I realise that I haven’t blogged for a while. Here’s the scoop.
On Tuesday last week, I went to the foot clinic. They told me that the bacterium I had was not sensitive to the antibiotic I was taking, They changed the antibiotic to another one (and took me off metronidazole and put me on ciprofloxacin, which means I can now drink alcohol but must be careful of milk), and told me to come in on Monday.
Well, on Monday they said that they wanted to admit me as the infection was worse. However, I waited there all day and there was no bed, so they told me to come back on Tuesday. The only problem was, on Wednesday night I would be installed as Master of Goliath Lodge, and my brother and another member of Philanthropic were travelling to London to see it. I just couldn’t be in hospital for that.
So, I agreed to be admitted for one night, filled full of antibiotics (I think it’s called meropenem) and then let out Wednesday afternoon for the ceremony. The hospital would try to keep the bed for me, and I’d return Wednesday night. They would call my mobile phone if they couldn’t hold the bed.
So I checked out Wednesday, bussed back home, and got ready for the meeting. Harold (my brother) and Rick were there and we exchanged presents. Harold had turned a gavel on his lathe (he is an accomplished woodworker) out of something called cocobolo wood, which is very dark and hard. They also brought me a little ceramic statuette from Philanthropic Lodge, a letter from their Master, lots of other stuff that is useful around the house. So we got ready and took a bus. As soon as we got on the bus Rick realised that he’d forgotten his camera, and so had I. So we got off at the next stop, he ran back and got the cameras, and we proceeded to Freemasons’ Hall.
My ankle and foot ached, but I just had to go through with it. I would be terribly disappointed if this day, which I’ve prepared for over five years, had to be postponed or cancelled. So I suffered.
The meeting went swimmingly. I took my oath from memory with no prompting, was allowed to sit at times I should have been standing, was invested as Worshipful Master, and then was saluted by the Board of Installed Masters. I then needed to gavel that to an end, but as I gavelled (using Goliath’s own gavel), the head broke off and dropped to the floor. I said to someone “Look through my brother’s bag—there a gavel in there.” So we used that gavel through the rest of the meeting.
We then dined at the Grand Connaught Rooms, where the food had improved but the service was terrible. Never again. Bro. Ben Rowe, the blogger, sang the Master’s Song for me and I gave my response to the toast (rather well).
After everything Harold, Rick, and I took a cab back to Kings College Hospital, where they (miraculously) had not released the bed, so I was “readmitted”, recannulated, and more antibiotics pumped into me.
On Thursday they steam-cleaned the wound—debrided it using something like a Water-Pik. I stayed off it all day as it oozed, and Harold, Rick, and Wai-Liang visited in the afternoon. This morning they have fitted a vacuum pump over the wound to suck out more of the bacteria. They may have to do a little operation to scrape off some infected bone, but they merrily said, “You won’t miss it, and the wound will heal faster.” Oh, I see…
The denizens of the ward (I’m on the same ward as in November, but a different room) are pretty rum, but not as rum as before. There’s a young man across the aisle who will not keep his hands off the female nurses and makes suggestive remarks to them. He is filthy, and messes up the toilet when he uses it. They put Depends on him a couple of times, but he’s just too lazy to try to get to the toilet even if he isn’t wearing them. As with many people who are not used to being in hospital, he treats the nursing staff as his personal servants, so even though he can get around (he’s bigger than me so has some mobility problems, but can move around) he’s constantly calling the nurses to perform trivial tasks. “NURSE!” he incessantly cries.
The Scottish alcoholic in the next bed to mine treated the hospital like a hotel and was out every night and pretended to still be ill. Finally, yesterday Social Services told him he was being discharged. He got quite profane but disappeared. I was relieved, Guess who turned up tonight, fibbing that he had ordered a dinner and trying to “borrow” a pound from me. I asked the head nurse if he could shoo the guy away as I was afraid that he’d ransack my bedside table if I went to the loo. After it was made clear that he was not getting dinner, he disappeared. Any bets on him turning up tomorrow?
I do not know when I’ll be let go. I am so grateful that the bed was held that I’m designating the Kings College Hospital Charity as my preferred charity for my Masonic year, and whatever we collect as alms will be sent to them with the request it be donated to the Diabetic Foot Clinic. The Water-Pik nozzle they use for the debridement is one-use, and it costs