A disrupted rhythm of life, and a new normal

And just like that, one day you are walking hospital corridors, the next you are running up and down stairs. Yes, my wonderful wife Jane came home from hospital last week. It hasn’t been quite the smooth ride Bianca*, the Sister-in-charge of Jane’s last ward promised. In fact, you might say, since last Monday, at times, it has been a bit of a nightmare. Assuming of course, that you had slept and might perchance to dream.

Today is only day six following her discharge home, and so it’s early days of course. We both believe that Jane’s memory will improve, and her disorientation and confusion will diminish by having the next steps of her rehabilitation and recovery here at home. Care at home, or closer to home, when appropriate, will always be better than inappropriate care in hospital. Currently, across England, there are over 14,000 people each day who are medically fit to be discharged but who remain inappropriately in a hospital bed. They do so because care closer to home or in their home is simply not available to them.

I’m fortunate as, in the short term, much of what I do as an NHS Chair, can be undertaken by working from home. I’ve a great team too! It means in these early days of Jane’s recovery at home, I can be here to help her when necessary and keep her safe. She is doing well. That said, night time and sleeping are proving problematic, hence the notion of a nightmare above. At times, Jane has struggled to get to sleep, or to stay asleep. For the past six nights she has been restless to the point of agitation. Things will improve, but right now the disturbed sleep is certainly taking its toll.

Apparently, the longest time someone has gone without sleep is 11 days and 25 minutes. It was a world record set by the 17-year-old American, Randy Gardener in 1963. For my part, I’m beginning to feel like a dad in the first few weeks of the arrival of a new baby in the house. There were close to 600,000 live births last year, which will account for a lot of crying babies and disturbed nights for parents. I have been there, so know what it can be like.

Most adults need between seven to nine hours’ sleep each day to stay healthy. Young people probably need more, and older folk like me, often need less. Interestingly, you should not need to set an alarm to wake up in the morning. If you do need an alarm call, it is more likely than not, that you are not getting enough sleep to keep you healthy. I never use an alarm clock, and I rarely go past 4.30am, before waking up.

The effects of sleep deprivation are well researched, and the loss of sleep doesn’t have to be in the extreme form above to have a negative impact on someone’s wellbeing. In the short term a lack of enough sleep or disturbed sleep can result in irritability, lethargy, fatigue, memory problems, mood changes (particularly depression), and in some instances, raise a person’s blood pressure.  

Many years ago now, I attended an interesting lecture on the possible impact of ‘out of kilter’ circadian rhythms on a person’s mental health. Circadian rhythms ‘tell’ the body when to sleep, wake, and eat. In turn, they are governed by a group of neurons called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, located in the hypothalamus in the brain. It is the group of neurons that translate cues from a person’s environment into directives for the body to act upon. Such cues include light, noise, temperature and so on. So, for example, darkness can result in the production of melatonin, the hormone that promotes sleepiness. It is possibly these circadian prompts that are a little out of alignment for Jane at present. I also think, however, that it has been the disturbed rhythm of our lives over these past seven weeks that have also contributed to our current challenges.

Jane was fortunate (not sure the that is the right word) that her subarachnoid haemorrhage did not impact on her motor functions, and her speech; but it was still a serious brain injury. It was an injury that paused our joint life clock, and the familiar rhythm of our lives. There is a ‘new normal’ for us to embrace and nurture, but as we do, we will make the most of every day. Yesterday, Jane wrapped up warm and we went for a walk in the snowdrop-bedecked gardens of Lytham Hall. Something neither of us thought possible a week before. There truly is only one life, and we should all try and live it to the very best we can. We have made a start on our new normal and recapturing the rhythm of our lives.  

 

 *Two days after Jane was discharged I went back to the ward to pick up a Fit note for Jane, Bianca said ‘I thought you might have looked a bit more tired…’ – I just smiled and said thanks for the sick note.