Surgery Day
So i was woken up quite early (0630) and told by the nurse to gert ready for surgery. This meant showering and changing from my clothes into the appropriate hospital regalia. I knew I wasn't first on the surgeons list however they seem to like to get you ready early just in case. So I'm ready and waiting by 7am. The other three patients on the ward get breakfast around 8am however nothing for me as I'm 'nil by mouth'. The day passes quite slowly, mum and Lisa come in but it's a long wait. Lunch time comes and goes for the other patients and at around 130pm the nurses comes and tells me that the porter will be along soon. Shortly after that a man come to the door and calls my name, he comes over to the bed and says they are ready for me. I say bye to Lisa and mum and he wheels me off.....here we go.
Although on the same floor the theatres are at the far end of the building so it's a few minutes drive down before we arrive. I'm dropped off in a waiting area where I'm asked the same set of questions by a few different poeple just to check I am who I say I am and I know what I'm there for. I know the answers to both of these questions so it's kick off time.
There's some fuss as the ward haven't sent all the paperwork but after some phone calls we're on the move again. This time not too far just into a small room before the theatre which is where they will prepare the anaesthetic. The two aneasthatists are pleasent and ask me a limited subset of the questions I've already answered about five times. After a little chat they say they are going to give me a mild sedative to calm my nerves a little. The start of that is actually the last I remeber until I wake up about 6 hours later.
It Hurts!
I wake up (which I am mildly happy about) and all I know is I'm in pain. The operation is over but it hurts a lot. All I am saying is it hurts. I don't have a great deal of recollection about this as I guess I'm in and out of concsciousness as my body kicks out the drugs. What i do know though is that something all though I'm not sure what is hurting. Lisa is there and calls the nurse across. I'm in the area after surgery which is where most people seem to be sent for recovery before being sent back to their respective wards. I'm in the high dependency section as my surgery was fairly long and fairly serious. I know already that this is where I'm staying overnight as I may need more direct care than the ward can give. The nurse arrives and calls for a doctor to come and change the dose on my epidural to ry and up the pain relief. He does and the pain probably does get better. Mum and Dad are there too but space it limited and due to the nature of the area visitors aren't allowed to stay too long. Lisa, mum and dad go home and it's just a broken down me, my nurse and the other people who have just had surgery. Overnight was fairly quiet as I guess not much surgery takes place and it's just the few of us in high depenency there and I guess we're all pretty out of it. Sleep it difficult as there is a good amount of pain. Around 3am there's a bit of a commotion and the nurse and somebody else come over to me and say that they need to xray me. I think however are they going to move me xray given the high amount of tubes going in and out of me. I needn't worry as the noise I heard was a mobile xray machine and he does it where I am. It's fairly quick and easy. Sleep throughout the night is diffcult but I guess i did sleep a little.
The Day After (Tuesday 13 August '13)
It's the next day of course it still hurts. I'm more alert now and notice the amount of tubes i now have. I have....
1. Back of left hand.
2. Left wrist.
3. Nose.
4. Neck - Central line
5. Stomach - Drain.
6. Spine - Epidural.
7. Catheter say no more.
There may have been more but that's all I can remember right now.
One thing is that my mouth is incredibly dry. I'm not allowed to drink anything so in some attempt at quenching my thirst or at least wet my mouth I'm givren what I can describe as sponge lollipops. They are dipped in water and you simply rub them around your mouth. They do their best at releasing moisture into your mouth but it's so dry that at the slightest touch on your cheek the lollipop needs to be dipped into water again. The room is getting busier now as I guess early surgeries are finishing up. My nurse is pretty much around all the time as she's got just me and someone else to monitor. After a while she comes over and says it's ok to take out the tube from my nose. I think this is there to help release gasses from my stomach. The stomach gets quite a lot of abuse i think when they open you up like they did to me. The nurse suggests it maybe unpleasent when she pulls it out and gives me a sick bowl. She pulls it out and she's right it's not the best feeling but I'm pretty ok with it. Although I've listed above the pipes and tubes at this point I don't really know what's I've got connected to me.
The day passes reasonably slowly with just continuous monitoring and occasional topups of the many drugs that seem to be being pumped into me.
At around 130pm they say I'm ok to go back to the ward and are just waiting for a vacant bed. There's also some discussion about what bed the porter will bring from the ward and if it's different to the one I'm in they will have to move me to the ward bed. This concerns me as I'm very connected up and what about the wound. Anyway the bed from the ward is the same as the one I'm in so they simply swap beds....phew.
I'm shortly told there is space now and I can go back but they are waiting for a ported to arrive. He arrives and I'm wheeled the long drive back to Dawson ward. I'm back on the same ward but a different bed, this time I'm in bed 21 which is in a room at the end of the ward and is much quieter than the room I was in the night before the surgery.
The nurses come and introduce themselves and are amazingly cheerful and friendly as they were on Sunday night. On this ward visting time is 2pm until 8pm so a steady stream of guests come and give there wishes. I think that I'm still pretty broken from the anaesthetic and I know that i look pretty bad.
