Despite hearing the painful moans of the woman in the bed opposite me during the night I awoke feeling quite optimistic. The anaesthetic should have totally worn off by now and my stomach felt settled.
I had a breakfast of toast and marmalade and coffee. A new nurse, let's call her Jackie (well, it's a great TV show), brought me a bowl of hot soapy water and some wipes/towels and I had a wash (well as best as I could whilst lying in bed with a myriad of tubes coming out of me. I had do ask Jackie to wash the iodine off my very yellow leg).
I got out of bed and Jackie got my day clothes out of my bag and helped me to get dressed. I decided to sit in the chair for a while. As I sat there calmly I suddenly started to feel dizzy so reached over and pressed my buzzer. Before anyone appeared and before I could reach one of the cardboard bowls that were stacked up next to me I vomited all over myself. I then had a brief faint, came round again and threw up the last dregs of my stomach contents into the bowl.
Five minutes later I'm sitting in clothes that are soaked in cold vomit holding the bowl just in front of my chin just in case and feeling very sorry for myself. Eventually Jackie sticks her head round the corner and says 'oh, you've got a bowl, I'll leave you for five minutes' and she's vanished before I can protest.
After ten uncomfortable minutes she returns and I point out my sodden t-shirt and trousers. She strips me, puts me back into a gown and throws my stinking clothes into a carrier bag and ties it off. (My lovely friend Sarah will take them home a couple days later to wash them. She's great!)
My wound is extremely painful today. It's not too bad when stationary, but getting on and off the chair, toilet and bed is absolutely excruciating. It's like someone is repeatedly stabbing me in the thigh. So I'm quite happy just sitting still for a while. Sadly the nurse decides to remove my catheter so I have to start getting up to go to the loo. I manage to make it there (all of ten feet) on my zimmer without fainting or puking, so that's a bonus.
Someone comes along to take our food orders for lunch and dinner. The lunch option is pork dinner, chilli con carne or salmon fishcakes and mash. 'Is there a veggie option?' I ask innocently. The man looks at me perplexed and says 'Is the salmon veggie?'. I tell him no, and that I'll just have a bowl of mash instead. He thinks I'm crazy but my stomach has shrunk by now and I'm still not sure that I can keep food down, so that will have to do.
Another nurse comes along and tells me that she'll take my surgical stocking off (I'm still only wearing one on my non-operated leg for some reason) and bathe my feet. Oooh, this sounds nice. She whips off my stocking (this sounds raunchy, it isn't) and plonks a minute cardboard bowl of hot soapy water at my feet and walks away. I manage to get my good leg in easily, but manoeuvring my operated leg is a totally different matter. Jesus it hurts. I'm also aware that the bowl is in the wrong position and will cause me to move my bad leg past the centre line of my body which is something that the physio has warned me against doing (otherwise my new hip may dislocate). I struggle for a few minutes and in total agony to move both the bowl and my leg and finally get my foot in - just. Two seconds later two porters turn up with a wheelchair telling me that it's time for my x-ray.
They wheel my about 200 miles to the x-ray room across a million lumps and bumps. Ow, ow and ow! They try to help me onto the x-ray bed, but move me a little to fast and send shockwaves of pain through my body. They then take me off the bed again but on the WRONG side. The physio has told me I must get in and out of bed on the left for the next three months, surely staff members should be aware of such simple things?! 200 miles later and I'm back on ward. My lukewarm bowl of mashed potato is sitting there waiting for me and drying out in the process. Someone comments that it doesn't look very appetising brings me four pats of butter to try and make it more edible. I add two pats but it tastes even worse than it looks. I manage about half of it, followed my a tub of half melted vanilla ice cream. Lets see if that stays down!
After 'lunch' Jackie and her colleague come over muttering about the whereabouts of my surgical stocking. They can't find it and the nurse that removed it has vanished into the ether so they grumble that they'll have to measure my legs again and bring some fresh ones. Hurrah, I finally have two stockings on.
A new physio comes to see if I'm up for doing some bed exercises and then getting out of bed and showing her what I can do on the zimmer. I say 'Yes, well I haven't fainted since this morning, so that's good.' She smiles and says, no, it was yesterday that you fainted. I tell her about my morning faint and she expresses surprise as it hasn't been written in my notes. Well, I was on my own when it happened, I tell her. She apologises; it still doesn't go in my notes.
The bed exercises are hard going due to the stabbing pain in my thigh and I manage to show off a few steps on the zimmer. The walking part isn't too bad, it's just the getting up and down off the bed that hurts. It almost feels like my wound is going to pop open as I put all the weight of my body onto my thighs. It's just horrible.
Back in bed Jackie removes the drains from my thigh that have been collecting blood and fluids from near the wound, she also decides that it's time to take my canula out. Finally I'm tube free, which is perfect as my friend Liz and her two kids show up moments later and she's particularly squeamish about tubes.
Liz and the kids leave as dinner is served. Cheese pasty and chips. I had hoped it might come with some peas or green beans but there are no vegetables in sight. I wolf it down anyway (well most of it) as my appetite is back, but would have really appreciated a little more nutrition after everything my poor body has been through. As the only vegetarian on the ward I appeared to be the only patient that hadn't been given a single vegetable since admission.
I watched a couple of episodes of Dead To Me on Netflix and then Jackie turned up with the drugs trolley. After downing my little paper cup of Tramadol, paracetamol, ant-sickness tablets, blood thinning tablets and heartburn tablets I settled down for the night (the rest of the ward were on codeine based meds, but I tried a solpadeine once years ago and had palpitations for around 8 hours, so no good stuff for me! Luckily, apart from a dry mouth, I didn't appear to have any other side effects from the Tramadol).
I nodded off quite nicely but after two hours awoke with the most horrendous pains down my leg. I was adamant that I wasn't going to moan like the lady last night and was convinced that I'd be able to get back to sleep. OH MY GOD, THE PAIN WAS UNBEARABLE! Two hours later it's 4.00am and I'm still in agony. I press the buzzer and ask for some more pain relief. I had a syringe full of liquid morphine and waited for it to take effect, but nothing. Another hour later I pressed the buzzer and asked for more Tramadol. As the pain abated slightly I finally managed to doze off again around 6.00am only to be woken by the tea trolley at 7.15am. Dammit.
The lesson of day two is TAKE AS MUCH PAIN RELIEF AS YOU CAN GET! Don't try to be brave, it's not worth it, press that buzzer and get the meds that you need. The nurses can dish out more pain relief EVERY HOUR if needed. I never want to go through that night again - and I never will. Next time I'll be pressing that buzzer all night if I have to.
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