Hometime….

So here we are after coming into hospital on Sunday 11th of August 2013, having surgery to remove a tumour on Monday 12th August 2013 it's now Monday 19th August 2013 and that means home time.

I'm awake early as usual and have my usual slice of toast although today with butter!  Fairly early around 8am I'm visited by the surgeon I originally saw in the liver outpatients department and he was one of the team involved in my surgery a week ago.  He has a look at the scar which he says in healing well, we have a chat and then he says I can go home.  I of course thank him and he tells the nurse in passing that I can go.  Now anybody who's ever tried to leave a hospital knows it isn't quite as simple as that as there are final checks to be done, discharge papers to be written up and medicines to be handed over.  The morning went fairly slowly as these things do when you need them too.  Lunchtime comes and goes and I'm told hopefully I can go around 1pm.  I'm told the discharge documents are done and they are just waiting for my medicines to come up from the pharmacy then I can go, excellent news.  I also need to have a few shots as because my spleen has been removed i need to be immunised against meningitis.  The last thing to be done was these 2 shots and then I'm out the door.  Well almost I probably won't be able to make it to the car and Lisa won't be able to assist me that far.  The nurse arranges for a ported to come and deliver me to the car via wheelchair.  This takes a few minutes but armed with my bags and medicines I'm wheeled out of the ward and down to the car.  As we leave the ward I say thanks to the nurses, HCA's and volunteers and they wish me well.

I'm free!!  Getting to the car seems to be a long ride but it's very good to hit the fresh air after being in the ward for 8 days!

We get to the car and i carefully stand from the chair and move into the passenger seat.  Driving is about 6 weeks away for me yet as I need to heal a but more before I'm allowed behind the wheel.  This is about the same as a mum having a c-section and I understand it's because if you had to perform an emergency stop there's a risk the wound could split open.

It's probably about a 45 minute drive home which feels pretty painful as the wound is still very sore and i feel every bump.  It's good to be home and relax with a cup of tea.  It's fairly quiet at home but that's because it's just Lisa and I, Josie is at her nan's still and will be back pretty soon.  After spending an hour or so settling in Lisa calls her mum and says she can drop Josie home.  When she arrives we are both very happy to see each other.   Of course I can't do much…actually I can't do anything really as the slightest movement it pretty painful so for now Josie just has to sit next to me.  Still that's better than being in a hospital ward.  Josie didn't come to the hospital as it's not really a great place for a 2 year old, we did chat on Skype though.