And so the "bounce" (cf. Nurse June) continues...W's recovery is currently bouncing off the charts, and he is all set and ready to come home again. On Monday Dr K broke the news to Linda and me that with proper medical care it was not impossible that he could last for months. Months??? as of last Sunday we were thinking in terms of days. Two beaming faces was obviously not what Dr K was expecting on breaking her news. She warned us that Christmas "could be problematic". Christmas!! Jeez we didn't think we'd be discussing Hallowe'en!

Dr K accepted she was dealing with a couple of smiling idiots, and continued to outline what was going to be needed in the immediate future: viz Monday, Wednesday and Friday drugs will be dropped off for W. Every morning a district nurse will attend to change the intrathecal which is currently pumping class A drugs into his spine; and every Tuesday W will return to the hospice for a check up and to get the intrathecal pump cleaned.

Simples.
W is ready to return.

Except that he can't. Because the district nurses can't cope with changing the intrathecal. This is outside their current field of expertise. They will need training.
No, we don't know how soon training can be completed. So, you know, we are back to W being stuck in limbo in the hospice again.

Luckily for W, Nurse Linda was a staff nurse in her past life. She ran teams of nurses. She's not letting some lily-livered district nurses dictate where and when W can be treated. She has experience of intrathecals already; apparantly it's not rocket science. Two other friends of ours also have nurse training. Drawing on their nursing backgrounds, and my own incredibly useful accountancy training( ...) she has pulled together an alternative nursing corps. We will all receive training on intrathecals from the hospice and care for W until such time as the district nurses can catch up with us!

Ha!

Nurse Macy...obviously the junior nurse in such robust company but just watch me learn to wield the needles!