Week 13 – Thursday and Friday 1st Sat 2nd Dec – Baking muffins

Thursday was a pretty quiet day with no hospital appointments at all.  In fact without needing the IV Amibisome treatment HITH have discharged me from their care.  With this process there is no paperwork (unlike being admitted).

For lunch we continued our restaurant crawl around Melbourne and had lunch with Rob Morrison, one of our colleagues from our ‘caravan park’ investment days. Rob suggested Chin Chin which was absolutely fabulous!

On Friday I had planned to go back to HITH to have the dressing changed on my Hickman line, but when I rang HITH, the nurses thought it would not be possible as I was no longer their patient.

Probably typical of a big hospital (or any bureaucratic organisation) the communication lines had broken down – I was no longer a patient of Peter Mac, Ward 7B or HITH but did not know this!  No one had bothered to communicate this to me.

What to do?  When in doubt bake a cake!  Yes that’s what we did – Jan pulled out her favourite recipe for choc chip muffins and set me to work baking.  So upon arrival back to HITH on Friday afternoon I presented the staff and nurses with a big thankyou present….and then asked to have my dressing changed – which we managed to fit in during the afternoon.

On Friday afternoon I finished off the allergy testing that had begun last week.  As I had no allergic reaction on my skin from the needles I was now asked to take an antibiotic tablet and stay under observation for 2 hours. This confirmed my suspicion that I’m not allergic to penicillin but just to be sure I have to continue to take a challenge dose of penicillin for 5 more days making a total of 22 tablets across 6 different drug types each day!

We enjoyed a visit from Richard and Alice Tallis on Saturday.  I met Richard at uni many years ago when studying Agricultural Engineering and he has remained a lifelong friend, we were Best Man at each others weddings.  He and Alice farm at Dookie but also grow grapes and make wine under the Tallis brand.  They also manage to operate a cellar door function centre on their farm – busy people indeed.

For those that read the Weekend Australian magazine you might have noticed the article on young bio-medical engineer Jacqui Savage.  She has recently invented a wearable, non-invasive, wirelsss adhesive patch that measures the core temperature of the body from the surface of the skin and transmits it to a phone.  This was done after watching her best friend die of cancer.

I think Jacqui must have been listening to my request.  Hopefully she can include blood pressure and oxygen saturation in the next model!

Good news – the Beanie Auction has raised more than $1800 – thankyou so much to everyone that made a kind donation towards the Royal Melbourne Hospital Ward 7B Butterfly garden appeal.