No pictures please, I’m recovering

Actually, considering I have been through the wringers a bit, I haven’t scrubbed up too bad, but I am definitely on the “fragile” side of beauty this morning, so no photos from me.  Last week was not a great week.  Monty went to god, and then on Thursday, I went to hospital for surgery….. to have my gall bladder removed ,…… again.

It wasn’t a good start … we forgot the radiography films, so Tony had to come home and get them while I sat in the waiting rooms, but thankfully that seems to have been the only hiccup.   I was given my gown and coat to change into, and my fetching red surgical cap …….. different to every single other person in the waiting room.  Red because I had allergies apparently, but it made me look like an oddball I reckon.  I have a wound about 30 cm long, that starts at the centre of my abdomen, and follows the line of my ribcage …. by far the biggest surgery scar I have ever had.   The surgeon told Tony, that instead of a oval/round shape, my Gall Badder had a narrowing in the centre, sort of like a peanut, so when he took what he thought was the remaining bit, it could have been easy to close me up, and totally miss the other piece, therefore leaving me with yet another stone to be removed.  Instead he did the specialised xray he wanted to do (the reason my surgery was slightly delayed and changed to the big hospital), found the bile ducts, and found this extra bit of gall bladder.  So my “maybe 3 hr” operation became an “over 3 hr and needed every minute” operation.

The surgeon came and visited me in hospital the Friday, my first time out of bed (with an assisted shower, not a great experience).  My oesophagus and lungs always take ages to wake up from surgery, so during the course of the conversation, I must have started to look a bit pale.  Both he and the other doctor suddenly rushed through talking to me, and then he said “don’t vomit it will hurt your wound”, and then they bolted.  Sure enough up came all the fluid I had been sipping for the last few hours.  So classically male, and I made sure I chipped him about it yesterday.

I had a moment on day 2 or 3 (memory is a bit muddy).  Pain medication had been a bit delayed, and my heart was obviously reacting to the pain I was in, beating very hard.  Because my tachycardia has my heart fast anyway, this meant that my pulse was very fast, and my chest started to hurt.  I complained of chest pain, and suddenly I was surrounded with nurses and an intern.   My custom made pj tops came into their own, because otherwise I would have had a ripped top…. my top was ripped open, I was hooked to a ctg machine, and much monitoring of my heart happened.  Even more holes were poked into me for blood tests and every one was a bit concerned for me for a while.  I learnt then I had to be a bit more demanding about pain relief, otherwise my body would assert itself forcefully.

Yesterday I was discharged, well short of the 8 days the surgeon predicted, but I was very thankful.  My back is in absolute agony from the bed, and I desperately wanted my own bed.  I was discharged from the ward at 9.30am, and moved to the Discharge Lounge.  I realised then, that the process is very convoluted, and frankly ridiculous.   I was given my pain medication when I left the ward,  and then told I just had to wait for my script.  I sat there for over 3 hours, watching other patients come and go, waiting.  Finally hubby got up and demanded WTH was going on.  It turns out, other patients were public patients, so had a little crowd of ward interns and student doctors who chase the scripts to get them discharged.   I was a private patient, so my doctor saw, me, and then left the hospital, so there was no one to do my chasing.   Because I was discharged, I couldn’t receive any more pain meds, and so got to experience every bump in the road on the way home, without pain relief.  If you have to go through the process, don’t ever wait for the medication.  Tell them to fax the scripts to your local pharmacy.

Recovery so far has been very up and down.  I have days I feel very “up”, still fragile of course, but I can see progress.  And then my pain medication will be delayed a bit, or I will have a particular nasty stabby twinge that takes my breath away, and I will feel extremely ordinary.   I did get through the whole night last night with only one batch of pain meds, but wake up was very tentative.  My back in still sore, and that may take days or weeks to resolve.  My tummy still isn’t working well, and that too, will take time to resolve.

Nobody chooses to inflict this sort of pain on yourself without good reason.  I don’t think I ever want to have another surgery.  I am tired, and fragile, but I have survived.  A bit like life I suppose.