And On We Go!

The heel has been the cause of major fall-outs in our house!!  Although Pete didn't remove the dressing to soften the top skin, he spent most of Sunday complaining loudly about it and that it was causing pain.  He also nearly went into a melt down in front of the kids when Martin looked at it and declared it to be ok and that it had to stay on til Wednesday.  I had only managed to calm him by saying I would call the nurses on Monday if necessary.  So when he showed signs of getting angry in front of Robbie and Ella I really had to pull him up sharply.  

Monday morning dawned and I had a look at the dressing and said I would not be calling anybody as it looked to be ok and was to stay on for 5 days in order to do its job.  This provoked major anger and most of Monday was just horrible, but I was resolute that I would not call anyone.  I told him I would take 2 days of his temper as against another 5 if they came and had to redo it all.  He opted for the 5 days that a new dressing would have to stay on.  He took 2 more painkillers than he should have but I decided that was ok.

Tuesday morning dawned - at 3.30 am!!  Pete was ranting and raving about the pain and in the end he stormed off (in his wheelchair) into the sitting room and lay on the sofa.  He took 2 painkillers at the same time.  This left me wide awake and considering what the hell to do.  After much thought, I decided I would have to call the nurses, would have to cancel his hospital appointment for Botox, would cancel his speech therapy appointment, and would also pull myself back from Pete and, basically just become someone who was there to cook, clean and change catheter bags, etc.  I would get someone else to take him to hospital appointments etc.  I was finding it so difficult to be emotionally involved and having to take all the rage aimed at me and the looks of hatred that were being directed at me - it was just grinding me down and there was no one else to take any of the flak. At 8am I left a message for the nurses and then later cancelled the appointments.  I then told Pete of my decision to pull away from him as a person I cared about.  Actually I was really really horrible to him but I had reached the end of my tether.  We had also had a fight over pain killers with me having to literally force his hand open to get them off him.  He had managed to get the packet from the top cupboards - God knows how!   After a couple of hours of stoney silence and us being in separate rooms he eventually came to me and showed contrition, after I told him how I felt and how he was treating me we agreed to one more try - looking back, I think we need these major major fall outs to resolve a situation that is deteriorating badly.

To get back to his heel (!!) the nurse duly arrived and looked at it, and luckily the dressing had done its job and she was able to remove the top skin very easily, all the gunk had come out and so she cleaned it and put another dressing on it.  She will return on Thursday and told him that, in the meantime, he would have pain but it should now start to heal and he was not to do all this shouting etc.  Amazingly, today Pete has been fine, really nice to me with smiles, and has only had 4 painkillers during the day.

Today we also had the cushion to prevent pressure sores and a heel pad delivered.  Instead of a double mattress overlay, they tried to give us a single mattress!!  No, not going to work!!  So that has gone back and I told them a mattress is no good as I have nowhere to store our mattress, it has to be an overlay, and a double at that!! 

Photos today of our handsome young grandson (with attitude!) Josh, and Robbie in his new specs with his other grandad.