Feb 6th

... turned out to be an eventful day ... after a bad night...

Lower back pain started a few days ago and was now agony reaching down, turning in bed and especially getting in/out so leaving bed now limited to toilet duties.  Even resorted to using the walker (my sister happened to have lying around!!) and he was pretty miserable.

Agreed we needed to visit the doctor now and not wait until treatment #2 on Monday 10th.

Simone (also a physio) came over to help and stated the obvious; there was no need for this much pain - not in the back, not in the kidneys - not anywhere and the doctor needed to know how miserable he was.

For sure the effect of not shaving or brushing of hair (!!) as well as the look on his face AND sharing that “no it wasn’t 6-8 Panadol a day but more like 12”, was enough to convince the doctor that we needed a time out. A stay in hospital to sort out pain meds, have a scan and figure out what was causing the pain and with his call we skipped admissions and were into a bed before we could find a spot for the walker.

Being the medical experts (we have now become) we are pretty sure that the blocked/enlarged kidney is the cause of most problems so I asked the doctor if it wasn’t possible to “just punch a hole” in it?  Turns out it is indeed possible - we just need the scans to see where we are at.

Joseph insisted I go home so I left him armed with his CALL BUTTON and I handed him over to the nursing staff!

It’s a nice comfortable bed!

NEW Royal Adelaide Hospital

In the new RAH every room is a private room with it’s own ensuite!  Joseph reckons the private patients (the ones who pay huge premiums) get the rooms “with a view” but it doesn’t matter - this is very nice even if no wifi, but there is free TV (only on the cancer ward!!) and internet (on smart TV) so as a public patient we are most grateful ... for everything.

There IS a view ... it’s over there ...

This bench converts to a bed if I wanted to stay overnight
Joseph says no!