Ooh its just like a big, painful, uncomfortable holiday!

Greetings good people, your saviour has returned, slightly worse for wear to say the least, but I do have the strength to type this blog, so that should be at least a couple of brownie points for trying!

Right then, we got ourselves together for and managed to beat the early morning traffic to get to Kidderminster for the 8am admission time. Now, I'll point out at this stage that we thought it would be some horrible civil servant building like a normal A&E hospital. This one looked more like a 5-star hotel! They had boutique shops, proper lifts, a great metal and glass thing going on for the walls, it was like stepping into the future of hospitals! So, we made our way to the second floor of the building and entered the waiting room, where about 10 people were. These were to be my fellow inmates for the next 24 hours, not that I saw any of them from then on...but I'll come to that later.

Anyway, I was the 3rd person to be called in, and first I had a chat to the consultant, who talked me through the operation and what would be happening while I'm asleep, then I had a chat to the anaesthetist, who told me that after he knocked me out, he'd give me a shot of antibiotics, and what he described as 'something to stop you throwing up when you come round'.....nice! Anyway after this I went back out into the waiting area while the other patients had their chats with their respective people, then I was called in at about 9.15 for the operation, so I said goodbye to Mom and my Aunt who had come for moral support, and went through to a cubicle, where I had to get into a very fetching gown, and wait in a different waiting room and try not to think about anything too much!

About 10 mins later I was called into theatre and was led into a 'holding area', which was in between two sets of double doors to theatre, which I was pleased with as I really didn't want to see the room where the 'magic' happens! I hopped onto the bed and the anaesthetist put some heart monitor sticky bits on my chest and put a line into my wrist so they could administer the drugs. This was a weird bit because as the general anaesthetic went in, I could feel a cold sensation going up my arm from my hand, as the fluid went through the veins, and the last thing I remember is having an oxygen mask put over my face and then nothing....................


.......I woke up an hour later while about 3 nurses were hooking me up to bits of machinery, and by the time I had come round properly, I realised something really weird....I was in a private room! I woke up fairly quickly actually and had a look round my room. Had my own toilet, TV (although only getting BBC1, BBC2, ITV and BBC News 24 makes you glad you have sky at home!), radio and a decent view of victorian terraced housing (although I could only see the roof of one house!) Once I came round properly, within an hour this is what I discovered:

I put the TV on and watched Dangermouse on BBC2, brilliant!
A nurse came in every hour and gave me a cup of tea and 2 digestive biscuits, double brilliant!
A Saline Drip makes you very alert and giggly, Triple brilliant

...I could get used to this!

But obviously there had to be a down side to this, and checking the *ahem* 'damage' told its own story. I had lost about half a pint of blood during the 10 minute operation, so I had to replace alot of fluids, which was nice and easy with an infinite supply of water, but then there was the other horrible bit. As I had no control in the area in question, I had a Catherta fitted......this was not good. Imagine, if you will, waking up and finding a garden hose-pipe has been inserted into a gap no wider than the width of your fingernail. I was just glad I wasn't awake when they did that! It has to be the most uncomfortable thing I've ever had the misfortune to endure, as they had to wait till 6am the next day to take it out.

Just a note on how serious my problem was, when they 'emptied' me out, there was 2 litres of fluid just floating around in there, now in anyones book thats bad!

Anyway back to it, and onto lunch. Now, I'd heard very bad things about Hospital food in the past, I mean lets face it, the smell alone is enough to make you feel ill, but credit where credit's due, I had a turkey lunch with loads of veg and it was really nice, non of your pre-packed crap, this was very good, and it wasn't the drugs talking either! Mom and my aunt came in just after lunch and spent an hour telling me what a great day they'd had walking round Merry Hill and they'd even gone for a big pub lunch, so they'd had a great day thanks to me. Good to know that its all been worth it!

They left at about 4pm, which left me to have a very disappointing dinner, a steak and mushroom pie with flakey pastry, and it wasn't very nice, but I ate it coz it was free! After that I watched some forgettable TV and then entered the longest night of my life! Despite the nurses dosing me up with 4 cocodamol tablets to numb the pain, the fact that I couldn't move due to the catherta meant that I was in the same position all night, a fact not helped when, at 1am, my back suddenly to give out, so I was in double the amount of discomfort and just had to sit there for the next 4 hours, waiting for the nurse to come in and remove the offending item from its place of torture!

This was not a pleasant experience either! When you have a plaster over a cut and you have to remove it, generally the best way is to rip it off quickly and sharply to minimize the length of pain you will be in during the pulling-off, but they wouldn't do that with an instrument that has been inserted right into your bladder, would they?

....Actually, they would!

I would have knocked out the nurse but for three reasons, firstly she was a very friendly nurse and up until that point I quite liked her in a matron kinda way, secondly, the pain I was enduring meant that no energy could be put into getting her back, and thirdly, half way through the pulling, she said 'this might sting a bit', so I was in a state of painful bemusement! Then, whilst I was trying not to scream the place down, she told me that I would be passing blood for the next few days (which I knew about as its quite obvious!), but it would be like passing glass, unless I drank plenty of water to help pass the blood out better. I must have drank 80 pints in about 10 minutes before I went for the first time, which was a mixture of a huge relief, followed by very sharp pains!

I finally got the all clear from the doctor and went home, battered and bruised and reluctantly ready for the next few days of torture every time nature called, and boy did it call! Ok so Saturday I passed 13 Blood clots, and yesterday I passed 7 Blood Clots, which hopefully means I'm getting better, and I'm certainly feeling alot better now, so hopefully this week will be a nice relaxing time, away from work and glad of the rest!

Which brings me to my final point, as this week will be a home-bound week, I am able to bore you to death EVERY SINGLE DAY! Yes, thats right, you've got a blog a day, so every stupid thought I get this week, you'll hear it first!!

I'll also have a look at changing a few things round on my site too, as it needs a bit of freshing up, so stay tuned, as theres a change-a-brewing!