a wheelchair. There weren't any there. So it was a mile or so back to the main entrance where there were said to be wheelchairs. Very few lifts and half of them staff only, key operated, and very few staircases, all hidden in unlikely corners in those endless identical corridors with their mean little direction signs.
The woman at the main entrance desk said there were no wheelchairs available at the moment. I pointed to the one behind her with 'main entrance' painted on it. That one was for emergencies, she said. So greatly daring I pointed to the two others in front of her, under her desk. Very, very reluctantly, she said I could 'borrow' one of them. I said I'd bring it back, and I did. OK so far? Right. Another mile of labyrinth and getting lost to find her with the wheelchair, and another mile back to the main entrance (not more than a third of a mile actually, but it felt like a mile) with herself in the chair. Then outside to find the jalopy in the car park - not easy - and bring it down near the main entrance.
Herself is OK. She can take the dressing off her eye tomorrow morning. Thank goodness she's fit and stoical. I'm a nervous wreck, and knackered with it.
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Sounds familiar, uncannily so. I had an almost identical wheelchair hunt at Shrewsbury Hospital when I went to visit an elderly friend in there. The nurses thought it would be a good idea to take him out of the ward, out in the sun for a while as he was getting cabin fever.
Main reception's response was to suggest I checked by lift doors throughout the hospital. Took me a good 20 minutes to find one.
Best wishes to herself of course.
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>> Best wishes to herself of course.
Thanks Manatee. She's fine, and the op worked: she can see significantly better through the eye, and is very pleased.
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Has she noticed your shoes yet?
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>> Has she noticed your shoes yet?
They were highly visible when new Humph, no need for 20/20 vision to be aware of them.
Now that they are stylishly muddy she's well used to them. No one would notice them now, were it not for the fine turquoise socks I'm wearing today.
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>> she can see significantly better through the eye, and is very pleased.
The position is that the operated-on eye has very good long vision, meaning that it has changed radically and her old reading glasses don't work any more. At present she's using a big magnifying glass to read with, and says that's all right. I fussily urge her to sit in a good light and avoid straining it by reading too much. Of course like me she spends most of her working and leisure time reading.
The optician won't give her a new eye test for something like a month after the op - said to be standard practice to let the eye settle down after its trauma. That's good sense. And when it happens, the frames will cost an arm and a leg. Oy vey... it's her I'm worried about . We can afford the damn frames. Tsk.
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The position is that the operated-on eye has very good long vision, meaning that...
...you'll have to smarten yourself up, have a shave and haircut now she can actually see what you look like?
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>> have a shave and haircut now she can actually see what you look like?
She's used to it poor darling. Anyway just got a fine new haircut from the winsome middle daughter (you'd really dig one or two of the photos of that BBD, with her standing behind the handsome old devil in a pile of badger-coloured hair-cuttings and leaning over to display the odd asset).
Perhaps I might consider shaving in a month when Herself gets her new reading specs (actually I've noticed that shaving is much easier if you do it every day. But I still can't always be bothered. Lifelong slobbish habit).
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"leaning over to display the odd asset"
Is she a hairdresser? It's a fantastic profession. There's a lot of sexuality in having your haircut. I discovered back at school that you should always hold onto the arms of the chair as she leans against you with her groin. Those days are gone unfortunately, I just do it myself using a number 2 trimmer. But it's nice to take my boy for a haircut and watch the hairdresser from behind for a change.
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>> Is she a hairdresser? It's a fantastic profession.
No she's not. She's a very clever and highly educated girl, but artistic and good at free haircuts for stingy old men like me.
I think she's pretty too, but one gets a bit prejudiced where one's offspring are concerned.
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>> And when it happens, the frames will cost an arm and a leg. Oy vey... it's her I'm worried >>about . We can afford the damn frames. Tsk.
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Should go to SpecSavers.
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>>Should go to Specsavers<<
Not sure about that. We both went last week and the resulting bill is just shy of £500.
Pat
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>> Not sure about that. We both went last week and the resulting bill is just
>> shy of £500.
That's the trouble with opticians, they see people coming ;)
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One of your godawful jokes made me smile Dave, There's hope yet for us both.
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"There weren't any there."
Wheelchairs are nicked from hospitals (scrap metal?) - in fact, anything that isn't chained down is nicked from hospitals.
This isn't a new phenomenon - when our daughter was at Gt Ormond St some 30 years ago, I remember naively asking why the televisions were chained to trolleys. Folks would, apparently, just walk in off the street and help themselves.
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Back in the late 90s my ex-father-in-law was a top haematologist and he was having a retirement party in his (scouse) hospital/lab. There was a big turnout and a lot of alcohol was consumed. It was early in the hours when it all finished, I was plastered and ex-wife's brother was plastered and as we were leaving, what did we find? Yep, a wheelchair. I was designated pusher, he was in the front seat and we behaved lake a pair of lunatics - lots of screeching tyres and engine noises (not from the wheelchair). We had to get it outside to test it's top speed which of course resulted in a major accident when I hit the kerb of a lawn - the front wheels completely sheered off and he was thrown into a flower bed. So I should apologise for my behaviour and one less wheelchair. Or is it one fewer?
Anyway, most of the family remember fondly that 'wheelchair in the hospital' event whereas I remember fondly fondling a hot pharmaceutical rep in a very short skirt.
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I don't know about other Hospitals, but the ones at the John Ratcliffe in Oxford always have under-inflated tyres. Same with the Churchill Hostipal too.
Why don't they fit wheelchairs with solid tyres?
