Last week started off damp, but to be honest, the weather didn’t play a significant role in our activities.
The reasons for that will become apparent later in this blog. It is going to be rather unusual in its content. Unusual, but not in a good way!
Before the more dramatic events of the week, we did manage to do a little development work on the allotment and take Ruby for a walk. After that, however, unplanned events rather took over.
Home and Garden
For a couple of weeks now, we have had a stray cat living in our greenhouse. When we first spotted her, she was a rather bedraggled little thing. We initially noticed her helping herself to the hedgehog food, and it was obvious that she was very hungry.
We took pity on her and started feeding her, making her as comfortable as possible in the greenhouse. Little did we know that this small cat was going to play a major part in the events of the week!
At the Allotment
We managed one afternoon at the allotment. The aim was to clear to dig over a bed where we intend to plant some berry canes: a tummelberry, a thornless tayberry and a Japanese wineberry. We weeded the bed and Martyn dug it over, so at least we achieved what we had set out to do.
We now need to decide when to start planting and which other fruit plants we might use to fill the bed.
The recent rain had encouraged weed seedlings to appear, including some growing between the strawberries in the new strawberry bed. I decided that it would be better to clear them before they got established. I managed to get halfway through the job before it started to drizzle, so I abandoned it until later in the week.
As it turned out, I wasn’t going to finish the job that week anyway!
Out and About
Monday was drizzly and wet, but we decided to risk it and take Ruby for a walk at Temple Newsam.
We all wrapped up in waterproof clothing, including Ruby, who wore one of her little coats for the first time this autumn . Hopefully, it would help keep her body dry.
Whenever we arrive at Temple Newsam, the first thing on Ruby’s mind is a game of chase. Once she had enjoyed that, we set off for a walk around the park, hoping the rain would hold off.
We were lucky, as the rain stayed away for most of our walk, although Ruby still managed to get fairly wet. Her legs were damp from running through the grass, and her ears were wet too, as she insists on trailing them along the ground while sniffing anything that takes her fancy.
By the time we got back to the car, she needed a good rub-down with a towel before we headed home.
An Unplanned Visit
I mentioned earlier that we have a stray cat living in our greenhouse. We had bought a bag of cat treats and, knowing very little about cats, I offered her one. I expected her to take it from my hand, just as Ruby does.
Unfortunately, the cat didn’t seem able to pick up the treat properly and accidentally bit my finger instead.
This happened before our visit to the allotment. When we got home, the tip of my finger started to swell and became quite painful. Martyn checked online to see what we should do, and the advice was to go straight to a walk-in centre for treatment. I was advised that I might need a tetanus injection and antibiotics, as cats’ teeth can introduce a whole range of bacteria into a wound.
There are two walk-in centres fairly close to us, so we decided to try the first one. It was open until 11 o’clock at night, which seemed a sensible place to start.
Unfortunately, when we arrived, the person on reception told us that none of the clinicians had turned up for work, so there was nobody available to treat me. Not quite the service we had been hoping for!
We then tried the second walk-in centre. As we went through the door, a couple coming down the stairs advised us not to bother going up to the surgery, as they were no longer accepting patients because they were full.
Our only remaining option was the hospital A&E department, so off we went.
We arrived expecting a long wait, but in the event I was seen by a nurse practitioner fairly quickly. She advised me to have an X-ray to check that no tooth fragment had been left in the wound. The finger was bathed in iodine, I was also given a tetanus injection, prescribed a course of antibiotics and had the finger dressed.
By the following evening, however, my finger was more swollen and considerably more painful, so it was back to A&E.
Once again, we saw a nurse practitioner fairly quickly. This time, she decided that I needed to be assessed by a doctor. That meant a four-hour wait in the waiting room. We had arrived at about 6.30 pm, and it was now around 10.30 pm before I was called through to see the consultant.
The doctor arranged another X-ray to check for signs of infection. Afterwards, he took me into a corridor in the treatment area, where I was attached to a drip to receive intravenous antibiotics. He then told me that I would probably need to be seen by a plastic surgeon, which confused me somewhat. I hadn’t expected a cat bite to lead to a visit to the plastic surgery department!
I remained in the corridor, attached to the drip alongside other patients. Unfortunately, some of them were being asked quite intimate questions within earshot of everyone else. It didn’t seem a particularly private way to deal with patients.
The drip seemed to take ages to empty. Before it had finished, I was moved to the plastic surgery department.
There, a doctor explained that she would have preferred to keep me in overnight, but they simply didn’t have a single bed available. Instead, I was sent home with instructions to return to the department at 7.30 the following morning, when I would be taken to the operating theatre to have the infection washed out.
I was told not to eat or drink anything in case I needed a general anaesthetic.
By this time, it was already 2 o’clock in the morning. We had to make our way home and try to get a little sleep before returning to the hospital a few hours later.
The next morning, I was promptly met by the surgeon, who assessed the injury. He told me that I would be having a local anaesthetic, so I could pop down to the café to get something to eat and drink before returning for the procedure.
I did as instructed and, on returning to the plastics department, was taken through to the operating theatre to have the wound treated.
After the procedure, I was attached to yet another drip to receive a strong dose of antibiotics. Eventually, I was allowed home, in time for lunch,, with instructions to return at 7.30 the following morning so that the finger could be checked again.
There had been a fair amount of uncertainty about whether I might need a general anaesthetic, which meant being told not to eat or drink on more than one occasion. It was a relief to have the procedure over with, although it seemed that the hospital visits were becoming a regular part of my routine!
On returning to the hospital the next morning, I was seen by a second consultant, who told me that no further surgery was needed. The wound was soaked in an iodine solution and dressed, and I was sent home again.
My latest instructions are to return to the plastics department at 9 o’clock on Monday morning to have the wound checked. They want to keep it under observation, so it seems that this little cat bite isn’t quite finished with me yet.
One thing I do want to mention is how impressed I was with the hospital staff. Despite working in what were obviously very difficult conditions, everyone I dealt with was friendly, helpful and considerate. They took the time to explain what was happening and what needed to be done, which was reassuring when the whole situation was rather worrying. The staff were clearly doing a brilliant job under challenging circumstances, and I think it is important to acknowledge that.
Finally
It certainly wasn’t the week we had planned. A little stray cat that we took pity on ended up sending me on a rather unexpected tour of the local healthcare system, with several trips to A&E and a visit to the operating theatre thrown in for good measure.
I never imagined that that a small cat bite could lead to all this, but it certainly taught me not to offer treats to a cat in quite the same way I would to Ruby!
For now, I’m keeping my appointment with the plastics department and hoping that the next week will be rather less eventful. The cat is still in the greenhouse, so I suspect we haven’t heard the last of her!
As you can imagine, I can’t type at the moment so thank you to Martyn for putting this blog post together for me. He’s learning to do quite a few jobs this week including washing my hair.
