Read Online A DEATH TO DIE FOR by Geoffrey Wilding - Free Book Online
Authors: Geoffrey Wilding
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the corridor.
Jim was by now getting used to seeing me in hospital but the sight of the NG tube up my nose caught him off guard and all he could think to ask if I felt anything as the food was pumped down, but poor Alex looked so pale and drawn, this was the first time she had seen me since she had been told about my condition and what was going to happen, she came and sat on the chair next to the bed and took hold of my left hand, she said that she didn’t know what to say other than she loved me and that she felt so sad for me and Mum.
Helen had hold of my right hand and at this she gave it a squeeze, I could see from the redness of her eyes that Alex had been doing some serious crying before coming to see me.
We sat chatting for a bit during which Alex asked whether I had watched any TV programmes yet, I said that I had not been interested in anything but I might want to watch it in the coming days, Alex said that she had passed the TV card dispensing machine on her way in and went with Helen to buy a TV card for me.
I was grateful for their visit by about 8.30pm I had started to feel exhausted and all I wanted was my diazepam and atropine to see if I could get a good nights sleep so when they returned I told Helen and the others that I was very tired and they said that they would go, Helen collected the bag of dirty laundry which was to become a regular chore and after they had said their goodbyes I waited for the drugs trolley to be brought round, I didn’t bother with the over bed TV.
The nurse with the drugs trolley arrived pretty soon afterwards and gave me my penicillin injection followed by the diazepam injection which she did through a valve in the cannula on the back of my hand and then stuck the atropine patch on my upper left arm, she asked if I wanted to go to bed, I said that I did, so having raised the top end of the bed at an incline she set up my pillows.
The nurse then connected me up to the food pump, this would run all night so that I received most bags of NG food while asleep to give me more freedom to move about during the day, she made sure that the food pump was working properly before leaving the room.
Apart from some fitful dozing I had been more or less conscious now for over 60 hours and I desperately needed sleep so I tried laying in different positions to see if I could manage to be on my back without triggering a coughing fit and after a few attempts I found that if I laid diagonally across the bed from right foot end to left head end and tilted my head to the left that it did seem to be less of an irritation and so in this position I turned the light to dim and with the new atropine patches in place I finally fell into a deep sleep for the first time in nearly four days.
Well into the night, probably around 2.00am I came to and possibly because of the atropine my throat was very dry and my tongue felt swollen, I was desperate for a drink of water so I decided to get up and go to the shower room to at least try and wet the inside of my mouth.
I got out of bed and started to walk towards the shower room but I had completely forgotten about the NG tube attached to the food pump which was plugged into the electric socket on the wall behind the bed head and as the tube and electric cable extended to their full limit I felt the sticking plaster plucked from my cheek and before I could react the whole NG tube exited my nose in one continuous motion and fell to the floor.
In the half light I was stunned to see the whole tube laying snake like at my feet with the food exuding from it’s ‘mouth’ as the pump continued to whirr away, I stood there trance like in my nightgown.
I tried to coax my brain into some lucidity so as to make sense of these surreal events and do something about it, after a few moments I managed to switch the pump off and then trying not to step in the goo on the floor I slowly moved around the bed so that I could press
Jim was by now getting used to seeing me in hospital but the sight of the NG tube up my nose caught him off guard and all he could think to ask if I felt anything as the food was pumped down, but poor Alex looked so pale and drawn, this was the first time she had seen me since she had been told about my condition and what was going to happen, she came and sat on the chair next to the bed and took hold of my left hand, she said that she didn’t know what to say other than she loved me and that she felt so sad for me and Mum.
Helen had hold of my right hand and at this she gave it a squeeze, I could see from the redness of her eyes that Alex had been doing some serious crying before coming to see me.
We sat chatting for a bit during which Alex asked whether I had watched any TV programmes yet, I said that I had not been interested in anything but I might want to watch it in the coming days, Alex said that she had passed the TV card dispensing machine on her way in and went with Helen to buy a TV card for me.
I was grateful for their visit by about 8.30pm I had started to feel exhausted and all I wanted was my diazepam and atropine to see if I could get a good nights sleep so when they returned I told Helen and the others that I was very tired and they said that they would go, Helen collected the bag of dirty laundry which was to become a regular chore and after they had said their goodbyes I waited for the drugs trolley to be brought round, I didn’t bother with the over bed TV.
The nurse with the drugs trolley arrived pretty soon afterwards and gave me my penicillin injection followed by the diazepam injection which she did through a valve in the cannula on the back of my hand and then stuck the atropine patch on my upper left arm, she asked if I wanted to go to bed, I said that I did, so having raised the top end of the bed at an incline she set up my pillows.
The nurse then connected me up to the food pump, this would run all night so that I received most bags of NG food while asleep to give me more freedom to move about during the day, she made sure that the food pump was working properly before leaving the room.
Apart from some fitful dozing I had been more or less conscious now for over 60 hours and I desperately needed sleep so I tried laying in different positions to see if I could manage to be on my back without triggering a coughing fit and after a few attempts I found that if I laid diagonally across the bed from right foot end to left head end and tilted my head to the left that it did seem to be less of an irritation and so in this position I turned the light to dim and with the new atropine patches in place I finally fell into a deep sleep for the first time in nearly four days.
Well into the night, probably around 2.00am I came to and possibly because of the atropine my throat was very dry and my tongue felt swollen, I was desperate for a drink of water so I decided to get up and go to the shower room to at least try and wet the inside of my mouth.
I got out of bed and started to walk towards the shower room but I had completely forgotten about the NG tube attached to the food pump which was plugged into the electric socket on the wall behind the bed head and as the tube and electric cable extended to their full limit I felt the sticking plaster plucked from my cheek and before I could react the whole NG tube exited my nose in one continuous motion and fell to the floor.
In the half light I was stunned to see the whole tube laying snake like at my feet with the food exuding from it’s ‘mouth’ as the pump continued to whirr away, I stood there trance like in my nightgown.
I tried to coax my brain into some lucidity so as to make sense of these surreal events and do something about it, after a few moments I managed to switch the pump off and then trying not to step in the goo on the floor I slowly moved around the bed so that I could press
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