I remember when my late dad was at the JR, and had been "assigned" a wheelchair by the side of his bed. I took a footpump in to blow up the tyres to make it easier to push. Next day some swine had swapped it for another one that had under-inflated tyres - grrrr!
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. So I should apologise for my behaviour and one less wheelchair. Or is it
>> one fewer?
Fewer - unless the broken wheelchairs are in such a big heap and in so many parts that they are incapable of being counted!
Last edited by: Roger. on Tue 9 Dec 14 at 11:57
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Apologies, I meant to add my best wishes to your lady as well. Was it a cataract op?
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After my by-pass, the Tyrant Queen came to collect me. It's about a third of a mile to Cardiac from the main entrance and two floors up. No chairs on the ward and no porters , but there might be if we waited....although there might not.
Chairs at the main entrance so she left all the stuff with me and set off back. She was back 15 minutes later.......they were a quid and she'd left her bag with me. Off again clutching a pound coin.
Another 15 minutes and we were in business. Except she had her handbag, bag of drugs and a suitcase on wheels with all my kit in it. No help available.....so off we go. TQ pushing the chair with one hand and dragging the case with the other. Rest of the stuff in my lap. It was hard and slow going. I suggested that I walk and the suitcase could have the luxury of the chair but she wouldn't have that !
My physio and her mate were on the way back from lunch..they saw our plight. Nicola said to her oppo " That's not right " and they took over from then. Great pair of lasses.
It would have helped if the ward had said the chairs were a pound in the slot in the first place !
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At Torbay Hospital the cardiac unit is at the top of the hill from the carpark, followed by the mandatory maze, to test intellectual and cogntive abilities. I suppose that is one way of weeding out the likely non-survivors, and reducing the waiting list?
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Rather like our local blue badge assessment centre in Retford, where the nearest car park is at least 600 to 700 metres away - if you can walk to the office you are denied a badge!
(Just joking)
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Sounds a bit like military medics, their policy is if you are fit enough to get yourself to where ever they are set up there is not much wrong with you. The same should apply to hospital A&E.
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>> At Torbay Hospital the cardiac unit is at the top of the hill
Is that Newton Abbot General ??
If so, I was born there Christmas 1945...a blackout baby ! Look out for the blue plaque !
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Those electric invalid carriages could benefit from the attentions of a really good go-kart racing engineer, lowered, lengthened and of course heavily tweaked in the power department. That's what I will hope to arrange when I become immobile.
I bet Stephen Hawking would really enjoy something like that. He'd be good at it too.
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Best wishes to your wife Armel.I know all about wheelchairs my wife got one for me to push.
Keeps me fit.
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>> Best wishes to your wife Armel
She was only in a wheelchair for an hour or so recovering from the general anaesthetic during her eye operation Dutchie.
Normally she's a lot fitter and more active than I am. The stuff about electric wheelchairs, Stephen Hawking as a racing champion, was pure fantasy.
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>>Those electric invalid carriages could benefit from the attentions of a really good go-kart racing engineer, lowered, lengthened and of course heavily tweaked in the power department.
I presume you mean mobility scooters AC? In which case the powers-that-be have beaten you to it: www.gov.uk/mobility-scooters-and-powered-wheelchairs-rules/overview
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They don't seem to be hampered by rules and regulations in Sweden:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=19wYCVGJBcM
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The powers that be can go jump in the lake. Catch me if you can, coppers!
Lowered and of course considerably widened, with sticking-out fat rear tyres and lots of front negative camber, and of course with their speed limiters removed and hugely boosted power.
That's the sort of mobility scooter a chap might possibly live with. Only if it could get some chirp out of the back tyres though, put its tail out a bit. A solid back axle as in a go-kart will break rear adhesion on any sort of bend training young drivers in violent applications of opposite lock. The Cooper/Norton etc. 500cc Formula 3 cars that Stirling Moss grew up on had the same characteristic with the same cause, but of course much better, slower handling than a kart in keeping with their greater performance.
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Having had several near misses on the pavement with aggressively driven mobility scooters I think they should all be limited to 4mph, with no option to turn up the speed.
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Not sure if I can be bothered to type this so I'll not be even slightly put out if you can't be bothered to read it.
Anyway, my friend's brother in law, ( you see now how tenuous all this will be ), used to sell motability scooters but his things were some kind of upmarket model with lots of bells and whistles and powerful engines.
So, one day, my friend received a call from his BIL who needed to deliver two of the things at opposite ends of the country that day and as my pal had a Mondeo estate could he possibly...
So, I went with him to help load and unload the thing which involved reversing it up some ramps into the back of the car while remaining bent double due to insufficient roof clearance.
That in itself was quite amusing but it all got really farcical when we reached the delivery address some 100 miles away only to discover we didn't have the ramps.
Not wanting to go back for them and having discounted lifting the thing out ( damned heavy ) he had a brainwave. He reckoned that being the sort of Bugatti Veyron of motability scooters, all he needed to do was back it up as far as he could in the loadbay ( bent double again ), pop in it into its forward gear and hit the throttle with a view to a clean landing.
It didn't end well.
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>> It didn't end well.
Showed admirable bottle though, and a measure of kamikaze idiocy.
I think proper mobility scooters for red-blooded immobiles really need a well-muffled 250cc petrol unit - perhaps a 3 cylinder 2-stroke - and a chassis to suit.
You could have an exhaust cutout for when you needed sudden serious acceleration (accompanied by a sudden menacing exhaust howl) to get past old biddies with their shopping trolleys. Most of the time a quiet murmur. as you pootled around at under 20mph, just like the cars on the road.
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Worthing General - Manatee
