Bristol Royal Infirmary
[Last year Roger
developed angina, and, after tests in Cheltenham, was put on the waiting list
for heart surgery in Bristol. This is
an account of how he got on.]
27 June 2002. Roger was notified of arrangements for his
planned coronary bypass operation, for which he had been waiting for ten
months: it was to be on 25 July 2002 at
the Bristol Royal Infirmary.
23 July 2002. Helen came home to help, so there would be
four of to make the journey to Bristol, but only three to come back. Roger packed the recommended items into a
single holdall.
24 July 2002. We had been asked to arrive at the hospital
by 11 am, which meant catching the 9.15 am train to Bristol from
Cheltenham. We left the house at 8.15
am, and rang the hospital on the way to the station to check that the bed was
still available: it was. Tension rose.
Roger parked at the
station and dealt with the pay and display.
Jay had a bout of nervous sickness behind the car. The Virgin train left Cheltenham promptly,
but the stop in Gloucester started to become suspiciously long. An announcement confirmed our fears: there was a fault with the ‘power unit’ (=
engine, I believe). This meant that the
train would have to be turned round, so that it could leave the station in the
opposite direction. (No – we didn’t
quite understand it at the time either.)
All the passengers had to alight and wait on the platform while this
manoeuvre took place. On re-boarding,
much shuffling of Hewitts was necessary in order to accommodate the various
preferences of those who could only sit next to the window, could only go
forward, could not sit next to or opposite somebody etc.
The delay made us an hour late, so we phoned the hospital
to warn of our impending late arrival. At Bristol, we soon found the free shuttle bus between the station
and the hospital.
We reported about half an hour late, but the bed was not
immediately available, so having checked in, so to speak, we went to the WRVS
snack bar and had some lunch. Roger’s
first tasks were to visit the X-ray and ECG departments and take the results
back to the ward. We decided to make
our fond farewells before all this.
Teresa, Helen and Jay made their way back home. Believe it or not, they had yet another
hour’s delay at Bristol station, as both the northbound trains they might have
caught were running late. What should
have been a 3 – 4 hour round trip, at the most, had extended to nearly seven
hours.
Meanwhile, Roger had
obtained his X-ray and ECG and returned to the ward. Still without his bed, he waited in a small visitors room, where
he was visited in turn by the surgical team, the anaesthetist, and a former
patient, all explaining what was in store for him.
Teresa, with the help of
the girls, managed at home for the next ten days, ringing the hospital
frequently for progress reports on the operation. At the same time, calls from Breadstone House warned that her
mother was in decline, and Hazel died on 27 July, just two days before Roger’s
operation. In the circumstances,
Breadstone House were asked to engage
local undertakers for Hazel’s funeral and she was cremated in Gloucester on 15
August. So, a difficult time at Old
Forge House, but no more so than Roger faced in Bristol. Here is his account of the experience.
